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Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

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Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#401

Post by midasz »

chrismeller wrote: post #144
nemothekid wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any movie that does well with critics or at a film festival has “a strong message” or “teaches us something”. If you find that every time you watch a film festival movie you are being lectured too, I think it has more to do with your wife's film choices, not the indie circuit. Nicolas Cage's Pig was a very well received movie at plenty of film festivals last year, and it's just about a chef searching for a pig.

Yes, I’m sure there is a movie here and there. Honestly, I don’t care enough to even compare the list anymore, that’s how we came up with the rule. Edit: and I think we’ll all try to forgive you for recommending anything with Nicholas Cage…

I could eat a peach for hours..

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#402

Post by dagw »

bin_bash wrote: post #395
dagw wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMDB and RT scores cannot really be compared since they're measuring two fundamentally different things. Movie that everybody gave a 7/10 would have an RT score of 100% and an IMDB score of 7.0. Also RT scores are mostly based on reviews written shortly after the release of a movie, while IMDB scores keeps getting updated over time. For movies that come out with a burst of enthusiasm and then lose their luster on rep…

On RT the audience score is also lower than the critic score. My point is simply that GP’s statement about fans preferring the film doesn’t match the numbers.

But even those numbers cannot be compared since RT audience score and critic scores are calculated completely differently. Also if you read some of the negative audience reviews many of them are clearly written after the final movie of the trilogy has been released and are judging this movie in the negative light of that whole experience.

Now it may very well be that GP's statement is wrong, but the numbers you are quoting can't really be used as evidence either way.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#403

Post by Jtype »

Gareth321 wrote: post #384
yakubin wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The movies you listed fail in a different way. There are plenty of explosions and fight scenes in The Last Jedi and Captain Marvel. What they do share is that the main character is an underdeveloped Mary Sue, without character flaws, without weaknesses they must overcome. They're just made awesome from the start. It probably stems from the inability of current Hollywood to portray female characters as having any weak…

>What they do share is that the main character is an underdeveloped Mary Sue, without character flaws, without weaknesses they must overcome. They're just made awesome from the start. It probably stems from the inability of current Hollywood to portray female characters as having any weaknesses at all, that would be heresy. The result is that it's hard to empathize with and care about the main character. They don't h…

because $$$

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#404

Post by goto11 »

drnonsense42 wrote: post #397
goto11 wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably an average Joe watches average movies, i.e. blockbusters which are the movies which attract the largest audience. The articles shows a relatively high correlation compared to the more niche cheaper movies. But yeah, it would be cool to se correlation score for specific genres.

Maybe I didn’t read closely enough but I believe the article only showed correlation for “all” movies and movies with <20 million budget. It doesn’t show blockbusters or anything like that. It’s worth mentioning, too, what is considered “high correlation” should be quite different from the stock market and should be carefully debated. 0 correlation isn’t just 0 correlation; it would imply these people are aliens with…

Yeah you are right, it doesn't show correlation specifically for blockbusters. I misinterpreted.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#405

Post by ChoGGi »

djur wrote: post #301
casefields wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>How many reviews of movies have you seen from a senior, experienced reviewer got a film really totally wrong? Tons. Even legendary critics like Ebert got movies wrong. He gave thumbs down to Full Metal Jacket, Blue Velvet, The Thing, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, The Usual Suspects, Ace Ventura, Tommy Boy, and many more.

I was nodding along with you until you got to Ace Ventura, which is probably regarded worse today than it was at the time.

One of those odd movies where the sequel is better than the original.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#406

Post by ryathal »

Gareth321 wrote: post #365

Yes, absolutely. From Rotten: Mulan - Critics: 73 - Audience: 47 The Last Jedi - Critics: 91 - Audience: 42 Captain Marvel - Critics: 79 - Audience: 45 It's clear that audiences - and you can read this as "people who like movies and are willing to leave a review" - and critics are miles apart. This prompts the common retort: "so what?" I continue to argue that the purpose of movie critics, for many decades, has been…

Part of the problems critics face is that with the fall of traditional media and the consolidation of movie studios they have essentially become shills. There aren't powerful enough critics to say "This Disney movie is terrible" and stay a critic for much longer.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#407

Post by Traster »

I think it's pretty pointless to have a discussion about this unless you first have a discussion about what Film critics are doing. What they're doing, most often, is not giving a rating out of 10. They're generally looking at a film and evaluating a huge number of things - do the individual parts of the film work, the cinematography, the script, the pacing, the acting, the set design etc. There are lots of mechanical things they're judging. They're also judging the film in the context of other films. What is the message of this film - what is it adding to the genre, what is it trying to say and does it succeed in getting across that message. Does it even have a message? What does it do compared to other films in the genre?

The Metascore takes all those different features and goes BANG "1-10".

What are IMDB scores noting? Did I like this Movie rating 1-10.

Note how those two things are fundamentally different (and one of them is a highly questionable metric anyway). I think the relevant question here is what is the expected correlation between those two metrics. I'd guess it should be positive - well made movies should generally be more enjoyable than badly made movies. But is it 1? Hell no, you can make a great movie that only a niche audience will enjoy. So when we say "The correlation of these two metrics have moved from 0.75 to 0.65" I'm not sure what that even means.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#408

Post by [deleted] »

dagw wrote: post #402
bin_bash wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On RT the audience score is also lower than the critic score. My point is simply that GP’s statement about fans preferring the film doesn’t match the numbers.

But even those numbers cannot be compared since RT audience score and critic scores are calculated completely differently. Also if you read some of the negative audience reviews many of them are clearly written after the final movie of the trilogy has been released and are judging this movie in the negative light of that whole experience. Now it may very well be that GP's statement is wrong, but the numbers you are q…

[deleted]

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#409

Post by bin_bash »

dagw wrote: post #402
bin_bash wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On RT the audience score is also lower than the critic score. My point is simply that GP’s statement about fans preferring the film doesn’t match the numbers.

But even those numbers cannot be compared since RT audience score and critic scores are calculated completely differently. Also if you read some of the negative audience reviews many of them are clearly written after the final movie of the trilogy has been released and are judging this movie in the negative light of that whole experience. Now it may very well be that GP's statement is wrong, but the numbers you are q…

If these numbers are as problematic as you claim, it wouldn't explain why they don't hold true for Rise of Skywalker which fans overwhelmingly preferred to critics.

Now that I think about it: it's likely that's the film that GP had in mind.

Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?

#410

Post by goto11 »

bin_bash wrote: post #409
dagw wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But even those numbers cannot be compared since RT audience score and critic scores are calculated completely differently. Also if you read some of the negative audience reviews many of them are clearly written after the final movie of the trilogy has been released and are judging this movie in the negative light of that whole experience. Now it may very well be that GP's statement is wrong, but the numbers you are q…

If these numbers are as problematic as you claim, it wouldn't explain why they don't hold true for Rise of Skywalker which fans overwhelmingly preferred to critics. Now that I think about it: it's likely that's the film that GP had in mind.

I was thinking of The Force Awakens, but I might misremember how positive the critics actually was at time. Maybe it was a bad example.
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