I wouldn't base any statistics on IMDB ratings, they're garbage.
Just look at how many awful amateurish experiments there receive spectacular 10 star reviews within days of their release, very likely by cast and crew friends/relatives (or worse), then are buried by 1 star reviews when actual viewers eventually watch them.
Are film critics losing sync with audiences?
81–90 of 421 posts
Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?
#82One of the interview questions I ask all UX Researchers is to open up rottentomatoes, sort recent films by rating and then look at the movies that have the lowest critic scores. Almost always you can see the audience score for those movies is much higher than the critic scores. I then ask why this is the case. The overwhelming majority of answers involve critics being out of touch with the audience, critics being per…
I think another acceptable explanation is that movies are marketed not to everyone but to certain people.
So say the latest horror flick that comes around is marketed to teens and 20-somethings. The over-30 crowd gets turned off by violence and gore. But that particular demographic loves it, and the more gore the more they like it.
There's a certain group of people that loved Human Centipede, e.g. But it got terrible reviews. Roger Ebert refused to award it stars, but gave it a few positive notes regardless.
And in it he even said:
I have long attempted to take a generic approach. In
other words, is a film true to its genre and does it
deliver what its audiences presumably expect? “The Human
Centipede” scores high on this scale. It is depraved and
disgusting enough to satisfy the most demanding midnight
movie fan. And it's not simply an exploitation film.
Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?
#83One of the interview questions I ask all UX Researchers is to open up rottentomatoes, sort recent films by rating and then look at the movies that have the lowest critic scores. Almost always you can see the audience score for those movies is much higher than the critic scores. I then ask why this is the case. The overwhelming majority of answers involve critics being out of touch with the audience, critics being per…
Wouldn't movie critics tend to be people to like movies in general? What about critics that stick to their preferred genre? They might start out pre-disposed to liking movies which could wipe out the effect of your assertion completely. On one hand, I think there is a good chance you are at least partially correct, but declaring your offhand intuition about movie criticism industry to be the "correct" answer is at best hubris.
Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?
#84One of the interview questions I ask all UX Researchers is to open up rottentomatoes, sort recent films by rating and then look at the movies that have the lowest critic scores. Almost always you can see the audience score for those movies is much higher than the critic scores. I then ask why this is the case. The overwhelming majority of answers involve critics being out of touch with the audience, critics being per…
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Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
The comment literally states that it's one of the questions they ask, which is the exact opposite of a gotcha question. And the specific question can lead to a conversation, which may "reveal" the answer (obviously, I don't know whether this is the correct answer), but at the very least it reveals whether the interviewee thinks about selection bias, among other concerns.
> The comment literally states that it's one of the questions they ask, which is the exact opposite of a gotcha question. Huh? "Gotcha question" doesn't imply it's a single question that's not part of a series of questions. A "gotcha question" is simply a question designed such that it's very easy to respond with something that sounds bad or is incorrect.
Is it really easy not to come up with the desired explanation here? It seems like the most obvious possible answer, that people tend to watch the types of movies that they like. Actually it seems to provide almost no information unless their hiring pool is mostly candidates who utterly lack common sense.
Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?
#86I wouldn't base any statistics on IMDB ratings, they're garbage. Just look at how many awful amateurish experiments there receive spectacular 10 star reviews within days of their release, very likely by cast and crew friends/relatives (or worse), then are buried by 1 star reviews when actual viewers eventually watch them.
Do you maybe have an example? I'm always astounded how well the IMDB score matches how likeable a film is (minus personal preferences of course). 5 is basically always really bad unless I'm a fan of a specific actor/director/genre. The comments are mixed, the comments below the YouTube trailers tend to be quite on point though to see if a film is worth watching
Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?
#87One of the interview questions I ask all UX Researchers is to open up rottentomatoes, sort recent films by rating and then look at the movies that have the lowest critic scores. Almost always you can see the audience score for those movies is much higher than the critic scores. I then ask why this is the case. The overwhelming majority of answers involve critics being out of touch with the audience, critics being per…
You really don't think film critics being different from the general population has anything do with it? They're trained to see things in movies that most people don't. I get that you want people to say "selection bias" but that's not even close to the only significant factor at play here. You have two populations, which is also a classic statistical phenomenon. You even get close to this in your discussion of selection bias—they watch a lot more movies, and are thus more experienced—but you don't seem to want to allow this, which seems odd.
Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
> come to the correct conclusion, What makes you so sure that this is the correct interpretation? Both things could be true at the same time: there could be selection bias at the same time as critics are perhaps out of touch and snobby. You could backtest this theory: see if perhaps critics scores were at one time a bit closer to general audiences or not. I think you'd find that at one time good critics were a bit cl…
It's also possible for critics to have systematically different preferences than movie-goers that don't deserve to be described pejoratively as "out of touch" or "snobby." In fact, that's precisely what I would expect and hope to see from people who are professional critics. I wouldn't want expect a list of best restaurants from a food critic to be identical to the list of top restaurant chains by revenue (1: McDonal…
> It's also possible for critics to have systematically different preferences than movie-goers that don't deserve to be described pejoratively as "out of touch" or "snobby."
When the person writing a review has "systematically different preferences" from the people they're writing for, "out of touch" is exactly the right description for that ("snobby" - not necessarily).
Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Two more possibilities: - A film may have been marketed as one particular type of movie via trailers (e.g. as a horror film) but was actually a different type of movie, often a subversion of the genre it was marketed as (e.g. ended up as social commentary). So audiences feel deceived and report that in their ratings. - Similarly, there are movies that are "applause lights" where critics are obliged to give positive r…
> social significance of a film (e.g. made by a woman / featuring a woman in a lead role) for a less divisive example: movies about the film or theatre industry get high marks and fit your example while the audience is left scratching their heads
Excellent point. Critics have often remarked that movies about Hollywood tend to get Oscars just because of the subject matter, which Academy members like.
Also, a less cynical example: some movies are about something new: you might see people who live in a developing country, e.g., Somali fishermen in Captain Philips, or in unusual occupations (e.g., WWF wrestler in The Wrestler). Most audiences just want to relax and not learn something new, but critics love these kinds of movies.
Re: Are film critics losing sync with audiences?
#90I don't know if this tells the entire story, but I think these are 2 of the bigger issues at play. 1) The corporatization of social media is a big factor. There's big money involved in controlling reviews. Critics and influencers devoted to certain fandoms inevitably get influenced, pressured, infiltrated by studios who expect favorable treatment towards their product or that entity loses access, gets attacked, etc.…
>A critic is going to want to rate some drama about a queer latinx non-binary vegan sex worker thats trying to come to grips with his atheism while interracial dating higher than the story deserves just to appear to have the "correct politics".
I like reading books which teach me new experiences, or ways of life I've never really thought about.
These types of movies are great because they expose me to subcultures and issues which aren't a part of my daily life. Even if I'm aware of them statistically understanding the emotional component to these kinds of stories is a worthwhile experience.
As long as the movie isn't simply bad, I'd give it a good review as well.