Rotten-Tomatoes scores

[xray]

All I can say is ...they ain't that far off most of the time , but to be fair ; sometimes they miss by a mile .

 

[Hawkinaz]

I now go with the opposite of what the professionals say. If a movie gets good ratings I will just automatically avoid. The last movie I watched that was highly rated was Manchester by the Sea which was slow and depressing to start I thought it will pick up but just got more depressing as the movie went. There should have been a warning at the start of the movie reminding you to take an SSRI

 

[Maulbert]

Rotten Tomatoes score is just a binary aggregator. If you click on the tomatoscore, you'll find a more accurate x/10 rating. But no one bothers to learn how to use tools anymore, they just get angry and complain about critics being paid by Disney.

 

[Shaggy]

All I can say is ...they ain't that far off most of the time , but to be fair ; sometimes they miss by a mile .

Which movies you think they missed on? I always love the movies Critics dog on so I never listen to any of them to keep me from watching.

 

[RolandDeschain]

I've not found a single reliable way of judging filmography. Sometimes the critics are flat-out wrong, sometimes your best homies are flat-out wrong, and sometimes what the masses of citizenry think are flat-out wrong, too.

Look at Last Action Hero. That film oozes awesomeness and greatness with each minute that passes, and it remains a forgotten box-office bomb. If you haven't seen it, do so, and I dare anybody to legitimately claim it's not an objectively "very good" (or better) film.

 

[fenderbender123]

I've found imdb scores to be way more in line with my opinion than RT.

Look at Chappeles standup special Sticks and Stokes on Rotten Tomatoes. The audience rating is 99%, yet the critics rating was less than 10% at one time. Somehow it's gone up to 35% now (not sure how that happens), but it's a good example of how out of touch critics are with what audiences actually like.

Comedy is usually the hardest to guage. I see hilarious comedy movies that have bad ratings on RT and IMDB both. It's like critics don't understand that the point of comedy is to laugh. Whatever makes people laugh the most and the hardest is the best. They don't rate comedy that way, though, which is stupid and baffling.

 

[Sgt. Largent]

With the new age of aggro groups spamming review sites, it's very difficult to take any of it seriously.

With film and TV, I have a few favorite trusted sites and people I trust, and I go with that.

I used to religiously go to Rotten Tomatoes, but they sold out in the mid 2000's, and now they're no better than any other review site that takes payola from movie companies to pump up scores.

If you notice, RT will release movies with super high scores pre-release to help the initial box office, then the scores plummet after they integrate the dozens of real reviews a couple weeks later. They're being paid to hold off the bad review integration.

 

[Film12Hawk]

The Decomposition of Rotten Tomatoes

The most overrated metric in entertainment is erratic, reductive, and easily hacked — and yet has Hollywood in its grip.

www.vulture.com

I'll just leave these here for my feelings on Rotten Tomatoes and film criticism today.

Film criticism shouldn't be measured by if someone agrees with us but on challenging our preconceived notions as we'll either change our minds on something or we'll continue having the same opinion but a greater understanding as to why we feel the way we do. We should also be open to trying to learn about what an artist intended as I think that's a greater measuring stick in understanding if something met its goals or not. Art is both objective and subjective. Objectively I can see Steven Spielberg is a talented filmmaker but subjectively I don't tend to connect with his films that often.

 

[fenderbender123]

Yeah it's tough going by critics' opinions. They usually get it right but a lot of times it feels like they are pushing a certain social agenda that doesn't match the audience's perception.

I use Chapelle's Sticks and Stones as a prime example as I did earlier in this thread. Obviously comedy will always be the most subjective, but the critics were way off on this one. It was a hilarious special, yet they couldn't get past "wow is he really making a joke about ______ ? " And didn't seem to get the message that jokes are just jokes, and the fact they are funny is often because the topic is somewhat taboo. That's been a thing in comedy since ever. How do critics not know that?

 

[Film12Hawk]

Yeah it's tough going by critics' opinions. They usually get it right but a lot of times it feels like they are pushing a certain social agenda that doesn't match the audience's perception.

I use Chapelle's Sticks and Stones as a prime example as I did earlier in this thread. Obviously comedy will always be the most subjective, but the critics were way off on this one. It was a hilarious special, yet they couldn't get past "wow is he really making a joke about ______ ? " And didn't seem to get the message that jokes are just jokes, and the fact they are funny is often because the topic is somewhat taboo. That's been a thing in comedy since ever. How do critics not know that?

George Lucas has your answer:

"When I started out, like everyone else I read the critics. You read not only the criticism of your own movies but everyone else’s movies, and as you start to make movies you also meet the critics. Over time I began to realize that the level of cinema criticism in the last part of this century in the United States was pretty low. The institution itself is not what it’s supposed to be, and I realized that I didn’t need to take that seriously.

There are a few critics overseas, and occasionally a critic will write an astute analysis of the movie. There is value in reading critics that actually have something intelligent to say, but the journalistic community lives in a world of sound bites and literary commerce: selling newspapers, selling books, and they do that simply by trashing things. They don’t criticize or analyze them. They simply trash them for the sake of a headline, or to shock people to get them to buy whatever it is they’re selling. The older you get, the less seriously you take it. I’ve gotten to a point now where I ignore it completely. It’s just not relevant to me anymore.

You have to have a thick enough skin to cope with the criticism. I’m very self-critical and I have a lot of friends that I trust who are film directors and writers and people in my profession. I trust them to be extremely critical but I trust their opinion; their opinion is thoughtful, knowledgeable. I also know them personally so I know the psychological slant they are putting on it. I know what their tastes are and I can say, “Well that’s great for them but that’s not great for me.” Technical criticism is extremely helpful but you are only going to get that from your peers.

I’ve discovered that most critics themselves are cinematically illiterate. They don’t really know much about movies. They don’t know the history. They don’t know the technology. They don’t know anything. So for them to try to analyze it, they’re lost. But your friends usually know what they’re doing and they can critique the technical side of things to say, “This doesn’t work. You know, you’re putting the cart before the horse.” This kind of stuff. And then the rest of it is what you like, you know. It’s personal, you know. It’s in the eye of the beholder. You know, “I like this movie. I don’t like this movie.” There are a lot of movies that are badly made that I love, and there are a lot of movies that are just beautifully made but I don’t like them. And critics have a tendency – that’s all they focus on, which is, “I like it. I don’t like it. It’s good. It’s bad.” And it doesn’t work that way, and so you really have to not deal with that part of what happens. It’s the same thing with the audience. You know, I’ve made some movies that have — ten people have gone to see. Nobody wanted to go see the movie. And some films that the people went and saw them didn’t like it. Probably, you know, maybe a half a dozen of us actually liked the movies, but that’s fine. If I like it, then I’m happy with it. And you have to sort of accept that no matter what. If nobody else likes it. You’re not going to stay in business, the business of making movies very long because you need the resources in order to keep going. So you have to try and find a niche audience or some kind of audience that has the same likes, dislikes and aesthetic sensibilities that you have."

 

[SonicHawk]

I've watched many bad movies where I enjoyed watching the movie. Sometimes an absurd or simple premise, with bad characters and a dumb plot with garbage dialogue is fun.

Like that stupid new Barbie movie. I had fun watching it and I think both Margot and Ryan Gosling are good actors. However, it's a toy movie that tries too hard and misses out on way better storylines. It's not a good movie, it's a fun movie. Zero reason why it should be an 88%.