You know I can clearly remember Batman Forever being both a critical and commercial hit. I couldn't hardly find anyone who didn't like it either allot or at least an improvement over the previous movie. Yet when you read the reaction score to the film today it's both dismal in critical and audience reaction. I think allot of that is fallout from Batman & Robin. So I guess my question is... Is it fair that Rotten Tomatoes constantly changes or adds new reactions to a film that is 20 years old without some context that this is not how people felt when it initially came out? I think this movie gets a bum wrap for that. Honestly I think B&R has always gotten a bum wrap as well, but it seems like it to took a much longer time for this film to get dragged down. Is that really a fair consensus since the true history books show it was popular for both critics and audiences? Isn't this revisionist history?
I've no idea how Rotten Tomatoes' reasoning works, but too many people put their faith in such sites when judging a movie. :-\
Yeah, I guess it's one thing to see how a movie does on a critical basis when it's released, but who really cares what a critic thinks in 2015 to a film made for audiences in 1995? How objective is that and why do sites like Wikipedia use that current score and lump it with remarks from '95 to offer a consensus for the day? That seems inaccurate and pretty much revisionist history.
It's because we live in an age where sites like Rotten Tomatoes, iMDB Top 200, and What Culture encourage people to be mindless consumers and follow trends. I've often said that people who use RT scores or whatever rating to justify why a film is good or bad do so because they lack the ability and the confidence to explain for themselves.
I think it should go without saying that you should like whatever you want. Don't get persuaded by what the critics or what popular opinion says.
Quote from: Edd Grayson on Fri, 9 Oct 2015, 04:42
I've no idea how Rotten Tomatoes' reasoning works, but too many people put their faith in such sites when judging a movie. :-\
There's nothing wrong in using it as a guide
before seeing a movie. If a film has a really low score and is hated by practically everyone I wouldn't be inclined to waste my hard-earned cash going to see it at the cinema in view of the prices.
But RT scores should not influence one's opinion of a film
after they have seen it. There will be those rare occasions in which we disagree with the vast majority of critical opinion on a particular film. Most people hate The Wild Wild West and the recent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film for example, but I, whilst hardly considering them to be classics, actually enjoy both these movies regardless of the overwhelmingly negative opinion.
To give an even better example, Mars Attacks! is a movie with a low RT score that I don't merely like, but absolutely adore. But being a Tim Burton movie featuring a great cast that gets zapped by Martians I was always going to see it at the theatre no matter what the majority of critics said. :)
I think where I don't find a universal reasoning with Rotten Tomatoes (regarding a film I haven't seen yet) is defining intent versus objectivity. When a film is not liked well enough by critics or the audience, how can I know that was a natural reaction or more of a manipulated prejudice inspired to harm a film's reputation? As Laughing Fish was saying, in the social media age there is this herd mentality to belong to a collective opinion. Scary in many ways if you think about it. So if I'm a young person, and I haven't seen Batman Forever, if I take the Rotten Tomatoes critical score of 41% and audience score of 33% to assess a general point of view, how can I know that was the audience and critical reaction who saw it in 1995 or if that critical score is actually the end result from years of fan-boy backlash attributed to the resentment and disappointment over Batman & Robin? A point further underscored by the audience review which is what audience? The ticket buying public that went to this film when it opened? No... This is the angry online fan-boys who sign up on this website to get their angst paid forward by lowballing the movie. So the truth is I wouldn't be able to apply that much needed context unless I was considerably older and understood the forces in play here. So I don't know that I would use any feedback as a viable measure of a film's predictable quality.
Quote from: johnnygobbs on Fri, 9 Oct 2015, 12:09
Quote from: Edd Grayson on Fri, 9 Oct 2015, 04:42
I've no idea how Rotten Tomatoes' reasoning works, but too many people put their faith in such sites when judging a movie. :-\
There's nothing wrong in using it as a guide before seeing a movie. If a film has a really low score and is hated by practically everyone I wouldn't be inclined to waste my hard-earned cash going to see it at the cinema in view of the prices.
But RT scores should not influence one's opinion of a film after they have seen it. There will be those rare occasions in which we disagree with the vast majority of critical opinion on a particular film. Most people hate The Wild Wild West and the recent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film for example, but I, whilst hardly considering them to be classics, actually enjoy both these movies regardless of the overwhelmingly negative opinion.
To give an even better example, Mars Attacks! is a movie with a low RT score that I don't merely like, but absolutely adore. But being a Tim Burton movie featuring a great cast that gets zapped by Martians I was always going to see it at the theatre no matter what the majority of critics said. :)
I was talking of people who hear a movie is bad because critics have said so, and they don't watch it to see for themselves. Or some who think a movie that they like is the best ever because it has a good score on RT or another site. :-\ ::)
I pretty much hate the way Rotten Tomatoes is set up to begin with. Of course it's inappropriate to judge a movie of the past by modern standards; that's essentially what they're doing here.
I've always thought it was BS myself. If you only follow the contemporaneous critical reaction to, say, the Empire Strikes Back, what you realize is it was probably 10 or 15 years before the Star Wars fanbase embraced that movie as their favorite. Before that time, it was the weird, darker-than-necessary art house Star Wars film. Those same qualities are why people love it today but it was a hell of a weird jump from Star Wars to Empire way back when. But Rotten Tomatoes doesn't reflect that. It only shows Empire's reputation... which, while admirable, isn't honest with history.
The other thing is that distorts history another way in that technically The Phantom Menace received a better contemporaneous critical reception than Empire did. A lot of people don't realize that but if records be checked, that's how it happened. But nobody will ever remember that.
The reason that's a crying shame is because history has spoken about both Empire and Menace. It loves Empire; Menace, not so much. People are aware of that but if RT is their only source, they won't be aware of the evolution that took place over a long period of time.
Similar arguments can be made about the Burton/Schumacher Batman films, Godfather's critical reception as compared to Godfather II and so forth. It's simply not an intellectually honest way to grade the material in my opinion.
Quote from: thecolorsblend on Tue, 10 Nov 2015, 14:36
I've always thought it was BS myself. If you only follow the contemporaneous critical reaction to, say, the Empire Strikes Back, what you realize is it was probably 10 or 15 years before the Star Wars fanbase embraced that movie as their favorite. Before that time, it was the weird, darker-than-necessary art house Star Wars film. Those same qualities are why people love it today but it was a hell of a weird jump from Star Wars to Empire way back when. But Rotten Tomatoes doesn't reflect that. It only shows Empire's reputation... which, while admirable, isn't honest with history.
The other thing is that distorts history another way in that technically The Phantom Menace received a better contemporaneous critical reception than Empire did. A lot of people don't realize that but if records be checked, that's how it happened. But nobody will ever remember that.
The reason that's a crying shame is because history has spoken about both Empire and Menace. It loves Empire; Menace, not so much. People are aware of that but if RT is their only source, they won't be aware of the evolution that took place over a long period of time.
Similar arguments can be made about the Burton/Schumacher Batman films, Godfather's critical reception as compared to Godfather II and so forth. It's simply not an intellectually honest way to grade the material in my opinion.
This. Blade Runner is another example where it was panned critically when it was first released, but its reception drastically improved over time. Same thing with the Al Pacino version of Scarface. But does RT or Metacritic take those facts into account? I'd hate to see how the reception for Batman Returns would be like if it were released today. Batman Forever certainly wouldn't survive.
I'd go far to say that sites like Rotten Tomatoes has a toxic influence on film culture nowadays. In my opinion, they symbolise the "gamification" of films. It's no longer really about analysing the merits of a movie, it's about how much a percentage score a movie can get to prove how good or bad it is, or prove if it's better or worse than something else. And when people with certain agendas in favour or against a movie are on the losing side of a debate, the very first thing they do is refer to a score on whatever website to prove their opinion as "fact". When you do that, objective analysis goes flying out of the window, and you lose all credibility.
The most annoying thing is a site like RT has a binary system where it skews the mixed reviews by randomly deciding if it's "fresh" and "rotten", as a blogger mentioned when analysing the critical reaction to BvS.
http://comicandscreen.blogspot.com/2016/05/comparing-batman-v-superman-and-civil.html
It would be refreshing to see more people taking a stance against such sites, and judge films for themselves without being swayed by popular consensus. Want to watch something? I say do it on your own terms and crush the goddamn tomato!
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If I really want to see a particular film, I will go irrespective of the RT consensus, and thus make up my own mind. Also, I think it makes far more sense to consider the actual substance of a review, particularly a critic one likes and trusts, than to focus too much on a consensus derived via an arbitrary system.
That said, RT and similar sites do provide rough guides as to the quality of a given film, and most of us don't have the cash to see every movie on our radar. Thus, it is important to have some sort of guide as to what we should spend our hard-earned cash on.
As for Batman Returns, it has a superb 80% score at RT. :) So why should anyone suppose it would receive a critical bashing were it released for the first time today?
And as for The Empire Strikes Back, I have seen various contemporaneous reviews, including one from Pauline Kael in her brilliant film essays compilation, 'Taking It All In', and from what I gather, the critical reception in 1980 was as rapturously positive as it is today. :)
There's two schools of thoughts on it;
As we all know audiences perception has changed quite a bit on films and in Batman Forevers case I'm pretty sure we're well aware that the public perception was strong but soured later for various reasons (hating Schumacher and Batman and Robin, Nolanites hating on all the other batman films)
The flip side though is that people use rotten tomatoes to decide how they may enjoy a film and so they may be more interested in how a film is perceived now vs when it was released.
Taking it further; the adam west film was immensely popular in the 60's but it would not be considered good cinema by today's standards.
Quote from: riddler on Mon, 30 May 2016, 19:53Taking it further; the adam west film was immensely popular in the 60's but it would not be considered good cinema by today's standards.
Well, even good films date. That doesn't mean they're not still good films (although I must admit, I've always preferred the 60s TV show to the 1967 film, even though Lee Meriwether is definitely one of my favourite Catwoman actresses, and it was good to see The Joker, Catwoman, Penguin and Riddler aligned together).
Judged by contemporary standards in special effects, cinematography and general production values, even TDK trilogy will eventually seem 'dated'.
Quote from: The Laughing Fish on Sun, 29 May 2016, 13:07
It would be refreshing to see more people taking a stance against such sites, and judge films for themselves without being swayed by popular consensus. Want to watch something? I say do it on your own terms and crush the goddamn tomato!
(https://www.batman-online.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fil9.picdn.net%2Fshutterstock%2Fvideos%2F2485826%2Fthumb%2F1.jpg&hash=47130e79a72931559bc0d36d302f031e4afd2e70)
This. I didn't even realize a site that calls itself "Rotten Tomatoes" was supposed to be taken seriously, let alone that people consider it the definitive word on a movie's quality, until the BvS sh*t started. The definitive word is the viewer's own individual opinion, and I guess it is okay for a tool (I admit using IMDb ratings to see what perception was of certain movies before I watched them but even if it had a low score and bad reviews I still watched it to see for myself) but it seems like a lot of people are using it not as a tool but to define their own opinion without watching something. Newsflash: these critics don't know you. They don't know your individual tastes and quirks, and they probably don't share them. Unless it's word of mouth from people who know me or who I know are pretty similar to me in taste (which is why I've still yet to watch Gotham) I take opinions with as much salt as is in the Dead Sea. The only way *I'LL* know is if *I* watch.
I wish I had unlimited money to go see every film that is released in the cinema (although some I'd actively avoid on premise alone), but I don't. Thus reviews and word-of-mouth are absolutely essential when it comes to the average cinema-goer. :)
Quote from: johnnygobbs on Sun, 29 May 2016, 13:24
Also, I think it makes far more sense to consider the actual substance of a review, particularly a critic one likes and trusts, than to focus too much on a consensus derived via an arbitrary system.
But it's not arbitrary. It's standard practice with critics who are members of the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) to choose whether their reviews are rotten or fresh when they submit them to the site. I believe most critics do this nowadays. That's why there's sometimes a disparity between the fresh/rotten status and the score given by the critic. In the case of older reviews, the RT editors will themselves attribute fresh/rotten status after weighing the tone of the review. They might take into consideration the score when they do this, but usually it's the written content that influences their decision. Numeric factors relating to the score generally have little impact on the fresh/rotten status of a review. But if anyone thinks they've spotted a review that's been incorrectly evaluated, you can contact the editors about it here: http://flixster.desk.com/customer/portal/emails/new
Personally I've never understood why people get so upset about Rotten Tomatoes. Like it or not, there are certain metrics we use to objectively evaluate a film's level of success. One of those metrics is critical consensus. And the best way of objectively gauging that is through aggregators like RT and Metacritic. Any other technique is subject to selectivity bias, where we pick and choose reviews that support our own opinions.
Does that mean people should sublimate their own opinions in order to agree with the critics? No, of course not. I don't always agree with the consensus myself. I love Takeshi Kitano's film Kikujiro (1999), but it's rated 59% 'rotten' on RT. Does that bother me on an emotional level? No. Why would it? RT isn't there to say whether or not I'll like a film; it's there to give an overview of what the critics thought of it. It's a resource, like boxofficemojo.com. And I happen to be interested in what the critics think. It doesn't mean their views will dictate my own opinion. But I like discussing film and I'm always interested in hearing other people's opinions. Whether I agree with them or not is irrelevant.
I've honestly never seen anyone say, "Such and such a film is great because it has a high score on Rotten Tomatoes." I have however seen people say, "Such and such a film was well received by critics," and then cite Rotten Tomatoes as proof of this. Which is a perfectly acceptable way to back up their statement with objective fact. It's like saying, "Such and such a film performed well at the box office," and citing boxofficemojo.com to support this. Again, it doesn't mean an individual's opinion is wrong because it runs counter to the popular consensus. When it comes to subjective opinion, there is no right or wrong.
That said, a lot of people find there are one or two critics whose viewing appetites are similar to their own. And as gobbs points out, since we don't always have the time and money to see every single film released, we're often dependent on the recommendations of others to guide our viewing patterns. Ideally we should all make up our own minds. And if there are people out there who do allow the consensus of the masses to shape their opinions, then obviously they're missing out on something. But for the rest of us, aggregators like RT and Metacritic are simply a resource for cross-referencing the opinions of others; not for tailoring our own opinions to the popular view. If you don't like them, or if you simply don't care about what the critics think, then just ignore them. Problem solved.
I do ignore them. Only reason I made that post is because the subject was broached and I have to put my two cents into everything because I'm a narcissistic bitch.
I'm not a huge fan of Brett Ratner, but I applaud him for slamming Rotten Tomatoes today, describing how toxic it is to film nowadays. He even suggests that aggregate review systems are underming the
art of film criticism itself, which I find to be quite a fascinating claim.
Quote
"The worst thing that we have in today's movie culture is Rotten Tomatoes," said Ratner, whose company RatPac Entertainment co-financed Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice (among dozens of other Warner Bros. titles). "I think it's the destruction of our business. I have such respect and admiration for film criticism. When I was growing up film criticism was a real art. And there was intellect that went into that. And you would read Pauline's Kael's reviews, or some others, and that doesn't exist anymore. Now it's about a number. A compounded number of how many positives vs. negatives. Now it's about, 'What's your Rotten Tomatoes score?' And that's sad, because the Rotten Tomatoes score was so low on Batman v Superman I think it put a cloud over a movie that was incredibly successful."
Directed by Zack Snyder, Batman v Superman cost about $250 million to make and grossed nearly $900 million worldwide — despite being considered a disappointment (with a 27 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes).
"People don't realize what goes into making a movie like that," Ratner continued. "It's mind-blowing. It's just insane, it's hurting the business, it's getting people to not see a movie. In Middle America it's, 'Oh, it's a low Rotten Tomatoes score so I'm not going to go see it because it must suck.' But that number is an aggregate and one that nobody can figure out exactly what it means, and it's not always correct. I've seen some great movies with really abysmal Rotten Tomatoes scores. What's sad is film criticism has disappeared. It's really sad."
Some other popular titles with low Rotten Tomatoes scores include Home Alone (55 percent), Hook (30 percent), Wet Hot American Summer (32 percent) and The Mighty Ducks (15 percent). More recently on the TV side, Netflix's Iron Fist scored only 18 percent from critics but its audience score is 83 percent.
Source: http://ew.com/movies/2017/03/23/ratner-tomatoes-scores/
He's absolutely right. Rotten Tomatoes is weaponized propaganda.
I have philosophical problems with distilling my appreciation (or lack of the same) to a number. Apart from how reductive it is, it's a bit dishonest with the entire idea of art in that you can appreciate aspects of a movie while overall not enjoying the whole... or vice versa where you enjoy a movie but have serious problems with one or two elements of it.
It's not necessarily possible to assign a number to it.
BVS is actually a good example of what I mean. I enjoy it, especially the extended cut, and I think it has a lot of strengths. But that's judging it by its own merits. Having said that, I might have preferred Superman's first cinematic meeting with Batman to be something different in an ideal world. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with BVS. It simply means I'm willing to enjoy something even if it doesn't quite line up with what I've wanted my whole life.
I can't assign an easy and convenient number to summarize my thoughts on that. It takes time, effort and consideration for me to explain it and also for someone else to read it.
Not everything in life can or should be reduced down to a handful of metrics, guys.
Quote from: The Dark Knight on Sat, 25 Mar 2017, 01:59
He's absolutely right. Rotten Tomatoes is weaponized propaganda.
It sure is. And it get's even worse: Amazon and Wal-Mart are now starting to sell Blu-Rays with 'Certified Fresh' RT logos on the front cover. For example, last year's Ghostbusters.
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Now, I haven't seen the new Ghostbusters, because it doesn't appeal to me. But my point is there is something wrong when people expect to look at some arbitrary score AND the bloody logo as some kind of seal of approval to confirm a film's quality.
I fear film discourse is dying.
There was a time when RT offered some valuable nuance to arguments. It's tempting to argue about, say, the relative merits of the Star Wars prequels. But the nay-sayers have a hard row to hoe when it comes out that Episode I (originally at least) received broader critical acclaim than Star Wars '77 and Empire did.
Doubtless that has changed now. But at one time I do believe that was the case.
And it cuts both ways. The prequel lovers had to accept the fact that Star Wars had rarely ever been a critical darling so comparing the prequels to the originals didn't take you very far anyway.
RT offered meaningful insight at times. But this idea of fetishizing it bugs me (A) because it gives people another opportunity to their brains off and (B) I'm sick of arguments from authority, which is what RT has become. It's weird that film critics are almost universally loathed and yet the aggregate of their opinion is giving some retarded authority and merit as though it means something worthwhile.
The hypocrisy here is off the scales...
Quote from: The Laughing Fish on Sun, 2 Apr 2017, 10:36
It sure is. And it get's even worse: Amazon and Wal-Mart are now starting to sell Blu-Rays with 'Certified Fresh' RT logos on the front cover. For example, last year's Ghostbusters.
Well, there we go. This just confirms everything I've said about Rotten Tomatoes.
Oh, you silly Dark Knight. Rotten Tomatoes isn't used to prove opinions as fact.
Oh, you silly Dark Knight. Rotten Tomatoes is only as important as you make it.
Oh, you silly Dark Knight. There's nothing biased about Rotten Tomatoes.
Oh, you silly Dark Knight. Just ignore it.
We can't ignore it now. It's being rubbed in our faces.
The fact we have a certified fresh sticker on a Blu-ray cover proves Rotten Tomatoes is now the 'gold standard'.
Dawn of Justice received 27% so therefore it's a stone cold fact the film sucks.
Anyone who likes a film with a low Tomato Meter score therefore likes 'bad movies'.
I've more than had enough of this mentality.
Quote from: The Dark Knight on Mon, 3 Apr 2017, 05:43
We can't ignore it now.
Of course we can ignore it. It's a tiny graphic added to a DVD jacket for marketing purposes. Nothing more. There's no reason why anyone should be emotionally upset by something so trivial. It's no different from when distributors plaster 5-star ratings over film posters or DVD covers, which they've been doing for decades. This is just the shorthand version of the same thing.
Quote from: Silver Nemesis on Mon, 3 Apr 2017, 22:37Of course we can ignore it. It's a tiny graphic added to a DVD jacket for marketing purposes. Nothing more. There's no reason why anyone should be emotionally upset by something so trivial. It's no different from when distributors plaster 5-star ratings over film posters or DVD covers, which they've been doing for decades. This is just the shorthand version of the same thing.
Video covers have been taking critical quotes out of context for decades. For instance, a review for Live Free or Die Hard that originally said it was "hysterically overproduced and surprisingly entertaining" was reduced to "hysterically...entertaining" in a commercial.
As with 'fresh' RT ratings being used to promote films, one should take them all with a pinch of salt.
By the way, I have now seen Ghostbusters 2016, and unfortunately it is pretty bad but that's not to say that an all-female Ghostbusters could never have worked. It's just that in this instance it seems the filmmakers were so impressed with their politically-correct concept that they forgot to add anything else to the movie, including decent jokes, an interesting and coherent plot, and anything approximating originality.
Quote from: Silver Nemesis on Mon, 3 Apr 2017, 22:37
Quote from: The Dark Knight on Mon, 3 Apr 2017, 05:43
We can't ignore it now.
Of course we can ignore it. It's a tiny graphic added to a DVD jacket for marketing purposes. Nothing more. There's no reason why anyone should be emotionally upset by something so trivial. It's no different from when distributors plaster 5-star ratings over film posters or DVD covers, which they've been doing for decades. This is just the shorthand version of the same thing.
That's where we differ. We can ignore it, but I don't think we should. And I won't. It doesn't matter how big the 'seal of approval' graphic is. It's there and it's validating everything RT stands for. I take RT with a pinch of salt, but its supporters don't. I'm not going to let the other side dictate the conversation just because some people deem the matter trivial. I will say something. RT has been fetishized as an authority and this logo further pushes that message.
The reason the seal of RT bugs me is because it's appealing to a vague, ill-defined authority.
In the old days, movie posters and VHS/DVD covers might have "Two Thumbs Up!" from Siskel and Ebert. They were respected critics and their views meant something. But even if you didn't know who they were, you could investigate their claims and decide if your views align with them. That would establish their credibility (or lack of the same) for you.
The same is true for any critic, really.
Listing an RT rating is different inasmuch as Rotten Tomatoes isn't a person. It has no objective authority unto itself. It's merely the aggregate of a ton of critics... some likely having more credibility and authority than others.
The little emblem may as well say "A bunch of people, most of whom are Cheetoh-munching, basement-dwelling bloggers, love this movie!"
If others respect the RT seal, I'm not here to argue with them. I'm just explaining why it's worthless to me.
Someone cited Pauline Kael earlier on, and I thought I'd add that I'm a huge fan of the late critic. I own a couple of books compiling her various reviews for The New Yorker circa 1980s. She was a brilliantly evocative writer who didn't simply give the equivalent of a 'yay' or 'neigh' as far as a given film would go, but would forensically discuss the various performances, the overall style, and occasionally the themes (although Kael, despite her superior prose and the literary publication she wrote for, was always quick to distance herself from highbrow avant-gardism). Unlike many of today's critics her reviews were a joy to read for their own sake, even if one had relatively little interest in the film being considered, and what I particularly liked about Kael was her refusal to go along with 'perceived wisdom'. She wasn't quite a habitual contrarian like say Armond White and her opinions were always genuine rather than an attempt to play Devil's Advocate simply for its own sake, but she definitely wasn't concerned about political correctness or adhering to any particular agenda.
That said, I wouldn't necessarily have gone to a Kael review if I was deciding what film to spend my hard-earned cash on (as it happens, Kael retired before I was in any position to do so in any case), not least because I have often disagreed with her opinions, even though I've always appreciated her overall perspective, and, in particular, the way she expressed it.
But speaking more broadly, I do tend to avoid reading reviews before seeing a film because I prefer to see a film 'cold' so to speak, without any preconceived notions regarding the plot etc. That means I tend to go by trailers, posters, and yes, I am sorry to say, RT scores. If a given film has a particularly bad RT score (I'm not talking about the 40-60% 'Certified Rotten' region, but anything significantly below 40%) then I'm going to be very wary about spending the equivalent of $20 and two/three hours of my time on something a large swathe of individuals, representing a reasonably large cross-section of sources, have given the 'thumbs down' to. I can give some latitude to those films that just fall under the 'Fresh' threshold by ten/twenty per cent, but if 80% or so of critics are saying a film is trash, and the social media feedback appears to concur, I can only reasonably conclude that it's far better to wait until the film is on freeview.
That said, I wasn't swayed by Ghostbusters 2016's 73% 'Fresh' rating. The same logic doesn't always apply to a 'Fresh' film because whilst I will generally tend to rule-out paying my cash on a 'Rotten' film, I am not compelled to see a 'Fresh' one, especially where all the trailers, TV spots, and production details indicate the film in question is worth none of my time (unlike some of you, I had no issue with an all-female Ghostbusters reboot, but when the filmmakers involved make no attempt to add any iota of originality to the concept, cribbing even the same poster design from the 1984 original, it doesn't take a particularly dire trailer to make my mind up that this is a film to miss).
Bear in mind also that a film can get a '73% Fresh' RT rating simply by receiving the equivalent of 3/5 stars (i.e. an average/slightly above average score) from 73% of the critics tallied.
Martin Scorsese has expressed his distaste for Rotten Tomatoes.
Quote
Rotten Tomatoes has had its share of directors who have publicly voiced their hatred of the review aggregator site. And now you can add a living legend to the list.
In a guest column for The Hollywood Reporter that went online Tuesday, Martin Scorsese ripped into the popular site.
Voicing his displeasure with the box-office culture the movie industry has become since the 1980s, the Oscar-winning director then shifted to the industry scapegoat, Rotten Tomatoes.
Though general audiences use the site often to gauge what movies are getting "fresh" reviews from a collection of critics (or "rotten" ones), most filmmakers — especially the old guard — don't get the attraction.
In March, director/producer Brett Ratner called the site a "the destruction of our business," and now Scorsese has added that it's "set a tone that is hostile to serious filmmakers."
"They rate a picture the way you'd rate a horse at the racetrack, a restaurant in a Zagat's guide, or a household appliance in Consumer Reports," Scorsese wrote, also calling out CinemaScore, which does exit polling of wide releases on opening weekends. "They have everything to do with the movie business and absolutely nothing to do with either the creation or the intelligent viewing of film. The filmmaker is reduced to a content manufacturer and the viewer to an unadventurous consumer."
And Scorsese wasn't done.
"Even the actual name Rotten Tomatoes is insulting. And as film criticism written by passionately engaged people with actual knowledge of film history has gradually faded from the scene, it seems like there are more and more voices out there engaged in pure judgmentalism, people who seem to take pleasure in seeing films and filmmakers rejected, dismissed and in some cases ripped to shreds."
The criticism to Rotten Tomatoes comes when the site is at its zenith. Studios market movies using "fresh" Rotten Tomatoes scores all the time, and this past summer Sony purposely held the review embargo of its release "The Emoji Movie" to just hours before Thursday preview screenings, so its eventual "rotten" score (for a day or so it was at 0%) wouldn't affect its box office. The movie earned a surprising $US24.5 million its opening weekend.
"Good films by real filmmakers aren't made to be decoded, consumed or instantly comprehended," Scorsese went on, highlighting the work of Darren Aronofsky's "Mother!," which received a "F" through CinemaScore.
"They're not even made to be instantly liked. They're just made, because the person behind the camera had to make them."
Source: https://www.businessinsider.com.au/martin-scorsese-criticizes-rotten-tomatoes-in-a-scathing-column-2017-10?r=US&IR=T
Quote from: Catwoman on Mon, 30 May 2016, 20:45
Quote from: The Laughing Fish on Sun, 29 May 2016, 13:07
It would be refreshing to see more people taking a stance against such sites, and judge films for themselves without being swayed by popular consensus. Want to watch something? I say do it on your own terms and crush the goddamn tomato!
(https://www.batman-online.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fil9.picdn.net%2Fshutterstock%2Fvideos%2F2485826%2Fthumb%2F1.jpg&hash=47130e79a72931559bc0d36d302f031e4afd2e70)
This. I didn't even realize a site that calls itself "Rotten Tomatoes" was supposed to be taken seriously, let alone that people consider it the definitive word on a movie's quality, until the BvS sh*t started. The definitive word is the viewer's own individual opinion, and I guess it is okay for a tool (I admit using IMDb ratings to see what perception was of certain movies before I watched them but even if it had a low score and bad reviews I still watched it to see for myself) but it seems like a lot of people are using it not as a tool but to define their own opinion without watching something. Newsflash: these critics don't know you. They don't know your individual tastes and quirks, and they probably don't share them. Unless it's word of mouth from people who know me or who I know are pretty similar to me in taste (which is why I've still yet to watch Gotham) I take opinions with as much salt as is in the Dead Sea. The only way *I'LL* know is if *I* watch.
Both sites are flawed but I do find the IMDB the more accurate of thet wo. I find a rating out of 10 more appropriate than having to rate a movie on a pass/fail basis and we all know critics have agendas, mainly towards boring movies. Sue IMDB has it's own problems including people with multiple accounts (I'm looking at you Nolanites) but honestly I couldn't care less what percentage of critics say they like a film.
Batman Forever is a perfect example. We all seem to remember how well received it was and how well praised it was for being far more of a fun family film than either Burton film. If it weren't, the next film wouldn't have been rushed with most of the same players involved . Then as we all know Batman and Robin came out and the rest was history, the two Schumacher films got lumped together, Schumacher himself was labelled a hack and made an easy target. Had these sites been as popular during the 90's, I'm sure you would have seen the ratings significantly drop for Batman Forever once the next film was released.
Back to the topic at hand, I do find it kind of cheap to include modern rating for older films. Anyone can give a rating based on consensus ratings once a film is released, the more objective reviews are the ones given before everyone else sees a film and gives their two cents.
Quote from: The Laughing Fish on Wed, 11 Oct 2017, 12:54Martin Scorsese has expressed his distaste for Rotten Tomatoes.
I was expecting a rant. Scorsese instead gave a critique. And he's right.
Rotten Tomatoes gives the "critic" an inappropriate role in the public consumption of film. That's bad enough but, to quote myself, the fact that many of RT's source could include Cheeto-munching, basement-dwelling bloggers and puts them on the same level as real critics (which itself isn't exactly setting the bar all that high) is just poor form.
At its best, film reviews should evaluate films. "Jim Carrey returns to the role that made him a household name in Ace Ventura 2: When Nature Calls. And, to be brief, this entry falls far short of its predecessor. But in greater depth, though, blah blah blah". But a lot of reviews are mostly "look how clever I am" showcases of sarcasm. There's nothing constructive being offered to the filmmaker and nothing informative being offered to the audience.
To contrast that, I present the Richard Corliss review of Scoreses's own Gangs of New York: http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101021223-400004,00.html
That review wasn't banged out by Corliss. He thoughtfully and insightfully considered the film, offering a punchy line or two while sticking to the meat and potatoes of film criticism. It's constructive to Scoreses and informative to the audience without really giving all that much away about the film itself. The twists and turns the movie takes are hinted at but not disclosed in the review. A reader intrigued by Corliss might go on to see Gangs of New York for the first time with an appreciation for what he's seeing on the one hand and surprises at where the story goes on the other hand.
We live in wretched times.
RT helps make the reviewer the star of the show. Certain reviewers love the idea their comments can make or break people. They love the idea they're holding all the power and can theoretically influence public opinion en masse. When a journalist slaps a headline on a story they're basically telling us how we all should think and feel about something. Just think about that for a moment. It's just one person's opinion but broadcasted to the world, 'legitimized' by the organizations's masthead. Anyone can write a review in the age of the internet. Is my opinion any more important or valid than yours? Nope. It's just my opinion. To some people BvS is the worst, and to me it's one of the best. My issue is when opinion is passed off as fact, and I think RT has that problem. "People seem to take pleasure in seeing films and filmmakers rejected" most definitely applies to Zack Snyder. RT therefore is a game some reviewers play. It's less about analysis and more about a number.
Quote from: thecolorsblend on Wed, 11 Oct 2017, 23:03
I was expecting a rant. Scorsese instead gave a critique. And he's right.
Rotten Tomatoes gives the "critic" an inappropriate role in the public consumption of film. That's bad enough but, to quote myself, the fact that many of RT's source could include Cheeto-munching, basement-dwelling bloggers and puts them on the same level as real critics (which itself isn't exactly setting the bar all that high) is just poor form.
The bloggers are filth, but I doubt any "real critics" exist nowadays. A while ago, I saw this blurb in a 'Fresh' review of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 on the website:
Quote
"The best sequel years. Though I didn't understand the plot or the dialogue".
http://lasvegas.informermg.com/2017/05/04/galaxy-of-the-guardians-vol-2-review/
???
Call me crazy, but a movie isn't good if the plot and the dialogue is impossible to understand. Please tell me this was misunderstood satire.
If the executives in Hollywood are so deeply concerned about Rotten Tomatoes hurting the industry, then maybe they should stop promoting their movies with the stupid Certified Fresh logo printed on the posters. Otherwise, they're legitimising the website with integrity and a brand to be trusted.
As a side-note: garbage like Collider must really love RT. They only talk about summer blockbusters and treat cinema itself as a team sport by comparing pointless aggregate scores and box office results. Take RT away, and their voice diminishes. Fat chance for them to ever dissect and analyse the nuances or subtext in a film.
Quote
We live in wretched times.
Agreed.
Quote from: The Laughing Fish on Thu, 12 Oct 2017, 12:26If the executives in Hollywood are so deeply concerned about Rotten Tomatoes hurting the industry, then maybe they should stop promoting their movies with the stupid Certified Fresh logo printed on the posters. Otherwise, they're legitimising the website with integrity and a brand to be trusted.
My sense of the "film industry" is that different departments are constantly at each other's throats.
The marketing department never knew what to do with, for example, Idiocracy. And to be fair, that is a difficult film to market to wide audiences. As important as that film might be, it doesn't lend itself to easy marketing the way, oh I dunno, Hot Tub Time Machine 3 might.
It's easy to envision the creative side, the filmmakers, chafing under idiotic (to them) marketing directives. For that matter, I'd imagine the marketing folks can't understand what filmmakers don't understand about "We can't put $h*t like that in a movie intended for families".
Then you've probably got the executives caught in the middle when they'd probably prefer sailing off on their yachts to snort some cocaine or something rather than stuck playing referee between two different groups of people they probably hate equally.
It's easy for the marketing department to appeal to authority by slapping an 89% Certified Fresh sticker on a Blu-Ray cover rather than reinvent the wheel with new marketing techniques every time they release a new tentpole feature. That's not me validating Rotten Tomatoes, you understand. Just a pragmatic statement of the facts. Hyping a movie's RT score as though it actually means something is the path of least resistance.
But it looks like all these chefs in the kitchen are starting to harm the final product. It's interesting to think what the final outcome could be.
I do like Batman Forever but to play devils advocate a little, there is a market for modern reviews of older movies. Sometimes movies general reception change over time. It's been well documented in this thread that Batman Forever was well received in 1995 but has seen the reception take a tumble. Another movie to come out that year - Waterworld was heavily panned but is now considered a rather entertaining film. The reason why modern reviews have their places is that we can't go back and see Batman Forever and Waterworld in 1995 ever again. People deciding whether to see an older film may be more interested what others are saying about the film now instead of against it's release.
That being said I still put the most stock in the early reviews especially in this day and age with the internet. The most objective reviews are always the first to come out for the fact that the writer has less of a chance to match their review with other critics or the general consensus and may not even have the opportunity to research the film. It's harder to give a review on a production nobody else has seen yet.
So what I can only assume is a stunt to maintain its popularity among hipsters and bandwagon fans, Rotten Tomatoes has begun promoting all these YouTube wannabe movie reviewers as "the face of changing film criticism". If that isn't bad enough, they're promoting those nitpicking, snarky fools from CinemaSins. You know, those idiots who produce those annoying "Everything Wrong with..." videos, which sparsely ever offer legitimate points as opposed to making vapid observations about what's "wrong" with a movie, in a desperate attempt to be funny.
https://twitter.com/RottenTomatoes/status/977560928236556293
Thankfully, the reaction on Twitter is largely negative, as you can see in the replies of that thread.
I can only imagine what sins they'd come up with BF, but there's no way I am not going to give those clickbait hacks a click to find out. I seriously wonder if RT's popularity will take an enormous dent when the comic book movie era finally draws to a close.
Quote from: The Laughing Fish on Sun, 25 Mar 2018, 09:10
So what I can only assume is a stunt to maintain its popularity among hipsters and bandwagon fans, Rotten Tomatoes has begun promoting all these YouTube wannabe movie reviewers as "the face of changing film criticism". If that isn't bad enough, they're promoting those nitpicking, snarky fools from CinemaSins. You know, those idiots who produce those annoying "Everything Wrong with..." videos, which sparsely ever offer legitimate points as opposed to making vapid observations about what's "wrong" with a movie, in a desperate attempt to be funny.
https://twitter.com/RottenTomatoes/status/977560928236556293
Thankfully, the reaction on Twitter is largely negative, as you can see in the replies of that thread.
I can only imagine what sins they'd come up with BF, but there's no way I am not going to give those clickbait hacks a click to find out. I seriously wonder if RT's popularity will take an enormous dent when the comic book movie era finally draws to a close.
No, just no.
I will not be lectured or talked down to by some jerkface YouTube personality. Ain't nobody got time fo dat, bruh. Not happening. Actual film critics are usually bad enough, most of the time. But ceding the platform to losers who don't understand film, pacing, structure, storytelling, symbolism or any of the other tricks of the trade is a non-starter for me. I already don't respect RT. But this YouTube thing truly would be the final straw.
There's only one opinion that matters. Mine.
Quote from: thecolorsblend on Sun, 25 Mar 2018, 16:53
No, just no.
I will not be lectured or talked down to by some jerkface YouTube personality. Ain't nobody got time fo dat, bruh. Not happening. Actual film critics are usually bad enough, most of the time. But ceding the platform to losers who don't understand film, pacing, structure, storytelling, symbolism or any of the other tricks of the trade is a non-starter for me. I already don't respect RT. But this YouTube thing truly would be the final straw.
This reminds me of the time you once compared the good and bad things about the internet: on one hand it can give everyone a voice, but on the other hand, it gives
everyone a voice. Someone might say something that's factually incorrect, and it could risk being shared by a lot of ignorant people.
I'll go one better and say it gets even worse in the age of YouTube and Patreon. You could actually make money from people who are willing (or arguably dumb enough) to fund your content, even if you make the most mundane, utter load of unoriginal and uninspired crap online. Not to mention baseless nonsense just to try and get cheap laughs. And make no mistake, a sponsorship on Rotten Tomatoes does gain a lot incentive.
There are some good content creators out there, as much as I loathe the term. But I hate how exploitative this system is.
Rotten Tomatoes has come under the spotlight for manipulating reviews.
https://www.vulture.com/article/rotten-tomatoes-movie-rating.html
None of this surprises me. In fact, those who were already skeptical of the site are saying "tell us something we don't know". There is this dilemma these studios are having of balancing the hype with this site. They see what happens if they hurry positive paid reviews to get a good weekend opening before plummeting in terms of reception and box office, such as the latest Ant-Man, and then they spin some damage control of the initial reviews are less than stellar, such as the latest Indiana Jones.
Despite suggestions the industry doesn't like RT, a lot of studios own shares in the brand:
Quote"The studios didn't invent Rotten Tomatoes, and most of them don't like it," says the filmmaker Paul Schrader. "But the system is broken. Audiences are dumber. Normal people don't go through reviews like they used to. Rotten Tomatoes is something the studios can game. So they do."
So they persist with it due to laziness, but they still complain its having an effect on their box office. Figures.
As time goes on and more people begin to question the validity of RT, we're not going to see too many franchise films getting hyped up like we used to. This could be yet another convenient excuse for the MCU to cut down productions, as Disney is losing lots of money like WBD and they can't exploit VFX workers anymore, and the growing cynicism of access media writers of hyping the next big product. After every one of these shills hyped The Flash up as the event of the year, and it flopped horribly instead, why would anyone trust their judgment?
As for how this pertains to Batman Forever? No doubt if it were to come out today, the studio would throw every trick in the book that it would be a step in the right direction from the dark and gloomy Burtonverse, and shills would hype it up as the movie of the year. Probably giving it a mid-range score like Flash. Having said that, from what I saw of The Flash, I can comfortably say that BF is a far superior movie.
My grievance with RT has always been that film criticism isn't necessarily binary.
The example that I'll always point back to is Zodiac, the Fincher film. Now, I love that movie for the first hour and a half. The police procedural stuff. The cops are investigating, conducting interviews, they interrogate suspects, etc. Great stuff, love it.
But at almost exactly the 1.5 hour mark, Toschi hands the narrative baton off to Graysmith. And I just don't find Graysmith's storyline compelling. The last hour of that movie drags everything else down for me.
I love the film. Up to a point. And after that, it loses me.
So, do I have positive or negative opinion of Zodiac? Well, it's not binary, like I say. So, how would RT rank my opinion? I can't even categorize it myself. So, what chance do they have of doing it?
And yet, nuances, layers and context all get wiped away in the rush to assign a numerical score to something. And I don't think any truly worthwhile piece of art can be summarized that easily.
Tons of movies fall into the same grey area as Zodiac. The Hobbit trilogy, Friday Night Lights, Hancock, Jumper and numerous others are all greatly enjoyable in certain respects while still having some serious challenges to them. Describing my thoughts about them isn't something you can reduce down to Fresh or Rotten.
Nothing should ever be that simple, imo.
And I guess I owe you an apology, Fish, since my diatribe up there has basically nothing to do with your post. Sorry!
No apologies necessary, colors! I agree with nearly everything you said.
Although I think Zodiac is excellent, you're definitely right there are many films that have pros and cons, and sites like RT encourage people to evaluate everything in black-and-white terms. I say BF is another good example of a mixed film. There's a lot of stuff in that movie I appreciate e.g. Bruce's psychological dilemma, and some stuff I feel isn't very good e.g. nearly everything involving Two-Face. It might be subjective, but a lot of movies can't be judged with binary thinking.
Now that RT is getting exposed, I hope film discourse becomes more honest and thoughtful going forward. One can only dream.