I don’t believe I’ve ever let an RT score sway my decision to watch something. I sometimes forget RT exists until someone else brings it up.
If RT had any sway on me I wouldn’t have watched and loved Arena (1989), American Ninja (1975), Screamers (1995), Chopping Mall (1986), or Dead Heat (1988) just to name a few excellent viewing experiences.
God Awful Movies covered Boondock Saints a couple years back, and one of the hosts demanded to know who replaced the movie they loved in college with some intolerable horseshit.
I see how you interpreted that. That is solid.
It’s fucked up that RT and similar sites with their ratings are so important for so many filmgoers. I would guess it’s because film theatre tickets have become more expensive so people are trying to be as selective as possible with what films they spend their money on.
So people listen to the “average”, go to the movies based on predigested opinions, and end up making their own filmgoing experiences, horizon and taste closer to the average as well. The risk in filmgoing is being minimised (which kind of mirrors the behaviour of the film industry so it’s not without reason that the audiences behave like that, I guess; but it still sucks).
Indeed. The RT scoring favors inoffensive, wide appeal over interesting but not-for-everyone movies.
People act like it’s some kind of dunk when a movie/show they like gets high rating, despite the often useless nature of critics and/or audiences at large to reflect individual taste.
I’ve had a few times where I’ll look at a random movie on some streaming service that I haven’t heard of before, trailer looks great, genre is right up my alley, I’ll watch it, it’s not great but I hope it gets better and then by the end I realise it’s bad.
So I go see the RT score and it’s low to mid rated for both critics and viewers. So after a few of those I started our checking. For ones I haven’t heard of. Found it very useful so far
I wouldn’t call myself a film buff but I’ve watched thousands of films and shows. My gauge is usually the metascores, with some exceptions. Knowing this, I generally watch films with a metacritic score over 55, and am usually whelmed. It’s also important to understand directors and their previous works, and styles so you know what to expect. I still prefer imdb’s ratings generally.
I tend to judge more on the plot summary. If it sounds interesting I’ll give it a watch. A good idea can get me imagining things even if the implementation isn’t that good.
I’m Thinking of Ending Things is at 82/50. I think this chart nailed it.
(I love it though.)
Missing: The fact that Rotten Tomatoes scoring is easily gamed by the studios:
https://futurism.com/film-studios-manipulate-rotten-tomatoes
My friend won’t watch anything with a below 80% score. They have to be masterpieces.
We recently watched a movie that audience and critics adored. It was god awful. I don’t trust those ratings (or any ratings) really.
The worst movie I’ve ever seen has an 89% audience score
Curious… which movie?
“Fly Me To The Moon”, 2024
I have never been a Channing Tatum fan, so I can’t say I’m surprised. Most pro wrestlers can act better than that guy.
🤮 I walked out halfway
Do tell, what was the movie?
That movie has a 6.1 score at imdb. Thats a pretty low score…
I was in a hurry and didn’t think to include the RT link. It’s 84% fresh there
I find that if IMDB is 6.5-7.5 it’s probably okay to take a chance. The lower to 6 it’s a toss up as to whether it matches personal preferences.
Best thing is to find a critic, who has kinda your taste or can express why they (dis)like a movie for you to compare to your own taste.
I mostly watch a german critic that sometimes says stuff like “it’s good for a trash night and if that is enough for you, there you go. 2.5/5 from me” and that is exactly what I want to know.
Except, since each vote toward good/rotten is binary, it really means that a high score is not “best” but is instead “least objectionable”
RT is a great vibe check. I don’t use movie ratings directly to decide what to watch, but to gauge whether a movie that already seems interesting is likely to be worth the time.
LMAO (super high) “probably A24” lol yuuuuuup
I’ve found them to all be pretty unreliable and don’t use RT anymore. Curious if anyone has a review site they like better?
I absolutely love using https://movielens.org/. The more I’ve rated, the better its predicted ratings have gotten for me. It doesn’t seem to be popular enough to be as gamed as some of the others. Be honest with your ratings, and it will steer you in the right direction. Don’t give Rashomon 5 stars if you didn’t like it. If Wedding Crashes is your favorite movie, that’s 5 stars for you.
When I’m trying to find a movie that my mother-in-law is going to like, I start with That Thing You Do or a Knight’s Tale and I check Similar Movies.
Had not heard of this but it seems pretty neat. Thanks!
In my opinion, https://themoviedb.org/ is slightly better than the alternatives.
Thanks!
I’ve used metacritic for years, it’s much better in my opinion
I take a look at letterboxd but it is too unreliable to big titles.
18% 27% Red Letter Media’s content collection.
Missing the one that’s 3% critic, 8% audience, with the caption “shit my parents like to watch”
I wouldn’t consider myself a film critic but there are times when I need to side with the critic score over the audience score. Examples include: The Last Jedi, The Rise of Skywalker, Men, The Monkey, Boondock Saints, Edit: punctuation
I had no idea that critics liked The Last Jedi. I mean, so did I. But at least nice to know I’m not fuckin’ alone.
Rise of Skywalker… These scores shock the hell out of me considering I’ve never heard anyone do anything other than complain about Rise of Skywalker
I wouldn’t go so far as saying that I liked The Last Jedi, but I do think that it’s far and away the best of the sequels and a ton of the common criticisms are bullshit. I don’t think I’ve ever had to defend a movie that I didn’t really care for as much as this one.
Now Rise of Skywalker? That one is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen, and when weighted by the talent and budget that went into it I think an argument can be made for the worst of modern cinema. It’s the only star wars movie I’ll never watch again. I could feel the lazy pettiness from the theater chair. Like at least the other franchise-disrespecting blockbuster matrix resurrections was self aware, Rise of Skywalker was earnestly weightless and cheap
The sequels were all fanfiction. But they’re all distinct kinds of fanfiction.
7 is written like the characters are also fans of the movies: Finn is shocked by hologram technology he’d see every day, people parrot lines that were once clever, the camera lingers on a broken astromech droid, et very cetera. The returning characters are living legends famed for their transformative effect on the whole galaxy but also haven’t changed one iota since we last saw them.
8 is an anarchist deconstruction of Star Wars that somehow got turned into an actual Star Wars movie: a rebel soldier becomes disillusioned after her sister died for nothing, the good guy and bad guy agree the current conflict is a pointless sham, and details throughout scream that no mere organization could ever own the magic that belongs to all living beings. And then a surprise fourth act goes “whoops nevermind.”
9 is a toddler telling a story: “and then… and then… but no he didn’t?.. and then…” It’s like a child learned about fakeout deaths yesterday and expects it to be equally shocking every single time. Then the big battle needed to involve every toy in the toybox, especially the horses, because spaceships can’t look up. At least in the end we got the Rey x Kylo connection it all built toward, and their kids are gonna be the most powerful nevermind.
Men?
So that Boondock Saints section has a double meaning for you
