Rotten Tomatoes & Metacritic are no longer useful resources

[theskza]

I remember when the top 5 in IMDB was Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather, Pulp Fiction, etc.

I knew shit was ruined a buncha years ago, when The Dark Knight was suddenly in the top 5

Yeah, IMDB is way more compromised than RT at this point.

 

[Amerikuracana]

For the most part I agree, with the exception of comedies. I've enjoyed so many comedies recently that have extremely low RT scores.

I have had that similar experience. I laughed hard at 'That's my Boy' and it was at like 50%.

 

[Amerikuracana]

Pretty sure the new star wars has that spot.

But anyway, who gives a shit what "most" people think---which is what these sites are? Look at who wins Grammys now. That is mainstream. Your best chance is to find a critic/youtuber that you think has a good opinion, maybe. But what makes a person ---- a thinking person ---- like a film is too subjective.
Now, if you can be dumb and say "I like super heroes more than turtles" you have have a shit smorgasboard complete with sneezeguard at your local cineplex.



Bullshit. Flat out bullshit.

You're part of the lowered bar then. Sorry. People were giving Kong 9/10 around here; was that you sweetheart?

 

[GearSolidMetal]

I remember when only the truly extraordinary shows in their more extraordinary seasons notched a score of 90 or higher. When Breaking Bad notched a score of 98 at the end of Season 4 it was almost unfathomable how far ahead of even the other great shows and great seasons that was.

That's because S4 of BB is one, if not the, best seasons of TV ever.

RT and MC may have been hacked by corporations, but not based on BB being overhyped.

BB earned it's hype.

 

[HereticBD]

Is there really any difference between a critic and a user? Any dumbass with a blog can review a film. Who is really qualified?

It's all subjective, so it's a hard to assess who is technically qualified. However, there are students of film, who become critics. They have film school degrees, and know a thing or two more than the average person when it comes to film.

That said, at the end of day they're just opinions. Some a bit more qualified than others, but it doesn't make their opinion the law. Highly educated critics and students of the industry disagree all the time on what movies are great and bad. Directors do it. Actors do it. There is no one true perspective on what makes up a great flick.

 

[neverwas]

There was a Red Letter Media thread where this was touched on, recently.

I was one of the earliest adopters of both websites. RT was first, at least for me, and we go back nearly 20 years now. I was ecstatic when I first discovered it because it was basically something that I wished for, but didn't exist. Then one day...there it was. I yearned for it because I understood the power of aggregating and averaging opinions as a numeric value. IMDb had already become the greatest egalitarian tracker. I valued that, but I also wanted a resource that compiled votes, but of a more educated, patient, and adventurous audience. That's film critics.

The golden age for both websites was the decade from about 2003-2013, I'd estimate. Then it began to bleed. Earlier, actually, but that's when the floodgates opened. It became too popular. Corporations noticed, and the co-opting of these websites had taken hold. I'm not sure how they did it, apart from using money, obviously, but they've succeeded. I just pulled up the Television tab today.

I remember when only the truly extraordinary shows in their more extraordinary seasons notched a score of 90 or higher. When Breaking Bad notched a score of 98 at the end of Season 4 it was almost unfathomable how far ahead of even the other great shows and great seasons that was.

Nobody even hit 95 back then. Nobody. I don't even believe The Sopranos had done it. Their best season scored a 93 or a 94 at the end of its actual year, IIRC (keep in mind that scores you see now include reviews added in retroactively, so if you didn't follow these websites for all those years, you won't have any concept of the scores as they existed during the period I'm discussing...digital sleuths might look through the Internet Archive for screencaps).

Now? A 95 isn't even that special, really. Look at this fucking shit. This is the last 90 days:
http://www.metacritic.com/browse/tv/score/metascore/90day/filtered

If that rustles your jimmies you might want to put on a jimmistity-belt for the All Time list:
http://www.metacritic.com/browse/tv/score/metascore/all/filtered?sort=desc

They just got too greedy. It's transparent as shit. RT is no different.

I throw this out there in the hopes that it will get passed around and everyone will start talking about how useless these websites have become because I still truly love the idea behind the service before it became corrupted. I would hope that there is opportunity, here, for some ambitious new upstart to exploit the transparency of this greed, and to drink their milkshakes...drink them up!

Purge all the shit shill critics that infect both websites now, get rid of any "refined" mathematical weighting techniques (the simple ones like the Bayesian weighting that IMDb uses is just fine), and present us with a quality aggregation of the top critics out there in each field.

I am desperate to abandon these corporate shillholes for your service.

 

[bad seed]

Pretty sure the new star wars has that spot.

how so? Pretty much every informed viewer thinks it was underwhelming and many fans felt dissapointed. But every nerd thinks TDK is some kind of masterpiece.

 

[ReAnimator Reagan]

You're part of the lowered bar then. Sorry. People were giving Kong 9/10 around here; was that you sweetheart?

Yes, I am the guy complaining how mainstream shit sucks and the new star wars suck and the super hero movies suck, but somehow I am in love with Kong....If that is in reference to Donkey Kong it might be good.

Here is a list of everything I watched lately: Silicon Valley, Your pretty face is going to hell, Dead Ringers, Conan, Body Double, From Beyond, Orgazmo, The Thing, Alien, Blade Runner, Re-Animator, NOES, full metal jacket, but yeah, for some reason I am a Kong fan.
I am sure all these things are getting 10/10 on those fruity ass websites.

 

[Torrid]

Never paid much attention to RT, but yeah, Metacritic scores have been rising like crazy.

This gets my lowest score ever: seven thumbs up.

 

[ReAnimator Reagan]

how so? Pretty much every informed viewer thinks it was underwhelming and many fans felt dissapointed. But every nerd thinks TDK is some kind of masterpiece.

You were saying?
All Time Box Office

WORLDWIDE GROSSES
#1-100 - #101-200 - #201-300 - #301-400 - #401-500 - #501-600 - #601-691

Pink highlight = official revisions of older movies
Gold highlight = now playing or recent movies

Rank Title Studio Worldwide Domestic / % Overseas / % Year^
1 Avatar Fox $2,788.0 $760.5 27.3% $2,027.5 72.7% 2009^
2 Titanic Par. $2,186.8 $658.7 30.1% $1,528.1 69.9% 1997^
3 Star Wars: The Force Awakens BV $2,068.2 $936.7 45.3% $1,131.6 54.7% 2015
4 Jurassic World Uni. $1,671.7 $652.3 39.0% $1,019.4 61.0% 2015
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/

 

[DM1982]

Both TDK and Shawshank are awesome

Fkn hipsters man

Sorry Sport, TDK is overrated; the film is riddled with flaws, masked by an awesome turn by Ledger and a few awesome Batman trademark scenes.

Noone's saying its shit; its very good, but well short of greatness.

If anyone is the hipster, its the person (s) saying its one of the best films of all time (lol derp).

On topic, I will continue to consult RT, on top of various other resources, if I want a review of a film before/after I see it.

 

[bad seed]

You were saying?
All Time Box Office

WORLDWIDE GROSSES
#1-100 - #101-200 - #201-300 - #301-400 - #401-500 - #501-600 - #601-691

Pink highlight = official revisions of older movies
Gold highlight = now playing or recent movies

Rank Title Studio Worldwide Domestic / % Overseas / % Year^
1 Avatar Fox $2,788.0 $760.5 27.3% $2,027.5 72.7% 2009^
2 Titanic Par. $2,186.8 $658.7 30.1% $1,528.1 69.9% 1997^
3 Star Wars: The Force Awakens BV $2,068.2 $936.7 45.3% $1,131.6 54.7% 2015
4 Jurassic World Uni. $1,671.7 $652.3 39.0% $1,019.4 61.0% 2015
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/

and? The consensus I've seen- from both critics and fans- regards that film as boring and safe. Meanwhile TDK maintains an extremely rabid following that declares it one of the best movies of all time.

The fact that TFA grossed so well does not mean it was "overrated". It had broad, but shallow appeal.

 

[Sir Galahad]

There was a Red Letter Media thread where this was touched on, recently.

I was one of the earliest adopters of both websites. RT was first, at least for me, and we go back nearly 20 years now. I was ecstatic when I first discovered it because it was basically something that I wished for, but didn't exist. Then one day...there it was. I yearned for it because I understood the power of aggregating and averaging opinions as a numeric value. IMDb had already become the greatest egalitarian tracker. I valued that, but I also wanted a resource that compiled votes, but of a more educated, patient, and adventurous audience. That's film critics.

The golden age for both websites was the decade from about 2003-2013, I'd estimate. Then it began to bleed. Earlier, actually, but that's when the floodgates opened. It became too popular. Corporations noticed, and the co-opting of these websites had taken hold. I'm not sure how they did it, apart from using money, obviously, but they've succeeded. I just pulled up the Television tab today.

I remember when only the truly extraordinary shows in their more extraordinary seasons notched a score of 90 or higher. When Breaking Bad notched a score of 98 at the end of Season 4 it was almost unfathomable how far ahead of even the other great shows and great seasons that was.

Nobody even hit 95 back then. Nobody. I don't even believe The Sopranos had done it. Their best season scored a 93 or a 94 at the end of its actual year, IIRC (keep in mind that scores you see now include reviews added in retroactively, so if you didn't follow these websites for all those years, you won't have any concept of the scores as they existed during the period I'm discussing...digital sleuths might look through the Internet Archive for screencaps).

Now? A 95 isn't even that special, really. Look at this fucking shit. This is the last 90 days:
http://www.metacritic.com/browse/tv/score/metascore/90day/filtered

If that rustles your jimmies you might want to put on a jimmistity-belt for the All Time list:
http://www.metacritic.com/browse/tv/score/metascore/all/filtered?sort=desc

They just got too greedy. It's transparent as shit. RT is no different.

I throw this out there in the hopes that it will get passed around and everyone will start talking about how useless these websites have become because I still truly love the idea behind the service before it became corrupted. I would hope that there is opportunity, here, for some ambitious new upstart to exploit the transparency of this greed, and to drink their milkshakes...drink them up!

Purge all the shit shill critics that infect both websites now, get rid of any "refined" mathematical weighting techniques (the simple ones like the Bayesian weighting that IMDb uses is just fine), and present us with a quality aggregation of the top critics out there in each field.

I am desperate to abandon these corporate shillholes for your service.

I've been using IMDb for the longest time. It's still the best site to get movie information.

 

[HereticBD]

For the most part I agree, with the exception of comedies. I've enjoyed so many comedies recently that have extremely low RT scores.

You'll rarely find consistency in criticism of Comedy and Horror. Those are two genres you truly can't trust critics on.

 

[FootstompShonie]

I remember when the top 5 in IMDB was Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather, Pulp Fiction, etc.

I knew shit was ruined a buncha years ago, when The Dark Knight was suddenly in the top 5

Sorry people in my age-range are literally retarded especially when it comes to movies. Reddit had a huge vote of the top-100 movies of all time and the users put The Dark Night #1 no joke it was embarrassing.

And 18-25 year olds are the vast majority of those voting in these polls and on IMDB.

 

[Der Eisbär]

I remember when the top 5 in IMDB was Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather, Pulp Fiction, etc.

I knew shit was ruined a buncha years ago, when The Dark Knight was suddenly in the top 5

The Dark Knight isn't a GOAT movie? uwotm8

 

[RhinoRush]

RT is useless if you just read the number. You have to read the reviews. A lot of the liberals shill reviewers give themselves away pretty easily. The Ghostbusters reviews were full of references to the patriarchy and shit.

 

[Aegon Spengler]

Both TDK and Shawshank are awesome

Fkn hipsters man

Awesome, sure, but do they belong on an all time best list?

Shawshank is maybe not even the best book-to-movie adaption (To Kill A Mockingbird comes to mind as fitting in that slot) and DK is adapted from a comic book. They're both deserving of a large fanbase but calling them all-time great movies, as in, #1 and #2.... it doesn't sound serious

 

[BEER]

You'll rarely find consistency in criticism of Comedy and Horror. Those are two genres you truly can't trust critics on.

This is true.

I pay attention to audience/user scores more than critics. When I'm deciding whether or not to go see a movie, I want to know if I'll enjoy it. I don't go to the theater to analyze the artistic validity of movies.

It's a fun conversation to have later, but it holds no real merit to me whether or not critics enjoy a movie that they walked into with the sole purpose of overthinking every tiny detail.

 

[Rod1]

Topping the second most overrated, Shawshank.
And holy shit is that film extremely overrated

Morgan Freeman narrates the whole thing.

Morgan Freeman could narrate a video someone shitting on your front lawn and i would pay to see it.