Rotten Tomatoes & Metacritic are no longer useful resources

[Da Speeit]

I was one of the earliest adopters of both websites.QUOTE]
source please

 

[jabba the punk]

I use a combination of rotten tomatoes as a base line tool to get a feel for what to expect, while reading certain critics who share my values.

Rotten Tomatoes shouldn't be used as the definitive line for movie reviews, but rather as a helpful tool to start research into whether or not you'll like the movie.

 

[Big Brown Clown]

Can't be arsed to find the tweet but one critic admitted this. He was criticizing one studio for not "playing the game" and saying how easy it is. Basically it's like anything else. If the critics aren't directly paid they're paid in other ways such as access to interviews, set visits, early screenings, general pampering at events etc. And if they want to be "honest" they sure as hell won't be getting any of this.

It's a Dana White-Ariel Helwani situation.

If you're a upcoming guy in the business you'd have to be an idiot to come down hard on certain studios... career suicide.

 

[BJ@LW&WW]

rotten tomatoes is still useful to me, not to tell me what movies to watch, but what movies not to watch.

as for tv show ratings, i dont know why theyre always so much higher than movie ratings. difficult to interpret but can still inform me of a show not to watch.

 

[Deleted member 196663]

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.

Wait, so are we saying even the Audience scores are corrupted??

I've never paid attention to anything but user reviews. But I do like seeing how they compare.

 

[HereticBD]

Wait, so are we saying even the Audience scores are corrupted??

I wouldn't say "corrupted", but a little skewed to what they want to like, no doubt. Then again, maybe they are corrupted a bit.

It's why shitbag shows like "Arrow", or "Agents Of Shield" are held in such high regard. Some shows can get away with going for the cheap pop. Even if they're remotely acceptable, they'll be put on a pedestal simply because of their brand association.

 

[DM1982]

Shut the hell up

Sound argument there.

I forgot children also post on this site

-your reaction was that of a child-

Whats even sadder, however, is some simpleton named @Big Brown Clown liked your post.

Inb4 another highly intelligent comeback from the petulant child.

*id be worried if I were banchan, she has a juvenile , retarded stalker

 

[DM1982]

The Dark Knight isn't a GOAT movie? uwotm8

Jesus Christ you need to watch more movies if you think TDK is a goat film.

Its not even top 100.

damn i dont even know where to begin with you kid; have you only ever watched hollywood blockbusters?

 

[Madmick]

One thing I've learned in 45 years on this earth. Most other people's opinions should be taken with a grain of salt.

For movies, I've stopped listening altogether. I might agree with a review, but it's certainly after I've watched the movie for myself.

Taste is subjective.

Subjectivity isn't the issue. A gross objective inflation of aggregated subjectivity is the issue, and a glaring tell.

None of this makes me mad or rustles my jimmies.

"We live in the Golden Age of television"

"Critics are shills"

Lol

I agree we live in a golden age of television, or at least we were in one, but I'm not sure what that has to do with the Paste Magazine shitshow that has infiltrated the ranks of surveyed critics. There are still critical surveys that are phenomenal like the Sight & Sound's once-a-decade poll for movies. So this is partially about the quality of the critics, and also their number (used to be hard to gain the esteem to be counted, and they even separated the "Cream of the Crop" for site-goers to see although they didn't count their scores differently). Too many bloggers are being counted, now. I blame Berardinelli. Everyone thought they could be him.

Furthermore, the methodology behind the Sight & Sound poll is entirely transparent. That's what I want, but I want it as an entertainment service, not an academic service to cinephiles delivered decennially.

That's the real problem: a lack of transparency in how everything is scored. Metacritic has been nailed in the VG section for artificially "weighting" certain critics, or at least so say them, but the truth is that like ESPN's advanced sports metrics, we don't know how they weight their Metascore anymore. That wasn't the way it always was:
http://www.metacritic.com/about-metascores

Why the term “weighted average” matters
Metascore is a weighted average in that we assign more importance, or weight, to some critics and publications than others, based on their quality and overall stature. In addition, for music and movies, we also normalize the resulting scores (akin to "grading on a curve" in college), which prevents scores from clumping together.

In other words, since they don't publish the methodology, the way IMDb publishes its precise weighting equations, we have absolutely no idea how they arrive at their scores. This means they can openly fudge numbers whenever they feel like (i.e. get paid for) it.

Clearly they're selling.

 

[Madmick]

...

 

[Thai Otoshi]

Both TDK and Shawshank are awesome

Fkn hipsters man

You motherfuckers have me agreeing with a goddamn Floridian.

 

[WiolentOne]

Oh fadfick.

For RT you should know by now to place more value in the Top Critic reviews rather than joe blow. They even have a tab for it.

 

[faustian]

Sound argument there.

I forgot children also post on this site

-your reaction was that of a child-

Whats even sadder, however, is some simpleton named @Big Brown Clown liked your post.

Inb4 another highly intelligent comeback from the petulant child.

*id be worried if I were banchan, she has a juvenile , retarded stalker

 

[faustian]

You motherfuckers have me agreeing with a goddamn Floridian.

 

[vcmmafan]

The percentage isn't the actual rating on RT

There is an average score out of 10. I think you need like a 6 to be fresh. The percentage is how many gave it at least a 6.

 

[faustian]

Well shit, imagine "Silence Of The Lambs" if Hannibal Lector is played by Gilbert Godfrey.

The idea of this made me lol. Along with Godfrey as Lector I'd cast Jon Lovitz as Buffalo Bill

 

[DM1982]

Im sorry little man, I dont speak autistic.

What does the little gorilla symbol mean to you.

Is it one of those pictures you post when you cant think of words to say?

Face it, youre a little bitch that when faced with someone simply criticiding something you like you react like a screaming autistic child.

Id rather you didnt rspond but if you do be a big boy and use words.

 

[faustian]

Im sorry little man, I dont speak autistic.

What does the little gorilla symbol mean to you.

Is it one of those pictures you post when you cant think of words to say?

Face it, youre a little bitch that when faced with someone simply criticiding something you like you react like a screaming autistic child.

Id rather you didnt rspond but if you do be a big boy and use words.

 

[Big Brown Clown]

Sound argument there.

I forgot children also post on this site

-your reaction was that of a child-

Whats even sadder, however, is some simpleton named @Big Brown Clown liked your post.

Inb4 another highly intelligent comeback from the petulant child.

*id be worried if I were banchan, she has a juvenile , retarded stalker

<{cruzshake}>

 

[CO68]

I never thought metacritic was ever useful. I never could take it seriously. Rottentomatoes is just another opinion, but it is pretty damn worthless when it comes to TV shows. RT doesn't always make sense. Sometimes a review will be positive, but then the site acts like it was negative for some reason.

I find most TV/movie critics to be hypocritical, inane, and petty, so I'm fine with combining their ratings along with that of the average Joe. I prefer IMDB, but the best way to go is your own damn opinion. You just gotta check out the cast, plot, and previews to determine if it's for you or not, and if you're still unsure after that, then check out the ratings. It's hard for me to avoid RT ratings. If I look for info about something on my TV, then one of the RT ratings pops up with the info.