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At 8/2/14 11:42 AM, Danluz wrote: They suck and they can't rate good movies
Discuss

everybody knows that Rotten Tomatoes is a crappy site. There is nothing to disscuss.

At 8/3/14 11:02 AM, NuScarab wrote:

At 8/3/14 10:44 AM, fieldertiger wrote: Does the critics know anything about Rotten Tomatoes about "borrowing" their ratings?

They don't pass them off as their own or anything, they just collect the reviews of well-known pop critics to try and get an idea of how a film's response is shaping up. It's a flawed system because it tends to leave older films with a stilted rating, due to there being fewer reviews to take the average from.

Good point. I use RT quite often and I don't really like the fact I can't find anything about older films.Only the most well known old films have a decent number of reviews, but honestly, for this kind of films, you don't rating and reviews that much.

I don't know for certain though, because I don't use the site. I don't have any problem with trying to get some idea of "popularity" about a particular film from Rotten Tomatoes, but it's certainly not a signifier of objective quality - which is impossible to find regardless. Its ratings don't take contexts of the reviews themselves into account, and there's no immediate separating the better critics from the lesser ones.

It is though, the best we can have, IMO. Objectivity is hard to impossible to find. Critics are people who are experienced on the field, but still, what they express is their opinion. I also agree with your point of not taking context from the reviews. It's kind of annoying when you see the full review is full of ironic points and arguments, which goes to show the critic himself doesn't take his job seriously. Some reviews shouldn't have the same weight with others for the average score. But then again, wouldn't this selecting and picking out reviews and critics even further "corrupt" the systems objectivity even further?

At 8/4/14 06:19 AM, SubparTony wrote: Objectivity is hard to impossible to find.

It is... and yet, we live in an age in which objectivity seems to be strangely prized when it comes to artistic opinion.

The best bet is to probably compare and contrast what Rotten Tomatoes lists as the "best" films with other well-known polls and bear in mind the different aims they have. Take the famous Sight and Sound polls conducted every ten years by selected critics and filmmakers, bearing in mind that Sight and Sound's mission statement is to provide a more "artistic" or academic approach to cinema. Some films appear across many lists, but others don't (Tokyo Story, Sunrise, 2001, The Man with the Movie Camera, The Passion of Joan of Arc, 8 1/2, all just from the 2012 critics' poll, don't seem to appear in Rotten Tomatoes' "top 100"). Meanwhile, Rotten Tomatoes would seem to imply that Toy Story 2 is the "perfect film", since all of its 163 listed critics rated it "fresh" (meaning at least above average), while its "audience rating" (made up of Facebook users, I think) is 86% "fresh". Then you'd have to go and see which other polls Toy Story 2 appears in (none of the Sight and Sound ones, for instance), as well as ones in which Vertigo and Tokyo Story (which topped Sight and Sound's critics and filmmakers' polls respectively in 2012) appear. Vertigo is listed at 98% "fresh" on Rotten Tomatoes, yet it only has 58 listed reviews to base that off of (in contrast with Gravity, which has 97% with 304 reviews... which one would be "better"?).

It's hard to call any of them "perfect". I'd argue Toy Story 2, in favour of a classic rescue plot, doesn't quite have the conflict and imagination of the first film. I've known people who find Tokyo Story completely dull (not me, I love me some Ozu), while others could easily argue that Man with the Movie Camera is very openly propaganda... how might different people give weight to that, I wonder.

I can't get with some of the Internet's fixation on applying scientific objectivity to the arts (and looking down on them when it becomes impossible), but on top of seeing how response to a film is shaping up, I tend not to mind anything that at least stimulates discussion about cinema.

At 8/3/14 08:36 PM, fieldertiger wrote:

At 8/3/14 08:33 PM, NGPulp wrote: Mother of god you actually believed me.

Okay, so what do you want me to do since I did nothing but just say that Rotten Tomatoes borrowed critics' ratings because they're biased as hell?

My god, you are thick.

At 8/4/14 04:49 PM, Cronizone wrote: they're just stating their opinion

But they're not. They don't rate anything. They just tell you what other critics have rated movies and try to get an average and possibly a general consensus on each film. They share no opinions on movies.

Rotten Tomatoes don't really rate the movies, they compile all of the critics out there and put out an average number. Personally I don't care too much anymore about reviews, but I do like to use their site to get an idea of what the movie is like.

At 8/4/14 02:09 AM, Cosmic wrote: Rotten Tomatoes is the hipster of movie rating websites. End of story.

Psh, Trash Humpers is totally the height of quality!

At 8/6/14 04:00 AM, Nebula wrote:

At 8/4/14 02:09 AM, Cosmic wrote: Rotten Tomatoes is the hipster of movie rating websites. End of story.

Psh, Trash Humpers is totally the height of quality!

me and my compadre are in full agreement

At 8/6/14 04:01 AM, Voltage wrote:

At 8/6/14 04:00 AM, Nebula wrote:

At 8/4/14 02:09 AM, Cosmic wrote: Rotten Tomatoes is the hipster of movie rating websites. End of story.

Psh, Trash Humpers is totally the height of quality!

me and my compadre are in full agreement

The Trash Humpers clearly symbolize presidential candidates!

At 8/3/14 09:14 PM, koopahermit wrote: Space Jam only has a 35%. Rotten Tomatoes should be thrown in the garbage.

They probably watched the Nostalgia Critic's review of it, and not Siskel and Ebert's, lol.

I just try to base myself on actual individual reviews rather than random numbers on Metacritic, RT or even imdb that collects a load of reviews that could include 90% total bollocks