Ghostbusters

I find it fascinating that the Rotten Tomatoes aggregates show superior grades from the professional critics than the paying audience (~ a 15% gap). This is common with the high brow fare (i.e., Woody Allen and Ruth Prawer types) but virtually unheard of with the broad comedic offerings.
 
critics use all sorts of high falutin film analysis blah blah in their profession, very different than how most people view movies. I remember Something About Mary getting pretty poor critical reviews and being a huge hit in terms of audience popularity. *I* didnt think it was that great but thats a different story.
 
I find it fascinating that the Rotten Tomatoes aggregates show superior grades from the professional critics than the paying audience (~ a 15% gap). This is common with the high brow fare (i.e., Woody Allen and Ruth Prawer types) but virtually unheard of with the broad comedic offerings.

I think that critics are pulling punches and that might mae up for the gap.

We discuss some of he controversial aspects surrounding the movie on the podcast but we both were surprised at how "controversial" a fluffy comedy became.

-M
 
I think that critics are pulling punches and that might mae up for the gap.

-M

Interesting. I can understanding why it is a film that the critics "are supposed to like" and "better like" if they want admission to the powerful inner circle. The great critics that could stand up to the studios (Champlin of the L.A. Times, Roger Ebert, Pauline Kael) are no more.
 
critics use all sorts of high falutin film analysis blah blah in their profession, very different than how most people view movies. I remember Something About Mary getting pretty poor critical reviews and being a huge hit in terms of audience popularity. *I* didnt think it was that great but thats a different story.
There's usually a 15%-20% - all right, I came up with this number without doing any math ... but it sounds right to me - gap in favor of the audience. SaM aside, here are Ben Stiller's films rate -

(first number for critics, second audience, major releases with him in a starring role)

"Night at the Museum III"" - 48 vs. 57

"Secret Life of Walter Mitty" - 50 vs. 70

"The Watch" - 17 vs. 39

"Tower Heist" - 68 vs 48

"Little Fockers" - 10 vs. 34

"Night at the Museum II" - 44 vs. 47

"Tropic Thunder" - 82 vs 70

"The Heartbreak Kid" - 29 vs. 37

"Night at the Museum" - 44 vs. 67

"Meet the Fockers" - 39 vs. 68

"Dodgeball" - 70 vs. 76.

And so on.

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/ben_stiller/

Not surprised at the "Tropic Thunder" due it being kind of an odd concept. "Tower Heist" was an ensemble action flick.
 
I don't know if you guys read or put any stock into Cracked.com articles but they had one recently that mentioned Rotten Tomatoes being kind of a BS system for rating/judging movies. I can't remember all the points made but one was that it lumped in reviews from well-known respected critics with those of "some guy with a blog" who somehow got on the site (by having 15000 Twitter followers or something), another point was that it's too black and white. . .many movies are not simply "good" or "bad" but somewhere in between with good points and bad, and when something is simply lumped into either "Fresh" or "Rotten" you lose accuracy, compared to a 5 star ratings system or similar rating method.
 
"Cracked" itself is barely a blog.

GB remake's current IMDB rating is 5.3. The original GB from 1984 is 7.8. GBII from 1989 is 6.5.

Harold Ramis's top rated film seems to be the "Groundhog Day" at 8.1. The lowest is "Armed and Dangerous" at 5.5 (I don't count "Club Paradise's" 4.9, as it was written by a committee)

From a statistical perspective, the greatest disparity is probably among the 50% RT rated films, the type that some people like and some don't. A really bad movie is hated by everyone while a read good one is mostly liked by everyone. Cult flicks usually have the highest ratings too, even if they have major problems.
 
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