rotten tomatoes is b.s.

C

c.g._eads

Veteran
i imagine this has already been dealt with before, but i'm going to add my 2 cents.

i'm tired of people going by the tomato-meter on Rotten Tomatos. It is completely and utterly FLAWED. While it is usually a good indication of when a movie is bad (almost anything below 40% is usually a guaranteed bad movie), it is not a good indicator of when a movie is really good. People assume that 85-100% must mean a movie is AWESOME. But all that's really saying is that 85-100% of critics thought it was better than okay. If a 100% of critics think a movie is just barely better than average, does that make it a great movie? no, of course not. look at some of the movies on that thing. "Catch Me If You Can" got like 95% or something. Who even remembers that stupid movie.

Anyway, my point is, DON'T GO to Rotten Tomatoes to see if a movie is good or not. Go there to see if a movie is bad. Find a critic that you trust and go by their word (aka, not Roger Ebert).

c.g.
 
Even better, go to the movie and ask your eyes and ears (and possibly stomach) if the movie is good.

Why go to critics? You don't know where those thumbs have been....
 
I think some movie critics are paid under the table for good reviews.

I think some movie critics have no talent and hate their lives so they bash every good movie in town

I think some movie critics look long and hard for miniscule things to criticize so they can justify their weekly paycheck, if they can't find it they invent something or go off on some rant.
 
I preffer IMDB.com over rottentomatoes, but I don't believe they are that much more accurate on this subject.
 
roger ebert has gone insane. some of the movies he's given a thumbs up to recently...

ice princess
sahara
the longest yard
four brothers
the alamo
around the world in 80 days
benji: off the leash

need i go on?
 
I saw Roger Ebert in a coffee shop once and walked over to meet him. I told him that it was an honor to meet the man who wrote "Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls." He said "That movie keeps on living and living" like he was embarrassed by it. I think it was his crowning achievement! Anyway, he has definitely gone to hell as a critic. He consistently gives crap good reviews and great films average reviews. At least Gene Siskel used to be there to balance him out.
 
c.g._eads said:
roger ebert has gone insane. some of the movies he's given a thumbs up to recently...

ice princess
sahara
the longest yard
four brothers
the alamo
around the world in 80 days
benji: off the leash

need i go on?
Click to expand...

I think Benji: Off the Leash pretty well makes your point. lol

What bums me out is that Ebert is not an imbecile (like Gene Shalit, for instance) and has the ability to be a good critic. I hate the notion that mainstream critics seem to review movies based solely on their market intent. "Well, 'the longest yard' was an asinine movie made for the lowest common denominator of a 12-28 year old demographic and succeeded in doing just that. Bravo! Thumbs up!"

It's like relative morality or something. Basic standards of excellence (or even mediocrity) are taboo and everything is judged on its own terms, lame or not. I'm sure the fact that the newspapers and tv channels that these guys work for are owned by the same conglomerates that make these horrible films has just a little bit of an influence as well.
 
c.g._eads said:
"Catch Me If You Can" got like 95% or something. Who even remembers that stupid movie.
Click to expand...
I do. I liked Catch Me if You Can alot actually.
 
Yeah, why the hate for Catch Me? I went into it soon after reading the book it was based upon, so maybe that made it more memorable in my mind.
 
i actually kind of liked Terminal too. if it had had a better ending, it would have been a bigger hit. i just thought catch me if you can was so silly and pointless. leonardo, i felt, was bad casting. And Hanks seemed like he didn't have anything to do. Overall, I didn't know what that movie was about, and in movies like that you need to love the characters. i didn't. case closed.
 
RT is not flawed...You can view the average score by looking to the right of the tomato meter...The tomato meter shows the percentage of reviews that were better than ok...The score shows the average score that the movie recieved. Go by the score.
 
sounds like someone just doesn't like roger ebert because his opinions don't fall in line with your own..


The thing he does better than any other reviewer, is review a film based on it's own merits.. something few critics do.. that and he has said numerous times how he hates the star system for rating movies... which if you read his reviews you can see how this conflicts.

personally he generally falls in line with my own opinions of film, not all the time but most..

and as for Rotten Tomatoes... that ain't really news....

hasn't the rule of thumb always been to just see the film yourself and decide?
 
Loki, you liked Benji: Off The Leash? If so, more power to you (i'm hoping, though, this fell into your 'not all the time but most' category). And Ebert doesn't like the star system, huh? So he uses the thumb system instead. I agree, much more reliable. ????

beginning of post, i stated that the RT stuff has probably already been stated before, but wanted to post anyway cause i've been reading a lot of posts that say 'but it got 80% on Rotten Tomatoes!" As if that's the end all be all. So to some people, i think it is news.

and in a day and age when movies cost ten bucks, i don't think the rule of thumb is to go see the movie yourself, especially when you see a lot of movies like the people on this board. you need help so you don't go bankrupt.
 
Well put, Loki.

You haters should read Ebert's review of The Longest Yard.

Here is an excerpt-

"I often practice a generic approach to film criticism, in which the starting point for a review is the question of what a movie sets out to achieve. "The Longest Yard" more or less achieves what most of the people attending it will expect. Most of its audiences will be satisfied enough when they leave the theater, although few will feel compelled to rent it on video to share with their friends. So, yes, it's a fair example of what it is."

Sounds fair to me. Different, but fair.

Granted, he gives good reviews to films that I wouldn't dream of seeing, but then again, "Ice Princess" and "Benji" aren't my cup of tea. I'm pretty sure their not his, either.
But they were made for some people, and those reviews are really geared toward them.

And concerning "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls", I think we should all be careful about holding that over his head. There are alot of people here who make films here, and obviously are learning as they go along so early into their careers.

Needless to say, these films leave something to be desired and are far from perfect. Hell, were just begining. But someday when YOU make it big, if your so lucky, would you want the world to judge the much more experienced and mature YOU on the piece of **** a younger you made when you just started out?

I know I sure wouldn't. :cheesy:
 
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