Or you watch something that you thought was just awful and you find out that people on the internet loved it…
This was me trying to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey
Either I didn't get it, or I watched it too late to appreciate the ground-breaking effects. Maybe I'll give it another try someday.
2001 is one of those movies that's really important historically, but doesn't really hold up to modern standards.
Prior to 2001, there wasn't really a market for non-schlocky SciFi movies, the whole genre was just cheap horror stories about aliens and monsters.
That movie opened the door to let us have more thoughtful genre flicks with much higher budgets.
Parts of 2001 are more art than a movie telling a story. 2010 is a far better scifi movie overall and a favorite of mine. But there are critics of that one too that say it's terrible. I always think back to when I was a kid and reading a newspaper review of the new movie out I hadn't seen yet. "Star Wars is a failure and departure from the science fiction standard."
I believe that movies based on books are generally not as good, or lacking in some substance, so I always try to read the novel version first before watching the film. This was the case for 2001: A Space Odyssey.
What I didn't realize is that the movie and novel were created simultaneously. The novel is, in fact, a companion piece for the film, providing more context. So over the decades, I've watched as people struggled to understand the hidden meaning of this classic film. There are hundreds of articles written, or YouTube reviews posted, theorizing what the monolith is about, or what the big deal is with the giant space baby, etc. But if you read the book, it explains exactly what it is, right there!
If I had watched the movie on its own, I would've been totally lost. But reading the book first helped me understand the more "artsy" scenes, and the film actually makes sense from start to finish. It not only explains exactly what's happening in each scene, in simple non-metaphorical language, but you also see the inner dialogue of the main characters. Where there are quiet scenes throughout the movie (the film itself is about 90% quiet scenes), there's actual inner-monologues or exposition going on in the book.
So I'd highly recommend reading the book before you rewatch 2001: A Space Odyssey. You might get more enjoyment out of it.
Fwiw I'm with you on the film but turns out the book is great.
I've had that with tons of 'must see classics'. I'll sit there and be like 'I've already seen this a thousand times'. And while I of course appreciate the fact that the reason I've seen it so often is because that movie did it first back then, doesn't mean that it's impactful or interesting to me now.
Oh, I just had a flashback to when 2001 was broadcast on television when I was a kid!
I said the next day that I liked it, and damn I was cross examined in the school yard for it. Every detail that made anybody confused was enough to crucify twelve year old me for liking an awesome space thriller with trippy effects and ambiguous ending. I mean, I didn't get all of it, but I got enough of the vibe. The ending was confusing, but I mean it arguably still is and intentionally so. Especially for the protagonist that goes through a portal and wakes up
deadand... yeah, well, you decide for yourself and I'll stick to mine.Anyway, the judge was the popular kid that also claimed that in western movies, people that wanted to die were shot for real, so there.
It was pretty mid.
Me and the room. I can't enjoy bad movies, that movie just pissed me off with how bad it was.
Also the time I saw Rocky horror picture Show I was like "why are people enjoying this? It's awful" I know people started liking that movie cause it was so bad it's good, but it seems along the way people lost the joke and actually legit enjoy that movie now and claim it's good.
Honestly nothing makes me more curious about a movie than when the the critics score and audience score on a movie are vastly different. Sometimes I’ll agree with the critics, sometimes I’ll agree with the audience, but either way I’ll probably find the movie to be have been worth the watch and interesting if nothing else
That was my experience with Spider-Man Across the Spiderverse. It started really strong, but it drags on for 2.5 hours just to end on a cliff hanger? Fucking what? They couldn't have cut spider-cat and baby spiderman and fit the ending in there? There was so much fluff that contributed nothing to the movie that it being half a movie completely ruined it for me. 5/10.
Exactly, happens more to me than the other
Bram St(r)okers Dracula
Yeah, like Dune. Watched it a month ago because it was so hyped. Turned out it was great to fall asleep to 💤
You didn’t like WHAT!?
(ง'̀-'́)ง
I have a close friend who has absolutely no taste in movies. He likes everything! I've learned to stop listening to his feedback for movies, because it could be the worst movie ever made and he's like "wow, that was such an amazing experience!". I kind of envy his state of ignorant bliss.
I want to be that way. It seems like a more pleasant way to experience everything, like how kids do.
I started to make a conscious effort to do this for the media I consume. I've noticed I've been a far less negative person in general since I started doing that.
The secret is mostly to judge a work based on the intent rather than the execution. Most movies have something about them that is interesting, even if the direction/cinematography/acting completely failed to convey it accurately.
Lmao I'm that person. I'm autistic though and because of that I simply don't notice if acting is good or bad, and I also am very uncritical of the story because I believe everything. Unless it's really egregious of course, but that doesn't happen that often.
I'm currently in a similar situation with a close friend. He's seen more movies than almost anyone I've met and yet his tastes are not at all discerning. He'll also rewatch movies all-the-time which I seldom do.
I love good movies that are actually good. But lately I haven't been feeling too well physically (health problems -.-) and needed something to watch. And I ended up watching a lot of movies that are generally considered bad. And I liked them. Because I watched them for what they were and didn't have any expectations.
I thought some were actually 'decent'. Not the best, but definitely not the trash people said it was (on IMDB and RT) . And then there were some that were really really bad. But most of them were fun! Not good, but fun, which is what I'm usually looking for when watching a movie anyway.
The types of movies or TV shows I like to watch really depend on how I feel. Sometimes I want to watch movie that makes me think or have a big impact and sometimes I want to watch a movie for its entertainment factor. In the end, if I was entertained while watching the movie, the movie was good enough to me at that time.
The 80's was full of bad but fun movies. Movies like Roadhouse, or Lambda are terrible by today's standards, but still heckin fun to watch. Anything from Van Damme during that era is amazing. Bad, but amazing. IDK if Big Trouble in Little China counts as bad, but it's such a joy to watch.
I used to be this person. I figured, with all the people and money and resources thrown into a full-length feature film project, there always had to be something redeeming about it. Someone loved this film enough to see it through to completion, so why can't I appreciate that? Even if the acting wasn't all that good and the sets weren't super appealing, at least the overarching story was interesting enough to sit through and ponder about afterward.
What cured me was actually watching a ton of Nostalgia Critic videos. His original purpose with his show was to see if nostalgic films from his childhood ('80s/'90s) still held up today. And in almost every case, he tore them apart for being awful films that only his innocent, naive, child self could've enjoyed.
He helped me understand what makes a good film. I learned that it's not just a good story that makes a movie, but in how the story is told. How it impacts audiences emotionally. How well the actors disappear into their roles; how well their lines are written and delivered. As well as many other factors.
I started being more critical of films since then, and I even started my own personal blog to review films in more detail than "It was good; I enjoyed it." My friend all saw me as the untrustworthy advocate for films, since I used to enjoy absolutely everything, so writing a blog was my way to show them I had changed and could seriously analyze a film for its positives and negatives. Which worked; my friends are more willing to take my film recommendations seriously nowadays.
I mean the nostalgia critic has plenty of his own shitty takes and opinions when it comes to films, I wouldn't take his word as law. I say that as someone who used to be a fan.
You might want to check out Your Movie Sucks (YMS) on YouTube as well, even when I don’t agree with his assessments he usually has a good explanation for why he feels the way he does about something in a film, and he definitely has more insightful opinions about music and sound design in films than I do.
He also has some great videos about why the live action Disney remakes suck, which automatically gets my approval.
«Heureux les imbéciles» !
One of my biggest pet peeves is when critics judge a movie on what they think it should be, instead of what it’s actually trying to achieve. Sometimes it’s perfectly fine for a film to be big, loud, and nonsensical. Sometimes, a movie needs to be “complex” (although what critics call “complex” makes me think that a lot of them consider filmgoers to be idiots with the attention spans of goldfish).
Are there plenty of problems with any given popular film? Yes, but if it satisfies the audience it’s for, shut up.
I knew a dude that didn't like any movie that didn't teach him anything. That's fine. That's preference I guess no judgment... Until you had to work with him and listen to him drone on and on about how uncultured or unintelligent an animated Disney movie is for eight hours. Every now and then I see a review with someone complaining about how they didn't learn anything/the movie is too dumbed down and I wonder if he's still at it lol
filmgoers to be idiots with the attention spans of goldfish
Why do you think big, loud, and nonsensical is so popular?
I agree 100%. Before rating a movie I always ask myself if the team behind it managed to reach the goals they set for themselves. If all they wanted to make was a cheesy but entertaining slasher movie and succeeded, it can get the same score from me as some Oscar-nominated drama with a triple-A cast.
Yeah but critics have to say good films are shit and shit films are good, because that way we think they're really smart and have some god-level insight that we're too dumb to perceive, so we keep giving them money to be smart while we carry on enjoying the shit films.
If they said good films were good and shit films were shit then we'd all go "well duh" and not think they're doing anything useful.
I had a friend at school who did this. At the cinema, after the movie was over, he would be one of the loudest voices in the group, talking about how awesome the movie was, how it's going to do so well at the box office and how he couldn't wait for the next one to come out.
The very next day, he'd come in armed with research on all the plot holes and ways the movie failed from other critics, and then just lay into the movie as if it was the worst movie he'd seen and how it was a waste of his money.
We would point out how annoying he was for convincing himself that he hated it. The only opinion that counted was the one right after the movie ended; that's the best and most honest review one could give. He kept on doing it. It wasn't cool, Chris.
I often look at reviews after I watch a movie and it's usually a terrible idea. It's like we're training ourselves to become angry. On the other hand, every once in a while reading reviews makes you realize a whole bunch of stuff that you otherwise would have missed. This happened to me with Mother!, the movie with Jennifer Lawrence.
That's funny, yesterday when I was reading this thread I thought specifically about Aronofsky as an example of a director that tells deep, layered, surrealistic stories that don't go over well with the average moviegoer. My mind went to Pi and The Fountain, but I had forgotten mother! completely, so thanks for the reminder.
Who cares, as long as you liked it?
Stop basing your opinions on what other people like. I've never experienced such a wide range of media since I cut out sites like Rottentomatoes, Letterbox, Rateyourmusic, and stopped watching "review" youtubers.
I don’t think op said at all that their opinions are based in what other people like, just that it sucks when you like something only to find out everyone else hates it.
Or just consider those sources as fodder but don't use it as a substitute for critical thought.
RT tends to favor novel story telling, directing, and acting performances. It tends to give neutral (fair) feedback to movies that coast on good writing.
It tends to pan movies that do not break new ground or that rely heavily on comedy.
So I just keep those quirks in mind and don't really let the RT rating actually represent any sort of "final" opinion. It's more a number I can apply to the context of a film to let me know whether to expect it to be good, bad, or neutral.
I still watch and form my own opinion, but a little curation never hurt anyone. There's lots of stuff to watch, and these review sites can help sift the options.
I use it as a resource in much the same way as you. Sometimes it's a useful tiebreaker, but if I've got some reason to watch something other than "it's one of several films I can watch at this moment", that'd usually trump the rating.
I think it's important to distinguish between cinematically valuable movies and enjoyable movies with no substance.
I like marvel movies. They don't teach you anything, they don't challenge any ideas, they don't increase you as a person at all. They have zero substance, but they're pretty and fun
They're often good, but I'd never tell someone "you have to watch this marvel movie" the way I would tell someone to watch a Tarantino movie. Same general kind of movie, same great action sequences, but a Tarantino film has substance, it leaves an impact where a marvel movie leaves you just entertained
And that's fine... But ratings for a cinematically valuable movie are worth digging into - for one that's just entertaining, the ratings only matter when deciding if it's worth watching
It's a pure matter of taste vs maybe you were missing something on a deeper level
I think they’re going to look for others who also liked the movie & hear their takes on it. That’s pretty standard behavior.
Like me, maybe; I have loved all the new MCU & Star Wars stuff (except for Secret Invasion & Kenobi) and I went online to hear what other people liked, and… well, turns out I’m just a distinguished gentleman 🎩🧐 lol
I’m very hit or miss on all the Star Wars stuff, it’s amusing even when I enjoy something, to go watch a video by a big lore fan, and hear them exclaim at just how royally fucking stupid the writing is, if you remember anything from other stories in the universe. Thankfully I’m not that invested, and don’t see all the flaws as I’m watching.
I've been doing this. Slowly but surely, cutting it all out.
After 20+ years on the Internet, I've finally had my fill of other people's opinions on the media I like. Making a conscious effort to cut it all out has done wonders.
My wife and I went into The Northman blind, and we honestly loved the experience. I don't give a shit whether or not it's realistic or historical accurate on any front. It was like John Wick with Norse mythology. Just an intense and barbaric ride from start to finish. I was genuinely surprised to learn how universally disliked it was. But people are out there buying tickets to 9 Fast 9 Furious 9, so I don't exactly value the reviews of opinions of strangers.
I know people who swear The Prestige is the worst movie they've ever seen, one person said they turned it off half an hour in because "nothing made any sense"
But you better believe they praise every MCU movie like it's Shawshank Redemption.
There are plenty of movies I love but will readily admit they're garbage. Like Evolution. Hot garbage but I love every second of its shiny, flake-free existence.
I feel very strongly about hating the Prestige, but only because of the ending. I spent the whole final act thinking "oh, he's not actually cloning himself, he's just making it look like he is so that he can get back at his rival." That's what the message throughout the movie seemed to be, that you can make normal things look like magic. Kept waiting for that final twist, only to find that actually yes, Jackman's character was using real magic. It felt like a cheap shot that a movie about rival stage magicians had to resort to fantasy magic in the end.
And this is why I only really care what critics think. Maybe that makes me pretentious or a movie snob, but fuck it. I like paying attention and analyzing movies (along with books, music, video games, etc.), and IMO, the average viewer can't handle being asked to think about anything with more depth than a bird bath. On the other hand, 90% of the people that are paid to put a little critical thought into their media consumption reviewed The Northman positively, and I agree with them. It was fucking great, and I don't care what the unwashed masses think.
When critics and audiences agree, I generally know I'm in for an enjoyable experience, but probably nothing too great. But when critics love it and audiences don't, I get excited.
The Northman is an excellent film experience. A very unique film and an interesting take on the original tale that Hamlet is based on.
I've had the opposite problem.
Take... Interstellar. I watched it. It was pretty and great around track. But the science, plot, and interactions were pretty awful.
Little did I know that for the rest of human time I would be reading about what a Master piece it is and that the internet just can't get enough interstellar.
Sometimes I wonder if there's another movie with the same name. Because I can't believe I'm the only one with a working logic center who watched this movie.
I think the music is incredible and the story itself was amazing... but the whole film is a slow trudge to get to its point. I wish it had more substance instead of just dragging us along on sidequests to get to the climax.
When Anne Hathaway's character started going off about love being the most powerful thing in the universe or something, I started tuning out. You have all these scientists, supposedly logical and rational people, who are fighting to save humanity from extinction, and you wanna trust in an emotional concept like love to guide you?! Nope, credibility revoked.
If memory serves, I think her argument was to save a loved one who was sent on a potentially suicidal mission by himself to another planet. Instead of picking a logical course to a planet that might be good for humanity, she wanted to go after her lover and save him. Which might doom humanity.
I agree that the "love" argument was poorly stated, and framed in a stupid way (as a force, really?).
But I think it ultimately makes sense, in a Richard Dawkins' Selfish Gene kind of way. Our species has strong pro-social tendencies, where we are willing to put in huge amounts of labor, resources, and sacrifice for loved ones. In the aggregate, across large populations, that can add up to some pretty powerful emergent group behavior that adds up to something that is difficult to model through its individual components. Our species has done some amazing things, and will probably continue to do amazing things, motivated by a bunch of emotions that include what we call "love."
I thought it was a pretty good mid-season episode of TNG.
My wife and I walked out of the first iron man movie. It was so stupid and cheesy. 1 gazillion dollar franchise later, I still don’t get it. People had fun with those movies and I’m glad for that.
Felt similar when a girl I was seeing in college dragged me to Ant Man. Afterward, the entire group of people we went with were raving about how good it was,am and I was left wondering if we all saw the same movie.
I thought the first one was entertaining and pretty good. The ones that follow are very bad though, and still massively popular. They get so stupid that I just can't suspend disbelief any more, and have to turn them off.
I loved this movie when it came out, but you're right, there isn't much worth in it if you think about the plot or the science for more than 2 seconds. Soundtrack is still one of my favorites, though. Last time I watched it, I was high as a kite, and that made it pretty enjoyable.
Emotionally, I think it does a great job. Logically, it's pretty stupid. The music, the effects, and the plot all work together to make you feel something, but the plot doesn't really make sense when you think about it at all. I don't think that should be a requirment. There are plenty of stories that do the same thing.
I think the issue is that it's sci-fi, which has a certain expectation of logic. The characters are all scientists, but then they just ditch logic. I think it took themes from another genre and put them into sci-fi and it did it fairly effectively. It's just the sci-fi is usually there to make you think, but Interstellar you're just supposed to feel and not think.
It is useless to read these review of movies that target certain market. People who love science fiction would glorify the movie, while other who don't care will not bother writing or thinking about it.
I went to see it in a theater, and left half way through it felt like a waste of time.
I had the same exact impression of it. It's so refreshing to see other people thinking the same of it.
Rotten tomatos had Interstellar listed as 70% fresh, the week it come out.
Thr "critics" called the characters half baked.
I was so stoked for that movie i ignored it. And im so glad I did.
But that is like your opinion man, I think the whole "love" thing is hot garbage. Nice pictures, garbage movie.
Better plot point than Gravity which starts off with a mysterious force of acceleration pulling the astronaut dude away.
I dont know how you feel this way. Tbh.
I can get some of the hate on the love travels thru time thing.
But come on. There was so many cool aspects to this movie. I think my favorite part is the shallow sea plant. Or the accurate black hole imagery.
Matt damons character is perfectly flawed.
The inside of the Tesseract!?!Please tell me another movie you do like so I can jugde you for it.
/s
Interstellar was the first thing I thought of too. I thought the reading of the poem was badass and fit in perfectly.
If there's a problem with Interstellar, it's not the characters, because the characters aren't really the point...
Ironically, I took that challenge when I first read the XKCD and found quite a few pretty quickly. It's either surprising how little people agree with each other OR how bad my movie tastes are :)
The hard parts are that post-2000 it was harder to find a <50 movie at all... and the fact you can't easily just grab a list of <50 movies after 2000 to read through and pick. In the 90's it's the opposite, since movies were so polarizing. Ace Ventura: Pet Detective sits at a freaking 48%. In fact, almost every movie I grew up loving is <50%... but then 2000 hits and it changes. I spent an hour and found a dozen back then, then moved on. But it's still so much easier to pick your favorite pre-2000 classic and find it's sitting well under 50%.
Easy, I genuinely love the Constantine movie.
Everybody else hates it because it's very different from the comics, oh no.
And it's 46% on rotten tomatoes.
I don't care what anyone says, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is one of the best movies of all time.
Wonderful movie. I always watch it when it comes on.
I agree. The visuals and the story itself are a fun love letter to analog film photography, right at that moment in history when digital replaced analog as the default form of artistic photography.
Maybe the movie you liked has a trans character or female hero and got review bombed
Well, as this is something that happens often with OP, the chances of that happening every time, and them not being aware of that seems pretty slim. Really weird, random, and oddly specific thing to suggest, though.
Well when the character makes sense or it really doesn't matter, it works. But when it's shoehorned in and there is that one scene where they tell their backstory or explain their identity and it's out of the blue and takes you out of the story at hand it's bad and really ruins the movie.
What you're saying is a good point, even if it's being downvoted to hell. The shoehorned is the difference between say:
Snape and Dumbledoore supposedly being gay lovers despite it not being hinted at even once in the entire film's chronology up to the point JKR said so.
Vs. Something like Modern Family where they came right out the door with Mitchell and Cameron being gay, and then used that as an actual story element throughout the series rather than just shoehorning it in to appeal to the LGBT crowd then never bringing it up again.
One feels like a tasteful, meaningful addition to the story, the other feels like a marketing gimmick.
I think you're being downvoted for this because, even if it's a good point in isolation, it's in the direction of "trans person bad", and thus indistinguishable from a transphobe adopting the point without believing it. You gotta include a few instances of "_____ did it really well. We need more like that." to balance it out.
I have the opposite problem. Everyone I know loves a movie, and I think it's shit. Looking at you, Donnie Darko.
Same problem, different movies I guess... Donnie Darko is a personal favorite.
Man I hated that movie and it felt so weird because I generally always have some sort of consensus with movies, but everyone enjoyed Donnie Darko, except for me.
Know how I can tell you watched the Director's Cut?
I also have this disorder. The entire last 15 years has been really rough.
Alien? Masterpiece. Great audio, atmosphere, and tension, story, with realistic characters. I loved how Ripley wasn't the main focus out of the gate and gave time for the rest of the crew to be seen.
Aliens? Trash, garbage. I hated everything about it. Drivel. Okay audio, horrible cast, bad characters, stupid conclusion. Ripley went from "scared captain" to "Fuck you I'm an alien killing badass" fuck.
I don't normally shit on people for liking something, but to the people who enabled that trilogy to continue in the way it did...fuck you.
Random fun fact: in older titles Hungarian translators loved giving weird names to movies (probably though it was a bit generic), so they named the first Alien "The 8th passenger: Death", which is like kinda cool.
They probably though it was gonna be one off thing, so after they announced Aliens, translators were like, ok, what now. We cant name it the same, but still the audience need to know they are connected, so they double down, calling it "The name of planet: Death". not as cool but crisis averted.
So when Alien 3 is announced, they are like we are fucked, but its the end of the trilogy, so go big, final title: "The final solution: Death". (This has some wierd implications, but no more Alien movies, we can leave these namings behind.)
So Alien 4 get announced and they are finally like fuck it, we had enough of this shit, we just translate it literally. "Aliens 4: resurrection of Death"
After that, they drop transitions, like any, they release them with English title only. This has more to do with the gap between films and how the majority of sci-fi audience probably already know English, but its funny to think that the translators finally just gave up.
Post fun fact fun fact: you know those TV channels that play old dvd movies? They are stuck with these transitions. Ads on those are "Tune in for the classic hit horror movie, the 8th passenger, Death"
I'm one of the weirdos who likes Alien 3 better than Aliens.
Me with Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter
That movie is an absolute gem. He hates guns so much he insists on using an axe. But the axe is too weak, so he puts a gun in the haft. But he hates guns, so he puts a bayonet on it.
Heck yeah! That movie had one of the greatest preview trailers of all time; I couldn't believe my friends could see that trailer and still decline to watch the movie with me.
Broke: Wahhhh everyone hates the movie I liked. They are all wrong and stupid.
Woke: Yeah that movie was crap. I loved it!
People need to accept that a film can be entertaining without actually being good.
Street Fighter is my go to for this. It's objectively awful. Half the cast can't act for shit. The plot of a 2D arcade fighting game was never going to stand up to a cinema audience trapped with it for an hour and a half. But then Raul Julia shows up and old-school chews the scenery. He knows it's shit too, but by fuck he's going to make you enjoy it.
Why I enjoyed all Resident Evil films and Doom. Bad, but I don't care. It was fun for some reason and that's good enough for me.
I'm convinced if you don't love the sonic movies, you missed the whole point.
You can't make a good sonic film. It's a stupid concept with no nuance or reality, and has a plot of bad guy hates fast animal.
So someone made the movies so absurdly stupid that they're good again. I've been playing sonic since I was 3, from the original until now. The only thing I wanted from a sonic movie was unrelated product placement, ham fisted sensitive scenes, Jim Carrey doing whatever he fucking feels like, and forced olive garden.
The first movie legit gets one more star for every olive garden ad. Then the second cast fucking Idris Elba as knuckles and had a character referred to as the olive garden guy.
Absolute genius. It could never be great, so go for absurdism.
I love shoot em up, it's so bad, same style as kund fury. It's gold.
That's awful, stop liking it.
I'm very discerning with media in general, and it has to be worth my time if I'm going to watch it. I love movies you discover more in on every rewatch, and can get in to solid discussions about character motives or possible themes. But you have to know what you're getting into. Some movies are definitely just bad and not worth watching, but others have a goal and meet it.
I've had superhero fatigue since about 2005, but that being said, a friend wanted to watch Venom with me a few weeks ago. It's not a good movie, but I wasn't not entertained.
I have just learned to accept that if I enjoy the movie watching experience and feel it was worth my time, it doesn't really matter what others think. That doesn't detract from my enjoyment of the film in the slightest. I may be curious why people disagree though, at the very least.
Movies don't always have to be a slam dunk or a masterpiece. I watched the detective pikachu movie on edibles and had no clue what any of the plot was but I loved every minute because the visuals were stellar and something I'd wanted to see as a kid. The Ryan Reynolds shit had me mega confused lol
Even if I didn't like a movie, at least I have an experience to share (more applies to watching with someone else) and something to discuss and keep my mind occupied for a bit on something that is low-stakes at the end of the day.
Even if I absolutely do not like a movie at all, at least all I'm out on is a little time and maybe money; and maybe I can bitch to a friend if they've seen it.
Ratings in general are heavily biased. For example, critics have a very different point of view from most viewers. And even the typical non-critic who goes on sites to rate movies isn't the average viewer either. People like that tend to over-analyze every detail and try to look for a deeper meaning in the works. But that doesn't correlate with your enjoyment of something.
I hate how polarizing any show or movie is now, and how to so many people on the internet, if it's not a 10/10 masterpiece, it's "unwatchable garbage".
A guy on here told me Castlevania was "awful, unwatchable crap" eventhough it's an across the board good show, a solid 8. But since it wasn't exactly what he wanted, it's a zero to him.
It's so much easier to be critical than to put your neck out and say you like something. I think that's what leads to so many online communities being so negative.
There's also what I like to call the adversarial approach to media consumption. Instead of just watching something like a normal human being, a lot of people on the internet like to approach it as a competition between viewer and creator. Your goal is to dislike the thing, the creator's goal is to trick you into liking it. If you dislike things that others like, that just means you're better at the disliking things competition than them.
I think there are some movies where your first impression when you walk out of the theater is going to be very different than your impression once you've had a couple of days to think.
Speaking of divisive movies, for the people here who watched it, what's your honest assessment of "Babylon"? Just curious.
where your first impression when you walk out of the theater is going to be very different than your impression once you've had a couple of days to think.
Do people really do that? they are sleeping and then suddenly three days later they wake up at 4am like "wait a second, that movie sucked!"
Entertainment is not a competition.
It was when they were competing for time slots, but now in the age of on-demand streaming, there's really no such thing as "prime time."
not a movie, but a video game.
call of duty black ops 3. (no spoilers, in case anyone is still to play it.)during my playthrough i was like:
- start the game
- the flashing text before the mission is way too fast to read. let's record it and play it slowly. huh...intersting.
- this is weird... why is this exactly THAT way that it has never been done before and doesn't make sense to do that way in general?
- this is weird... why do they mention THIS exactly? is that a mcguffin/chekhov's gun?
- this is weird... funny that they display this character how they handle their specific, unusual situation...
- this is weird... the story starts to become awkwardly surrealistic...
- reach the finale... i know there's more to it but i took so long to finish the game that i forgot all the clues, so i don't QUITE understand the meaning
- insert some hours of googling/yt explanations, and there's the big "OOOOOOOH! that's a brilliant display of what's happening to the main character and how it's described in real life!"-moment.
- realization that everyone hates it either because they didnt understand what happened and think it's the most random thing ever or because they understood what happened and think it's lame. sadge.
The amount of times I've found absolute gems that have a 50% rating has caused me to go out of my way to watch them.
Some of them stink, but I feel like critics are like everyone else and some of them can be pretty dense
Also it's essentially impossible to aggregate subjectivity into a single rating, different people will get different things from the film. I'm sure there's stuff I've watched and loved through some combination of where my head is at at the time and perhaps not knowing tropes or "writing is bad because X".
A common mistake people make is that a site like rotten tomatoes has a different rating system.
If a movie gets 100 mildly positive reviews, it gets a 100% fresh rating.
If a movie gets 50 mildly negative reviews and 50 highly positive revies, it gets a 50% rating.
They just didn't have the budget to pay Rotten Tomatoes for rating manipulation like these blockbusters do.
You mean by bribing every single reviewing media Rotten Tomatoes uses in their score?
RT doesn't rate things, it just combines the score of every review they can find.
They can't be manipulated.
Rotten Tomatoes is one of the worst rating systems out there. I use IMDB, and even then I take ratings with a grain of salt.
Rotten Tomatoes just combines all the ratings they can get their hands on, they don't rate anything themselves.
And they have recently found to have paid fornsome reviews.
Me with Event Horizon lmao, I love that movie!!
I didn't even know people dislike Event Horizon. It's a great movie, not my fav, but definitely worth a watch.
It's effectively Hellraiser in space. What's not to like
I long ago swore off taking overall consensus as a good measure of anything. People are, in general, dumb, and that goes doubly so for anything that requires an iota of attention.
Also, letting other people decide for me what's good and what's not is just ridiculous. We can like what we like and that's fine.
This happened to me when recently watching white chicks. Is it a good movie ? No, but how fun it is. I laughed my ass off in front of it. It was absurd.
Sometimes you just want dumb humor that doesn't expect you to take it too seriously.
The typical experience when you like horror movies... When horror movies get even slightly a better rating, they are often called "Mystery Thriller" or something else, just to avoid the Horror tag. Because somehow it's the law with movie critics that horror must have low rating.
I actually enjoy reviews more when they disagree with me, sometimes I can even see where they are coming from (sometimes they kinda sound silly), but whatever they didn't like / did like is just not important for me.
but it kinda improves my movie experience, same feeling as when I go with friends to see a movie and we exchange opinions but when I watch them alone.
Very rarely a review has changed my opinion, but sometimes it showed me cool stuff, like the movie avatar tlab was "okay", but the bad reviews actually showed me how awesome the show was in comparison.
I have the opposite effect, popular movies seem bad to me, for the most part.
Sometimes hearing what other people think about a movie will give me a different perspective. Either better or worse.
fully agree, ratings don't seem to be jack to the actual movie content.
Not a movie, but for me this is Final Fantasy XIII and XIII-2. The music, locations, voice acting and UI (visual and audio) are fantastic, while the gameplay and story were okay enough to not drag it all down. I still listen to the soundtrack and think about how smooth the menus were.
Meanwhile to the FF fandom these games are Satan shitting down your neck
Haha! Yeah. Like you say, I am almost of the exact opposite opinion of you. The FFXIII games had some interesting and innovative game play wrapped in blisteringly inane characters and story in a world that makes no sense. We can at least agree on the music being awesome.
I've heard the same about FF XII back when it came out, which was the first one I ever played too. Now it seems more balanced and people appreciate it too.
I watched the american version of solaris without knowing anything about it and I really love it. Then I looked it up online and it seems many people hate that movie which kinda surprised me but whatever I still like that movie.
Also I love the Silent Hill movie.
The Silent Hill movie and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory are two movies I like that are always shit on when I see them mentioned. (Silent Hill Revelation was awful, though)
"Jon Snow and Ned Stark reunited! This should be great!”
It was not.
The first one is an absolute gem though.
Oh shit, there was a 2002 remake of Solaris! Now I know what I'm watching tonight.
Sounds like a lot of people didn't care for it.
It's not really a remake of the russian movie, it's just another interpretation of the book.
This happens to me a lot. I'll watch something and really enjoy it only to find out it got terrible reviews. It's really annoying because it usually means the series I like all get cancelled after a couple of seasons.
This was Mortal Kombat Annihilation for me. It's been listed as one of the worst movie ever but I absolutely enjoyed as a kid and I still do.
Office Space, Waterworld, Super Mario Bros., all legendary movies, none did well at the box office. I've got a running theory that anything Dennis Hopper is in has a significant chance to become a cult classic.
Waterworld is a god damn good movie and I'll happily die on that hill!
Super Mario Bros would have been regarded as a decent sci-fi if it didn't have the Super Mario name slapped on it.
Office space has my all time favourite subplot in a movie.
That ends my lunch break movie review.
Be kind, rewind.
I dont really watch movies because my attention span cannot focus on them, but all the books, all the video games, music, everything I'm into is everything that's considered bad. I try not to talk about pop culture because I'm completely ignorant about main stream stuff and I don't want to argue about why I like what I like. I hate being asked about myself because I spend most of my time with work and school and my very little free time reading, gaming and listening to music, but I don't want to talk about what I've been doing because I just don't want to defend myself or talk about why I like something. And even with some of the more popular stuff I like, I just want to enjoy it, I don't want to analyze it.
More power to you!
Not me, it's like my superpower. I can tell you if a movie is going to be a flop and panned by everyone within 15 seconds of watching the trailer.
Given that like 20% of movies are successful, simply saying that everything is going to be a flop would mean you have an 80% success rate
I remember seeing a "long-term rain forecast" scam several years ago based on that principle. They claimed to be able to tell you which days would be clear in the next 50 years with 90% accuracy, but carefully worded their pitch to not imply any accuracy for claiming what days it would rain. Because it rains about 10% of days on average, this claim is technically true regardless of the contents of the forecast.
Last Days on Mars was such a fun horror movie
The Flash (2023) was a good movie, and there's nothing you can say to change my mind.
That’s your opinion and that’s fine.
I’ll just ignore any and every recommendation you make.
Will it make you feel better if I say I didn't see it in theaters?
In high school, we had a movie review section in our student newspaper. The one time I read it was because they reviewed Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. They said it was awful and Carey was boring. Haven’t taken media reviews seriously since.
My wife said Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was an incredible film, and she made me watch it with her. I remember hating every minute of it and thinking it was an awful film. But that was nearly 2 decades ago; I'm actually interested in giving it another watch and seeing if I just didn't give it a proper chance the first time.
I’ll say it’s one of my favorite movies but I’ve never wanted to rewatch it. Maybe it’s weird but it feels appropriate to preserve it as a fond memory.
I watched Keanu on Netflix and I came away thinking yeah that was a cool light hearted silly movie. I went and checked and the reviews and left being like yeah that movie was pretty shit.
As a whole product, Its hard to tell how good media is in a contemporary sense. The more time passes, the more we know if it had that special existence.
Its also why I like internet reviews of older movies.
I was so relieved when I found out that everyone else hated Mute too.
Then so many people loved the leftovers.
That's how I felt about Reptile. I thought it was an incredibly innovative iteration on the crime thriller, one of the best movies I've seen this year, and I go on the Internet and the critical consensus is "bleh."
In a world where Rings of fucking Power got made, and has people actually supporting that debasement of Tolkien's legacy, does it really matter anymore?
Rejoice, friend, for nothing is sacred anymore…
This isn't a tweet from a white person
Often a sign of zero media literacy
If you mean the 80% groupthink fools sharing one braincell, then yeah. Being mad about "plot holes" that...aren't, or characters that have flaws, or because some incel, alt-right nutbag said they should be mad for Reasons™, or any number of other things that make movies actually interesting instead of one more cookie-cutter, by the book safe bet (while also complaining that there's no more originality anymore, yet only watch Blockbusters).
Exactly
Why are all white people called Xiao these days
