Comments on: Why bother with Fanboy reviews?

By: jic

jic — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:30:03 +0000

Are you a member of Online Film Critics Society? The part of the above paragraph that I didn’t quote (because it was mainly repeating what you had just written) said:

Most critics from the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) enter their own quotes and ratings.

Which implies that non-members don’t.

By: cftoto

cftoto — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:20:49 +0000

Interesting … it’s lame that critics can’t be bothered to rate their own work. The whole process of adding a review to RT takes about a minute or less.

By: jic

jic — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 13:45:26 +0000

I contribute to RT and it’s up to me to decide whether a particular movie is fresh or rotten.

According to RT themselves, it's not always that simple:

For critics who don't enter in their own quotes and ratings, it's basically up to the judgment of the editors. They take into account word choice, rating (if any), tone, and who's the critic in their determination of whether a review is positive or not. If an editor is not certain about a review, it is sent to another editor for a second opinion. "Wishy-washy" reviews, reviews that are really difficult to determine if the critic recommends the film or not, are usually given a Rotten because if the critic is not confident enough to give the movie even an implied recommendation, then we shouldn't either.

By: cftoto

cftoto — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 13:37:21 +0000

I contribute to RT and it’s up to me to decide whether a particular movie is fresh or rotten. It’s not so simple … some movies are smart and ambitious but ultimately fail. So how do you grade that on an up-or-down scale?

By: jic

jic — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 11:45:48 +0000

RT describes their method here. I don't think their system actually works very well. It's not at all unusual to see mainly negative reviews labeled "fresh", and vise-versa. I find Metacritic much more consistent.

By: JohnFNWayne

JohnFNWayne — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 05:50:12 +0000

Question, who decides if a critic’s review at RT is rotten or fresh? Is it the critic themselves or some one pulling the lever?

By: Dave Taylor

Dave Taylor — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 04:55:37 +0000

My take: it’s the studios experimenting about how to game Rotten Tomatoes. Think about it: if that site aggregates lots of reviewers, coming up with a combined score, but the only reviews that are out are from people picked because they’ll skew high, then the studios can begin to gain control over RT.

Next up, my movie script on the subject…

By: cftoto

cftoto — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 03:31:40 +0000

PaulM, thanks for your candor. I think we all wanted “The Phantom Menace” to rock when we first saw it. It will age badly. Very badly.

By: PaulM

PaulM — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 22:04:02 +0000

I’m a fanboy and I thought I couldn’t have seen a worse movie this year than “Transformers 2″…..that changed last Friday at around 4:15PM EST.

I remember being part of the “Lucas’s Vision” crowd up until 2 years ago when I watched all the prequels in a row and realized what a great story but horrid execution can produce in a film.

I loved READING the prequel stories (except for the Midichlorian garbage)…but the execution on film when the action died down was HORRIBLE. No wonder Ewan McGreggor has distanced himself from the series.

By: kbiel

kbiel — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:08:52 +0000

It doesn’t help except to get those who already bought the midnight ticket to also buy tickets for a second screening and possibly drag along a reluctant friend or two because, “so and so said it was super cool!” If anyone who was not already predisposed to like this kind of thing takes the fanboy reviews seriously then they deserve the $30 hollywood/theater concession tax.