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Post by brotherandbassist on Dec 17, 2016 20:06:00 GMT -5
Last time I checked, the last registered user was "emperorpalpatine", which is just a troll account I made out of boredom. Hopefully the next time I log on, I'll look down and see a new name for most recent member.
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Post by BackinBlack on Dec 17, 2016 21:16:51 GMT -5
Just gonna butt in and say I WIN!
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Post by brotherandbassist on Dec 17, 2016 21:44:54 GMT -5
It's okay blacky. We'll kill ya later
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Post by Webber3000 on Dec 18, 2016 3:06:48 GMT -5
Just gonna butt in and say I WIN! Dammit man, you just had to show up the minute I logged off.
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Post by BackinBlack on Dec 18, 2016 10:12:43 GMT -5
Just gonna butt in and say I WIN! Dammit man, you just had to show up the minute I logged off.
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Post by mr. excellent on Dec 18, 2016 18:10:48 GMT -5
Anyone checked out Collateral Beauty's score on rotten tomatoes? Fourteen Percent. A lot of people are saying Smith is very good in it, but the film just hasn't hit with the critics. The audience score is 66%. I don't really pay attention to the audience score often enough to know if that's good or bad, but definitely sounds like people are split on it. I remember seeing the trailer, thinking something didn't feel totally right about it. Then on an episode of Collider Movie Talk, someone wrote in during their mail bag segment and asked if the movie was a giant hoax, like a prank or something. Watch the trailer again with that lens. It's amazing!
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Post by Webber3000 on Dec 18, 2016 18:28:29 GMT -5
I've only seen its trailer, and honestly it looks abysmal. To me, it comes across as a cheap Oscar bait relying on star power. The low rating came as no surprise to me. That said, I might be completely in the wrong, but I'm definitely not compelled to watch it.
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Post by brotherandbassist on Dec 18, 2016 20:11:48 GMT -5
Fan vote on RT is always higher than critic vote. I'm not sure about this movie in particular, but critics are really harsh towards movies in my opinion.
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Post by Webber3000 on Dec 18, 2016 20:44:59 GMT -5
That's not always true, but yeah, critics are usually harsher than regular moviegoers. There's several reasons that could explain that.
For one, critics don't only check out films they feel like watching. Rather, they watch most of all movies that come out. This means that they're rarely biased in the films' favour. Laypeople just watch what they wanna watch, and in this day and age, people usually know what they're getting into, so it's harder to be disappointed or dislike a film. On top of that, critics see many, many more movies that everybody else, meaning that they may notice some trends and call them out for their unoriginality, whereas everybody else might not notice and enjoy these things.
That said, critics are human too, and a film's quality is almost entirely subjective. Hell, it's not like they're one big entity: more often than not, they disagree among themselves. So it makes sense that the movies we like and dislike don't perfectly line-up with the tomatometer score. Although I never really liked any movie that was completely shit on by critics (say <20% on RT), some of my favourite films have mixed reviews, and some of my least favourite are praised by almost all of the professional movie reviewing body.
I have to say though, I trust the critics' score much more than I trust the audience's. Like I said earlier, people usually just watch what they want to see, and sometimes they want to like what they saw so bad that they'll convince themselves. Critics are forced to be more nuanced in their view. Personally, I use the score as a margin. Just because a film gets poor reviews, doesn't mean I won't go see it. In a world with so many options out there, it's kind of nice to have an indicator. Maybe my opinion won't be completely mine, and I try to avoid reading or watching any reviews before seeing any film for myself to remedy that, but I don't want to waste what little free time I have watching garbage. I'd rather some paid guinea pig do that for me, hence critics.
That's not even mentioning that the fact that critics may influence a film's financial success can imply that studios have incentive to make better movies. I don't know how accurate that statement is, but it definitely has some truth to it in some branches of the cinema industry.
I'm probably not teaching you anything, but I think it's always nice to remember the reason to critics' apparent harshness. They may unjustly punish some movies, but overall, I believe they're definitely a positive for the industry, generally pushing average movie quality up and helping us use our time more enjoyable.
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Post by brotherandbassist on Dec 18, 2016 21:04:44 GMT -5
I appreciate your post Webber, that was actually very informative and I learned a lot. I definitely agree with you on the "critic reviews leading to better movies" comment. I think there's definitely truth to that. I just wish the DCEU could realize that. Looking at you Suicide Squad! And BVS..... and honestly, probably Wonder Woman and Justice League too. Don't let us down!
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Post by BackinBlack on Dec 18, 2016 21:49:51 GMT -5
You're correct, Webber. What you said reminds me of an editorial Nostalgia Critic did earlier this year too.
On the topic of the DCEU, at least film by film: * Man of Steel's mixed reviews were understandable because it was such a departure from the other Superman films before. Hell, Superman Returns had a higher score with critics and it was trying to be like the Reeves films, but that didn't go entirely well with the audience, who still gave Man of Steel a higher score. * Batman v Superman, I still feel, got too much hate. Some of the problems it did have got rectified in the extended cut. * Suicide Squad probably did deserve its bad reception. I thought it was okay, but had a lot of problems that even the extended cut didn't really help. I still have hope for Wonder Woman and Justice League though.
If there's something else I've noticed about critics though this year, is that agendas do have a play in things. There's the whole DCEU conspiracy of critics going in with their minds up already, which may or may not be true, but that's a conversation that's been done to death. Let's look at another example: Ghostbusters. It was probably the most politically divisive film of the year, which is kind of ridiculous. The marketing pushed the sexist angle hard, going so far as to insult the audience, instead of addressing the legitimate problems pointed out. It ended up getting 75% on RT (last I checked), which makes it seem like some critics just wanted to show support for the female focused film rather than critique the film itself. Audiences however were not so kind, which lead to it being a box office flop. Another way to look at it is that critics don't always have an impact. That's an example of positive response from critics but not audiences. Then you have Transformers, which seem critic proof and make a billion every time. You'd think that by now in a post-Avengers cinema that audiences would be spending their money on better options. I don't know what I'll do if TF5 ends up winning the box office next year.
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Post by mr. excellent on Dec 18, 2016 22:19:03 GMT -5
I'd be okay with it. It's nice when the better movies win the B.O., but after the Pirates, the Shrek's and the other Transformers movies doing so well, I've become a little numb toward it... a little. It'd sting a little I suppose, but not too much.
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Post by brotherandbassist on Dec 18, 2016 22:20:51 GMT -5
I was honestly being half-way tongue and cheek, but I do agree to an extent. I didn't mention Man of Steel in my previous post because I actually liked it. It's one of my top ten favorite superhero movies actually. I initially gave Batman vs. Superman an 8.5 out of 10, but I've since changed my mind and feel like it's more of a 7.5. I initially gave Suicide Squad a 7 and a half, but I think I'd go as far to demote it to a 6 or 6.5. The reason my ratings changed was just reflecting on the lack of good story telling and lack of character development. It's easy to hype up the rating when you go home thinking about all the cool action in the car ride, but cool action just doesn't stick when you go back to re-watch it and the story sucks. Same goes for Transformers. It's easy to "ooh" and "ah" at the epic CGI, but then when you buy it on DVD you're like, "Wait, why did I buy this? I'll just give this to my 11 year old nephew, he'll like it."
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Post by mr. excellent on Dec 22, 2016 2:16:41 GMT -5
Anyone ever read that Marvel Knights limited series "Spider-man & Wolverine"? It was written back in 2003 and spanned 4 issues. In it, we see Spider-man picked up by Nick Fury and sent on a special mission to extract Wolverine from a tight spot. Fury needed both of them for this super secret mission that I won't spoil. It's a fun book. I feel that Peter is written a little uncharacteristically... sprung. It doesn't ruin the book for me, it was just sort of weird. It's actually one of the first comics I've ever read, but at the time I knew very little about both characters' outside of the movies.
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Post by brotherandbassist on Dec 23, 2016 18:58:16 GMT -5
I don't recall ever reading it, but I do own a handful of Spider-Man's stand alone Marvel Knights issues. Do you guys remember a weird storyline called Spider-Man Reign?
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