A Review of Reviews

Ah, Film Reviews.

You are my best friend and my worst enemy.
The source of countless debates, some of which I can't say I'm proud of (shakes head).

There are many positive aspects about film reviews.
And yet, for as many positive aspects, we have the negative aspects.

So to make this blog as simple and reader-friendly as possible,
I opt to break "Reviews" down into two basic categories:

A film getting mostly positive reviews,
and a film getting mostly negative reviews.

Let's start with the positive reviews, shall we?

Well a movie getting positive reviews is great right?

I mean let's say you head on over to RottenTomatoes.com (a review website which takes each film and uses a whole bunch of reviews from various credible sources and puts them on the same page, sorting out the "rotten" reviews and the "fresh" reviews, all adding up to a percentage out of a possible 100%. 60% and above is considered to be a "fresh" movie) once you're on the website you notice that you have a few options that are opening up this weekend, you have John Carter (standing at a 51% (rotten) ) and The Hunger Games (standing at a 85% (fresh) ), now both films are considered action movies.
Yet, according to the reviews, John Carter is considered the worst of the two movies.
Are you with me so far?

So if you care about the reviews, you're more likely to go with The Hunger Games if you're an action movie fan, right?

That leads us to one of two branches of "problems" within the positive review category.

Branch Number One: People who care about the reviews too much and will only see the movies with positive reviews.

These people annoy the crap out of me to be honest.
I mean, I understand not running to see A Thousand Words or Bucky Larson: Born To Be A Star.

But this continuous avenue of thinking has the potential to only box that person in in regard to their movie-going experience.

What if there's a movie that's getting okay reviews, or even, a movie that's getting bad reviews and that person passes that movie up solely because of the reviews?

And what if that movie had the entertainment value and emotional potential to make it one of that person's favorite movies ever?

They will never know...

...Because they stick to only what's safe, and can limit your opportunities to grow and experience things that might surprise you with how good they are!

I mentioned in a previous blog that I believe that movies, for the most part, are a very personal experience.
You're not always going to like what everyone else likes, and vice versa.

(For instance, I do not like The Godfather at all. I find that particular movie far too boring and there's nothing there for me to personally relate to. Yet it's considered one of the greatest films ever made.)

The point is to get out there and experience what you want to and what you like!
You don't have to listen to every critic to make a decision on what you're going to like!

...still with me?

And then there's Branch Number Two: The people who rebel against "the majority".

We all have a friend like this (shakes head again).

That person who likes everything that you don't like, and for the most part, doesn't like the things that you like. Suffice it to say, it can be very frustrating.

Especially when it comes to movies (for me, anyway)

Get enough people to say that a movie's great, and like the sun rising and setting, this branch of moviegoer WILL find the flaw that makes it a terrible movie.

Almost like they just want to purposefully stand out, and go against the crowd.

I mean, I get where you're coming from, I just feel like, you guys need to lighten up every once in a while.

Just because you like what another group likes doesn't mean you're giving into "the man",
it simply means you're stating a personal preference and admitting that you actually might like a movie that you claim is too "fill in the 'trying-to-sound-smart-but-not-pulling-it-off' word here".



So we've discussed the problems with the Positive Reviews (and hopefully I'm being as clear as I can be)
that just leaves the Negative Reviews.

That's a category that scares a lot of would-be-happy customers away, doesn't it?

"That movie is getting negative reviews!"

That's sort of the kiss of death for films in this age where technology
makes reviews so easily accessible (on our computers, apps to our phones).

This concept leads us to two branches of "problems" in the negative review category.


Branch Number One: The people who know that the reviews are god-awful and have heard every terrible thing you can think of about this movie, and still see it, only to end up being mad and/or angry that they saw that movie.

The readily-available technology doesn't pose a threat to some people,
they're going to see their movies no matter what the reviews say.

And if you're taking the path of not caring what the reviews say,
but following what you think will entertain you, than that's good.

BUT buyer beware: you're not going to like everything that you see. 


Working at a movie theater I get this all the time, and please understand that I'm completely honest when customers ask me what my opinion is of a movie.

If I think the movie is great, I'll tell them how much I liked it.
If I didn't like it at all, I'm going to tell them that, and I'm going to tell them why I didn't like it.

-- RANDOM INFO: Oh just for the record, if you work at a movie theater and someone comes up and asks about a specific movie title (i.e Ghost Rider 2, Skyline, etc.) instead of asking general questions like "what do you have playing?" or "how's this movie versus that movie?" No, if they come up and ask "hey how's that Twilight Breaking Dawn movie?" like if they already have the title picked out when they come up to ask you, they KNOW they want to see that movie. Nine times out of ten, they're just embarrassed to be seeing it, and they need a cover. And no matter what you say about that movie, you could say it's the worst piece of crap you've ever seen and a copy of its DVD is rumored to be playing on a loop as you enter Hell, nine times out of ten, they're gonna see it anyway. Just an interesting fact I've noticed. --

But no matter what people hear about a movie sometimes, they're gonna see it. It's almost like some kind of bizarre compulsion.
And they usually end up hating it.
What's interesting is it's almost kind of a tradition for some people it seems, they're just seeing bad movies all the time.
And they usually don't like them.

I feel like... hey maybe you shouldn't see crappy movies all the time, then maybe you won't be so disappointed? There's a thought.

But people don't generally listen to me (shakes head for a third time), so I just keep my mouth shut.


But when it comes to the subject of Negative Reviews,
Here's the other side of the coin:

Branch Number Two: The people that wouldn't touch a negative-reviewed movie with a ten-foot pole.

Now as I write down this problem, I'm feeling like one of the main issues with audiences is there isn't enough mediation when it comes to people's movie-going experiences. Either people are skewed one way or skewed the other, much like the people who review the films (that's an interesting thought).

This particularly negative branch ties back to the two branches in the positive review category.
Again, the prospect of technology being so readily accessible, really has the ability to scare the average person out of a seeing a movie that they might otherwise enjoy.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about:

There's a man named Harry Knowles and he runs the website Aintitcoolnews.com. He's a reviewer of movies. Now why is this man important when I'm talking about negative reviews you wonder?

Well this particular reviewer is pretty famous, and generally speaking he gets invited on to the sets for a lot of upcoming movies that are in production. And those movies that he gets invited to, he says are GREAT.
He loves them.
He'll find anything he can and pull it out and slap it on the table in favor of the movie.

But if he's denied access to visit the set, he finds a whole of bunch of problems with it.
He finds tons of things wrong with it, even if it is considered a classic, great movie, etc.

So here we have a professional Film Reviewer giving a movie a bad review NOT because it's a bad movie and he didn't like it. BUT because he's throwing a tantrum because he wasn't invited to the set of the movie.

The review of the film Inception was an issue of debate with a close friend of mine, and he brought the true actions of Harry Knowles to my attention. Which was actually the inspiration for this blog response. If you want to, check it out HERE.

His review of the film is like a big joke.
But he plays it off like it's a bad movie.
In actuality, he's simply taking out the fact that
Christopher Nolan (the director) didn't allow him to visit the set.
But he masks his contempt by simply saying that the movie was underwhelming and never really specifies why it made him so underwhelmed.
Essentially Mr. Knowles doesn't really have anything bad to say about it with the exception that there should have been more things being dreamed up..

That really bothers me that we live in a world where that kind of crap goes on, especially when with some people, seeing a movie with bad reviews is something that they just don't do. So to see a movie get bad reviews on something that really has NOTHING to do with the movie itself is disturbing and troublesome.




So in the end, after all the pros and cons of reviews it seems that just like the movies seem to polarize critics, reviews have the ability to polarize audiences.

Yet I firmly believe that you must think for yourself and see the movie that you want to see, yet understand that reviews can be helpful, as long as they don't become a crutch that's used to prevent you from expanding your horizons and trying new things and new opportunities.