EPISODE 373: AUDIENCE/CRITIC OVERLAP
In this episode, Tyler and David discuss Benjamin Moore’s recent graph, charting overlap between critic and user ratings.
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In this episode, Tyler and David discuss Benjamin Moore’s recent graph, charting overlap between critic and user ratings.
Tags: battleship pretensioncriticsdavid baxrotten tomatoestyler smith
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The Woody Allen film you’re thinking of is, I think, Manhattan rather than Annie Hall.
Allen doesn’t like the film because he thinks his script is “too preachy”.
The rumour is he even asked the studio to not release it and would do another film for free in return.
It just goes to show the difference between audience and director’s intention, as I believe it’s his best film and it’s greatly beloved.
I don’t watch the Daily Show, but I can attest that Colbert is really good. I feel like both of you would like him.
Through 3 episodes, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver has been pretty good. He hits both sides pretty hard. It’s also interesting to see the comedy news desk show set in HBO, as they can push the envelope a little more – if you’ve seen the fake political ads on last night’s episode, you can attest to that. At this point, that is enough to differentiate itself.
I’m surprised how much you guys skirted a big issue with this entire thing; the people who vote for films on IMDB are a completely unreliable, and ultimately, pointless source.
The reason films like Step Up have higher user ratings than critic ratings is because the people who vote on IMDB are mostly going to be made up of people who like those films and don’t think about them in a critical capacity (13-year-old girls?). You guys sort of touched on this, but I think you all are giving far too much credit to the IMDB ratings in general. Take, for example, the older demographic of film goers. I’m sure not many people over the age of 40-ish sit around rating movies on IMDB and they made up 48% of the movie going audience last year according to the MPAA (link at bottom).
Bottom line, the IMDB rating is almost completely useless. I read an article linked to from slashfilm just a couple days ago talking about the lowest rated film right now which is a Bollywood movie that had a smear campaign against it and 40,000 people got online and gave it zero star ratings yet it has plenty of positive reviews. This is a special case, but it signifies the fact that IMDB is crap.
Also, I hate Babe.
http://www.mpaa.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/MPAA-Theatrical-Market-Statistics-2013_032514-v2.pdf
Obviously, the thing is unscientific but the whole point is that the IMDB rating comes from people who saw the movie and are likely to like it. Those are the people who are often the diametric opposite of the critics, at least when it comes to movies like Step Up.
– David
I don’t even think it’s just niche audience films like Step Up. Check out this weeks top box office list at Rotten Tomatoes. There are 2 fresh films and they are both well liked by audiences and critics (one is Neighbors, 😀 ). Of the remaining 8 films, the smallest gap is 18% difference between audience and critic opinion. I guess “normal” people are pretty forgiving of a films flaws?
I think a more interesting conversation would be comparing fresh films only because so many rotten films seem to fall into niche audiences or genres. I can’t even imagine what kind of conclusion could be drawn by comparing fresh films only.
I’ve spent far more time thinking about this than I thought I would and the only personal conclusion I’ve come to is that I’m still angry that The Shawshank Redemption is at the top of the IMDB list… but at least it’s not The Dark Knight.
If you think IMDB is worthless why the fuck do you care what’s at the top of the list? Don’t contradict yourself in only two posts.