Critic reviews are prescriptive: what they think the masses should watch.
User reviews are retrospective: how much did they actually enjoy watching the movie.
I think there has always been a fundamental disconnect, in that critics think the masses should be watching 'smarter', 'more artistic' or, less flatteringly, more pretentious movies.
The world has become a lot more political over the past couple decades. I wouldn't be surprised if critics are trying to be increasingly prescriptive, using their review to try to change the modern zeitgeist.
I think a very interesting graph would be so see to what extent critics prescriptions are accurately forward-looking to viewer attitudes.
More interesting further research could be:
For movies that came out before 2010 where the user rating diverged from critic rating by more than 10%, are user ratings which were rated after 2015 in the same direction as the critic's divergence? There are certainly movies that I enjoyed as a teenager, but cringe watching today: were critics at the time cringing in the same way, ahead of the masses? Or are critics just in a pretentious bubble that is not predictive of societal evolution?
I disagree that critic reviews are inherently prescriptive. Major blockbusters rely on cliches for the same reason that supermarket chains spend ridiculous amounts of money trying to get every store to look and feel the same: people find familiarity comforting. But to people who watch thousands upon thousands of movies this gets astoundingly boring.
Take any hobby. Literally any one of them. The people who are really into it, whatever you are thinking about, will prefer different stuff from what casual fans like.
Why do people die from erotic self-asphyxiation? Because we have a compulsion to escalate and to push things further. We need novelty. We need new stuff. We go mad if it's just the same thing over and over. At least that's true for most of us. Not everyone takes it all that far, but when you invest a significant amount of time doing one thing in particular, you're always going to want to take it to greater heights.
And that's the thing about critic reviews: they represent movie fans suffering from the cinematic equivalent of erotic self-asphyxiation. Old, tired cliches and predictable plots? No. They want something they haven't seen before. Art movies are incredibly weird, and film critics love them.
Imagine your job is rating beers. And you think pilsners are fine but super boring. But people get incredibly mad at you for dissing their favorite pilsners, and they think you're a pretentious snob for recommending imperial stouts. And they want you to give super-high ratings to ... run of the mill pilsners. That's what I imagine it's like being a film critic.
> But to people who watch thousands upon thousands of movies this gets astoundingly boring.
I would say that there's so many different ways to appreciate films, so many different types of audiences, and such wildly different intentions behind the films and the critics who write about them. It seems reductive and a bit misguided, to me, for someone to write an article about the divergence between metascore and imdb ratings. It's comparing two gigantic blobs of scores and drawing straight lines through them. Does it actually say anything interesting? No in my opinion.
I mean, sure, the films with super-high metacritic scores are worth watching. They're a part of "the canon"-- although for the life of me I could never get through Citizen Kane. But a metacritic score is worth about as much as an imdb score. It's a blunt measurement.
The value of a well written review has little to do with "the score". Many include "a score" because they're forced to, but it's so much better to just pay attention to what the critic is actually saying in the review. It might speak to you if you're in the right headspace, and provide some insight into the film that you hadn't considered. They're typically more valuable to read AFTER you've seen the film. But if you find a writer you grok, you'll get some threads to pull on that will open up all kinds of film experiences you would have never had.
The value of an audience score is garbage, by itself, without any recommendation algorithm to match up your viewing habits and limit the pool of films presented to you. Even then, the high-scores mean almost nothing though the bottom-of-the-barrel low ones usually can be trusted to actually be bad.
If I am getting your point, you are basically positing that critics are inherently disconnected for different reasons and we should see them as some fringe freaks more than anything ?
PS: to put it out there, there’s people working at beer makers tasting beer samples every single day to check it is exactly the right taste. Ideally every day it has the same taste, if it differs they’ll do what’s needed to bring it back in line. That for decades in some companies. These people exist in spaces.
> Why do people die from erotic self-asphyxiation? Because we have a compulsion to escalate and to push things further. We need novelty. We need new stuff. We go mad if it's just the same thing over and over. At least that's true for most of us. Not everyone takes it all that far, but when you invest a significant amount of time doing one thing in particular, you're always going to want to take it to greater heights.
> And that's the thing about critic reviews: they represent movie fans suffering from the cinematic equivalent of erotic self-asphyxiation. Old, tired cliches and predictable plots? No. They want something they haven't seen before. Art movies are incredibly weird, and film critics love them.
I think thismisunderstands art movies, film critics, and art in general (though there are exceptions). As someone who has learned to understand arts on very roughly that level, including film (an 'admission' that always gets a negative reaction!) it's not that you want more and different, like a hit of heroin, it's that your perception changes and you see things that you didn't see before. I first saw Richard III when I was in high school and let's say I didn't love it! I saw it more recently and it was mind-blowing; it soared to heights I didn't imagine, one after the other (though not a happy story way!). It was the same play - I wasn't getting something more or new - I just perceived so much more, from the language to the characters to the insights to the virtuoso writing. That change in perception is fundamental human perception and applies to anything in which we gain experience and expertise.
When you first drink wine, you cannot distinguish much between different bottles. You literally cannot taste all the flavors, see the colors, and perceive the other sensations that someone with more experience and expertise can. I'm sure you experience it with your profession or hobbies. If you sail boats, you perceive things that beginning sailors do not - and not meaningless things, but things that have a real impact. The same with reviewing code, UX, automobile engines, audio speaker sound, athletic performance, etc. etc. - whatever you have a developed perception of.
Human perception is far more than sensory input; what you 'see' is processed through your brain, including neurons that change based on usage and training, and also through your experience - you recognize your family on a perceptual level, for example (afaik).
The generic, quality critic sees things that you and I don't. I try to learn to see those things too, because when I do, they can be wonders. Just like wine tastes even better, car engines are far more moving, etc. when you develop that perception, so do the experiences of films, paintings, theater - I see colors (metaphorically, but literally sometimes) that I didn't earlier in life, so beautiful I didn't imagine they existed.
'Art films' sometimes cater to more developed perceptions and ignore others, which can make them seem wierd - there is (usually) something there to see, I promise (there are superficial genre art films, as with everything else). It's also true that you appreciate different innovations, such as a film that uses an old technique in an ingenius and powerful way, which you wouldn't notice if you didn't know about the technique, which is somewhat about finding something new, as you say.
I don't want a critic to tell me what I SHOULD be watching. I rely on them to tell me what I will like. I can't watch every movie, the movie critic is meant to be a filter.
Historically movie critics judged a film based on its relative value. That's why you see a positive review on a cheesy rom-com and a negative review on a more ambitious flawed work of art. The rom-com review is viewed in the context of other rom-coms. For a positive review, it's saying "if you like rom-coms and their premise, this rom-com is good". I want it to be more prescriptive to what I will actually think when I watch the movie.
Most people use movie reviews to tell them whether they'll like a movie given its genre. That's why people say "I trust this person's reviews". They mean if the critic says the movie is worth watching and I decide to watch it, I will not be disappointed
But telling a person what they will like is a much more personalized endeavor suited for automated recommendation systems.
Any random person could like objectively bad movies.
But a critic can only recommend things objectively good. That means they can only try to filter out good movies, which are movies you should watch but may not like because your tastes are not objectively universal.
I'm a film major. I wrote about film on print for quite a while. This was not in the US. I did want to prescribe, but not to the masses. To other crítics, to the pedantic purists that thought Bruce Lee was unimportant and Spielberg formulaic and uninspired, and that unless your name is David Lynch anything American is worse by default. People who thought anything with emotion was trash for the masses. And I was there, at the newspaper, saying *no*, romcoms can be of value, there's an artform to the action movie, the screwball comedy, and every genre film. I'm really proud of my time as a critic.
Nowadays I see everyone shitting on super heroes and remakes, they're easy targets to make people think that you're distinguished. Complain about sequels and reboots, and I say "Shakespeare is remade 100 times a year, a remake, reboot or whatever is always an artistic reconstruction that says a lot about its time, it's history, it's socioeconomic context. By studying the multiple versions of a story, we understand ourselves".
Many critics are just sad elitists because now they must share the cultural zeitgeist with everyone else, when even Roger Ebert, when you read his reviews, was historically a lot more open and fair than many of his admirers today.
That’s an interesting take on the remake I hadn’t considered before. But as someone without an artsy bone in my body, I wish something other than superhero movies could be made
God I miss Ebert. It's not that I agreed with him always. It's that I knew where he stood, and I found his writing entertaining. As my familiarity of him grew over the years (decades!), I could accurately guess whether or not I would like a movie based on his review, whether he liked it or not. He's been hard to replace for me.
I saw "Enter the Dragon" as a teen and liked it a lot. I rewatched it recently and had a hard time thinking of anything good about it :-/
I've turned into my dad. As a teen, I begged him to see a movie I thought was great. We went to see it, and on the way out I was like "well? what do you think?" He thought for a while, and came up with a rather lame compliment he'd obviously struggled to come up with.
In my experience yes, critics were cringing over the "bad" movies you liked as a child. I don't think anything has changed, or that there is anything wrong with that.
Critics are paid to watch as many movies a possible, even ones they think they will hate (but obviously should keep an open mind). An average movie goer doesn't deliberately watch a movie they won't like, so there is already a disconnect.
With the internet amplifying fan culture critics are more likely to be seen as "wrong".
Part of a critic's job is to educate people. A good critic can explain why a certain film is groundbreaking and why another film is recycling ideas that have been done thousands of times. The critic's end-goal is to push the industry to make better films not because of critics, but because the public demands it.
Good critics aren't 'prescriptive'. They are scholars of various media who elucidate where a new piece of work sits with in an artist's oeuvre, or the larger canon that the work is contributing to.
While some self-anointed blogger critics might have certain ideas about what they wish an audience would watch, an actual critic's (broadsheet paper, industry trade) only job is to contextualise a work in the larger bodies of genre, medium, and culture.
> User reviews are retrospective: how much did they actually enjoy watching the movie.
How can ANY review not be 'retrospective'? In fact, probably the majority of film criticism speaks to how much or little the critic enjoyed a film. Pauline Kael (probably the most incisive and celebrated American critic in film history) built a legacy based pretty much on how much she much she enjoyed the film.
> I think a very interesting graph would be so see to what extent critics prescriptions are accurately forward-looking to viewer attitudes.
Why do critics and audiences have to have the same opinions? I this is the fundamental misunderstanding and wonky premise of the article.
> Critic reviews are prescriptive: what they think the masses should watch.
Who writes like that? Could you provide an example? I haven't seen it, having read many, many critics, including in sophisticated reviews like the New Yorker, Film Comment, and the NY Times.
> Critic reviews are prescriptive: what they think the masses should watch.
I think this really depends on the critics. Lots of critics never explicitly articulate a philosophy—or, if they do, I don't bother to seek it out—but, for one notable example, Roger Ebert explicitly subscribed to the philosophy that you should review a movie based on whether it achieves its goals, not on whether its goals are the same as your goals.
Film critic reviews are the Hacker News of the film world: nerds nerding out.
I once went out with a woman who was highly steeped in film criticism and such. I think she volunteered as dramaturg at a theater company or something like that. We watched "I'm Thinking of Ending Things" together, and I thought it was the most dismal, dispiriting, horrible movie I'd ever seen. Afterward she opened my eyes to how a critic would interpret it, the symbolism, the cultural currents, etc. I hadn't picked up on any of that. I still hate that movie. But I guess I can see a bit better how, if you're in on it, it can be fun to pick things apart in that certain way. It's like a secret language that only you and a few others speak. There's nothing quite like speaking your native tongue when living in a foreign land.
I think a lot of the professional critics are like that. We don't speak their secret language. We commoners are the foreign land they must survive in. They're having a conversation among themselves. It's not for us.
This is giving me some flashbacks to starting a course at college on Film Studies. I left after a few weeks, the constant over analysis was too much. Let me enjoy (or hate) the movie is please. It does seem weird to me that the creatives involved would put so much effort into things that the bulk of the population won't interpret.
The people rating movies on IMDB are not average audience members though. They are movie geeks and enthusiasts. But compared to professional critics, there is a significant difference because they still pre-select moves to watch based what they think they will enjoy. A movie enthusiast might have seen all science-fiction movies in existence but never a french new-wave movie. The professional critic on the other hand will watch a broader range of different movies, and probably a lot more older movies.
Younger people goes a lot more to the movies, so the average critic will probably be notably older than then average movie audience member.
Critics tend to be negative towards remakes because "this is unnecessary, the original was better". But most in the audience haven't seen the original so it doesn't matter to them.
Critics tend to hate formulaic and derivative movies, but for the audience it is not that bad, they haven't seen the formula enough time to get bored by it. Fans loved The Force Awakens because it was exactly the same formula as the original Star Wars. Critics were less enthusiastic.
Critics tend to value originality more than the average audience. Hollywood have always been formulaic and rehashed old ideas, but they have still been able to make great movies. But the current movies relies on franchises to a larger extent, and the franchises put hard constraints on the amount of originality and character development which can be allowed.
IMDB and RT scores cannot really be compared since they're measuring two fundamentally different things. Movie that everybody gave a 7/10 would have an RT score of 100% and an IMDB score of 7.0. Also RT scores are mostly based on reviews written shortly after the release of a movie, while IMDB scores keeps getting updated over time. For movies that come out with a burst of enthusiasm and then lose their luster on repeat viewings and closer analysis, IMDB score tend to drift downwards with time.
There's an interesting concept with user reviews, in that they're inherently OF the people, whereas critical reviews are FOR the people.
In a way, critical reviews are like celebrity chef cookbooks in that they should be considered aspirational. What we HOPE to be watching to please our senses of austerity, versus the pulp trash we might actually prefer to be watching.
Similarly, sure, we might WISH we were making / eating boeuf en croute regularly, but if you go to a recipe site, the highest rated reviews is more likely to be chicken soup, or something more accessible / makeable on a weeknight.
It's always fun to review Plex and routinely see <95% critic ratings, 25% user ratings> or vice versa, but the deltas are more often closer than not.
I don't know if I have a point to make here other than to point out that there's utility in noting the distinctions between aspirational and practical, and that serious critics have always given off a vibe of divorcing themselves from the practical, preferring arthouse to action, and in both arenas, Julia Childs-esque figures that can bridge the gap between the aspirational and the practical are extremely rare.
Essentially that what we talk about liking and what the general population actually like are very different.
They interviewed this woman, who as an art student learned all about 'high art' and 'low art' and in a moment of loss of inspiration went back to using some low art she appreciated as inspirationn:
I've done this analysis for games. My theory was that the correlation was falling because the ratings of old games were dominated by players playing old games now and then rating them, and they were more likely to play games for which there is already a consensus that they are good (old bad games are mostly just forgotten). Whereas for current games the games being played are more random.
also consider the fact that you might have a 40 year old reviewing videogames when the target audience is like 4 years old. my kid and the typical video game reviewer probably have different opinions about the latest paw patrol game.
If you're 40 years old, you need to be able to consume any kind of media and then place yourself into the mindset of a younger person and judge it from that mindset - because you used to be that younger person.
Truly exceptional media is good enough to transcend the age barrier and is enjoyable for everyone, e.g., The Incredibles is enjoyable for young kids because it's a cartoon and it's flashy and exciting, it's enjoyable for young boys who want to be the "best" at a sport, it's enjoyable for girls transitioning to puberty because of Violet's storyline, it's enjoyable for men who have lost some of their steam and can relate to Mr. Incredible, and it's enjoyable for women because of the struggles Elastigirl has as a mother and a homemaker. Even Syndrome is shown as a sympathetic villain who is evil not because he is a bad person, but because he was dismissed and ignored by his idol. There are plenty of people who can relate to that.
Ghostbusters (1984) is another expertly crafted movie that is fun for kids, but well-written enough to be incredibly enjoyable for adults.
When my young cousins or my nephew corral me into playing a game with them, I'm not playing it from my 41-year old perspective, I'm playing it through their eyes.
If you can't do that, then don't review content. Content always has a specific audience. Really great content can weave together enough bits to at least satisfy every audience. Exceptional content manages to speak deeply to every audience. I still feel that's why The Incredibles is one of the best movies ever made. The struggles shown in that movie are relatable for every single person on the planet.
Another part of that is that it seems like critics play a lot more games than the average consumer (or, at least, me) does and may get burnt out easier.
Most reviewers I watched heading into Horizon: Forbidden West said that it was just "more of the same". But I didn't play the most recent Far Cry or Assassin's Creed or whatever else they were comparing to. It was fresher for me playing though it than it was for them, constantly comparing.
I had a run of games a while back that were next to unplayable for the first 6 months while the bugs got ironed out and the patches got patched. Now I just wait 6 months or so (bonus - they're generally heavily discounted by then, haha) - if games critics are reviewing new releases but gamers reviews come in over the lifetime of the game, they're kind of reviewing two different products and it would make sense if critics' reviews were harsher.
Huh, have critics ever been in sync with audiences?
For my whole life, I've learned and then observed that critics evaluate primarily the cinematic quality of a film, i.e. does the film as a piece of art work as a whole when considering acting, directing, screenwriting... This is generally a different axis from entertainment which is what people often care about when looking for something to see.
If a critic likes a film it's because it is good cinema. If you're in the film-watching mood you would likely appreciate that film if it has high critical scores. But if you want something easy or you want to see a guaranteed uplifting film with your friends before going out to a pub round, you want entertainment and then you don't want to look at the critics scores.
You might want to infer something from the review text because often critics do tell you if the film is entertaining and a good watch. The film still got 1 star out of 5 because it was not good cinema.
> I've learned and then observed that critics evaluate primarily the cinematic quality of a film, i.e. does the film as a piece of art work as a whole when considering acting, directing, screenwriting... This is generally a different axis from entertainment which is what people often care about when looking for something to see.
IME and IMHO, the former has a great effect on the latter; that's why people, including critics, care about it. The qualities are what make the movie engaging, moving, exciting, etc. In UX, users may not understand how it is done but the UX design still impacts them significantly; UX designers can tell you what is making that impact and how.
I think there was a smaller gap in a few respects.
Firstly I think the film industry as a whole has polarized into "art" and "entertainment" films with too little crossover. Films can and should be artful and entertaining.
Secondly I think critics have become too polarized to criticize films as being "low-effort" or "low-value" entertainment films. There's a reason why people go see blockbusters, they enjoy them!
Finally, I think unfortunately some audiences too quickly dismiss some films as "too artsy" or "too intelligent" or "not wanting to think." There's a lot of fun movies out there which don't fit into normal boxes!
Sadly I don't really see that gap closing. I agree with someone in another thread which said that there's much better and more varied content on "TV" (streaming/etc) in medium-form series. Give me a great limited-run series like the queen's gambit any day! it's the perfect intersection of artsy and fun and high brow and low brow!
It's clear that audiences - and you can read this as "people who like movies and are willing to leave a review" - and critics are miles apart. This prompts the common retort: "so what?" I continue to argue that the purpose of movie critics, for many decades, has been to tell the broad audience if they will like the movie. That's it. It has not been to, for example, critically deconstruct the abstract themes of power dynamics in inequitable social system. This kind of analysis appeals to a small minority of viewers. It has its place, but it should not be the majority of critics using this kind of lens, which it is.
This leads us to today, where critic reviews are functionally useless for the broad audience. Said movie minority are of course very happy with the entire critic industry catering to their needs, and they argue vociferously to keep it this way, using all kinds of condescending arguments about our lack of culture and refinement. Sometimes I just want to see cool explosions and fight scenes, and there's nothing wrong with that.
The movies you listed fail in a different way. There are plenty of explosions and fight scenes in The Last Jedi and Captain Marvel. What they do share is that the main character is an underdeveloped Mary Sue, without character flaws, without weaknesses they must overcome. They're just made awesome from the start. It probably stems from the inability of current Hollywood to portray female characters as having any weaknesses at all, that would be heresy. The result is that it's hard to empathize with and care about the main character. They don't have any dimensionality.
Of the ones you listed I watched The Last Jedi and Captain Marvel. I know what I wrote is also true for Mulan thanks to friends who watched it and the Critical Drinker. He has a couple good films on YouTube actually demonstrating this aspect of modern films:
>What they do share is that the main character is an underdeveloped Mary Sue, without character flaws, without weaknesses they must overcome. They're just made awesome from the start. It probably stems from the inability of current Hollywood to portray female characters as having any weaknesses at all, that would be heresy. The result is that it's hard to empathize with and care about the main character. They don't have any dimensionality.
I agree. This seems obvious. So why can't these sophisticated critics see this and rate the movie accordingly? They're obviously using a completely different set of criteria to rate movies, and entertainment is far down the list.
The Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker both have the same main character. But the difference critic/audience ratings are stark. Critics rate The Last Jedi significantly higher than the audience average, while they rate Rise of Skywalker significantly lower.
The difference is not in the main character, the difference is in how the movies relate to the established conventions of the franchise.
> What they do share is that the main character is an underdeveloped Mary Sue, without character flaws, without weaknesses they must overcome.
Regarding Rey in context of The Last Jedi, did we watch the same movie? She was basically a mixture of having doubt and uncertainty and being troubled for the large part of the movie. Only in the confrontation with Kylo, we see her inner strength but even that was tempered with her vulnerability - its not like she vanquished Kylo with a smirk.
> This leads us to today, where critic reviews are functionally useless for the broad audience
This is rather over the top, since the article clearly shows reviews and audience ratings does correlate, especially towards the top.
But it is always interesting with movies where the difference of opinion is starkest.
Note that the "audience ratings" does not always correlate with the average audience. Especially with divisive movies like TLJ or the Ghostbusters reboot, disgruntled fans run campaigns to get the score down. TLJ is still one of the highest grossing movies in history, so the audience rating putting it significantly lower than say John Carter or Snakes on a Plane is clearly not representative of the general movie going audience.
They haven’t sufficiently demonstrated correlation for me. I think the last chart demonstrates it’s a lot more complicated. Just one example… How many obscure art films are there with highly-selective audiences which receive perfect critical scores and perfect audience scores that mostly serve to add bias to the correlation? The movies we’re responding to- which could easily be a list of movies many average joes “care about”- shows negative correlation.
Part of the problems critics face is that with the fall of traditional media and the consolidation of movie studios they have essentially become shills. There aren't powerful enough critics to say "This Disney movie is terrible" and stay a critic for much longer.
Yikes. Call me philistine, but seeing that Last Jedi score peels the scab off the idea that there is any intellectual value remaining in their job.
I’m not sure about the critics of yore, but, as all of your scores evince, I am drawing the impression that modern critics either 1. self-select as part of group of certain demographics or 2. deliberately pander to that group of certain demographics “as the wind heads in that direction”. Not really something an intellectually honest individual would find value in, and if they belong to your tribe, you can probably find more well-written diatribes on Twitter.
Maybe you're aware of how Rotten Tomatoes scores work, but in case someone reading this isn't: the score is not some average of individual scores like IMDb uses (I think), but just the _proportion of critic scores that are positive_.
So, if a film has 100x 2.5/4 star ratings from critics and 50 1.5/4 star ratings, it would have a Tomatometer score of 67% (100 positive of 150 ratings).
Others have said they miss Ebert. I'm certainly in that club.
I haven't paid much attention to film reviews since Ebert died. Sure, he gave scores, but they were not the point. I read his reviews because they helped me to explore my own thoughts about the films. It's the same reason I enjoy chatting with friends about films, books, art, etc. Scoring is not the point. Agreement is not the desired outcome.
Oftentimes, after I watch an old film, I'll look up Ebert's review, to see what he thought. Almost always, I'm enriched by doing that.
Ebert wrote beautifully. I was lucky enough to have met him once or twice at book signing events here in Boulder. He was a regular at the Conference on World Affairs dissecting movies one shot at a time. I attended all of his "Cinema Interruptus" for Mulholland Drive, La Dolce Vita, (no small commitment actually) and a few others. On top of it, Ebert was a kind, good human. I also miss Ebert. Check out his "Great Movies" book series if you can.
These days, I find I enjoy Eddie Mueller. Some movie dvds have an alternate soundtrack which is him critiquing the movies. Listening to his prattle is often far better than the movie.
In related news, I recall one movie with a director's commentary track. It was full of each of the actors saying their bit about the movie. Everyone (including the dog) casually concluded with he/she had to sleep with the director to get the part. Another one where the commentary track was better than the flick.
> I recall one movie with a director's commentary track. It was full of each of the actors saying their bit about the movie. Everyone (including the dog) casually concluded with he/she had to sleep with the director to get the part. Another one where the commentary track was better than the flick.
Wait you’re not going to tell us what movies these were? Also I assume in the first example they were kidding? Or the director was dead?
Readit News
User reviews are retrospective: how much did they actually enjoy watching the movie.
I think there has always been a fundamental disconnect, in that critics think the masses should be watching 'smarter', 'more artistic' or, less flatteringly, more pretentious movies.
The world has become a lot more political over the past couple decades. I wouldn't be surprised if critics are trying to be increasingly prescriptive, using their review to try to change the modern zeitgeist.
I think a very interesting graph would be so see to what extent critics prescriptions are accurately forward-looking to viewer attitudes.
More interesting further research could be:
For movies that came out before 2010 where the user rating diverged from critic rating by more than 10%, are user ratings which were rated after 2015 in the same direction as the critic's divergence? There are certainly movies that I enjoyed as a teenager, but cringe watching today: were critics at the time cringing in the same way, ahead of the masses? Or are critics just in a pretentious bubble that is not predictive of societal evolution?
Take any hobby. Literally any one of them. The people who are really into it, whatever you are thinking about, will prefer different stuff from what casual fans like.
Why do people die from erotic self-asphyxiation? Because we have a compulsion to escalate and to push things further. We need novelty. We need new stuff. We go mad if it's just the same thing over and over. At least that's true for most of us. Not everyone takes it all that far, but when you invest a significant amount of time doing one thing in particular, you're always going to want to take it to greater heights.
And that's the thing about critic reviews: they represent movie fans suffering from the cinematic equivalent of erotic self-asphyxiation. Old, tired cliches and predictable plots? No. They want something they haven't seen before. Art movies are incredibly weird, and film critics love them.
Imagine your job is rating beers. And you think pilsners are fine but super boring. But people get incredibly mad at you for dissing their favorite pilsners, and they think you're a pretentious snob for recommending imperial stouts. And they want you to give super-high ratings to ... run of the mill pilsners. That's what I imagine it's like being a film critic.
I would say that there's so many different ways to appreciate films, so many different types of audiences, and such wildly different intentions behind the films and the critics who write about them. It seems reductive and a bit misguided, to me, for someone to write an article about the divergence between metascore and imdb ratings. It's comparing two gigantic blobs of scores and drawing straight lines through them. Does it actually say anything interesting? No in my opinion.
I mean, sure, the films with super-high metacritic scores are worth watching. They're a part of "the canon"-- although for the life of me I could never get through Citizen Kane. But a metacritic score is worth about as much as an imdb score. It's a blunt measurement.
The value of a well written review has little to do with "the score". Many include "a score" because they're forced to, but it's so much better to just pay attention to what the critic is actually saying in the review. It might speak to you if you're in the right headspace, and provide some insight into the film that you hadn't considered. They're typically more valuable to read AFTER you've seen the film. But if you find a writer you grok, you'll get some threads to pull on that will open up all kinds of film experiences you would have never had.
The value of an audience score is garbage, by itself, without any recommendation algorithm to match up your viewing habits and limit the pool of films presented to you. Even then, the high-scores mean almost nothing though the bottom-of-the-barrel low ones usually can be trusted to actually be bad.
PS: to put it out there, there’s people working at beer makers tasting beer samples every single day to check it is exactly the right taste. Ideally every day it has the same taste, if it differs they’ll do what’s needed to bring it back in line. That for decades in some companies. These people exist in spaces.
> And that's the thing about critic reviews: they represent movie fans suffering from the cinematic equivalent of erotic self-asphyxiation. Old, tired cliches and predictable plots? No. They want something they haven't seen before. Art movies are incredibly weird, and film critics love them.
I think thismisunderstands art movies, film critics, and art in general (though there are exceptions). As someone who has learned to understand arts on very roughly that level, including film (an 'admission' that always gets a negative reaction!) it's not that you want more and different, like a hit of heroin, it's that your perception changes and you see things that you didn't see before. I first saw Richard III when I was in high school and let's say I didn't love it! I saw it more recently and it was mind-blowing; it soared to heights I didn't imagine, one after the other (though not a happy story way!). It was the same play - I wasn't getting something more or new - I just perceived so much more, from the language to the characters to the insights to the virtuoso writing. That change in perception is fundamental human perception and applies to anything in which we gain experience and expertise.
When you first drink wine, you cannot distinguish much between different bottles. You literally cannot taste all the flavors, see the colors, and perceive the other sensations that someone with more experience and expertise can. I'm sure you experience it with your profession or hobbies. If you sail boats, you perceive things that beginning sailors do not - and not meaningless things, but things that have a real impact. The same with reviewing code, UX, automobile engines, audio speaker sound, athletic performance, etc. etc. - whatever you have a developed perception of.
Human perception is far more than sensory input; what you 'see' is processed through your brain, including neurons that change based on usage and training, and also through your experience - you recognize your family on a perceptual level, for example (afaik).
The generic, quality critic sees things that you and I don't. I try to learn to see those things too, because when I do, they can be wonders. Just like wine tastes even better, car engines are far more moving, etc. when you develop that perception, so do the experiences of films, paintings, theater - I see colors (metaphorically, but literally sometimes) that I didn't earlier in life, so beautiful I didn't imagine they existed.
'Art films' sometimes cater to more developed perceptions and ignore others, which can make them seem wierd - there is (usually) something there to see, I promise (there are superficial genre art films, as with everything else). It's also true that you appreciate different innovations, such as a film that uses an old technique in an ingenius and powerful way, which you wouldn't notice if you didn't know about the technique, which is somewhat about finding something new, as you say.
Historically movie critics judged a film based on its relative value. That's why you see a positive review on a cheesy rom-com and a negative review on a more ambitious flawed work of art. The rom-com review is viewed in the context of other rom-coms. For a positive review, it's saying "if you like rom-coms and their premise, this rom-com is good". I want it to be more prescriptive to what I will actually think when I watch the movie.
Most people use movie reviews to tell them whether they'll like a movie given its genre. That's why people say "I trust this person's reviews". They mean if the critic says the movie is worth watching and I decide to watch it, I will not be disappointed
Any random person could like objectively bad movies.
But a critic can only recommend things objectively good. That means they can only try to filter out good movies, which are movies you should watch but may not like because your tastes are not objectively universal.
Nowadays I see everyone shitting on super heroes and remakes, they're easy targets to make people think that you're distinguished. Complain about sequels and reboots, and I say "Shakespeare is remade 100 times a year, a remake, reboot or whatever is always an artistic reconstruction that says a lot about its time, it's history, it's socioeconomic context. By studying the multiple versions of a story, we understand ourselves".
Many critics are just sad elitists because now they must share the cultural zeitgeist with everyone else, when even Roger Ebert, when you read his reviews, was historically a lot more open and fair than many of his admirers today.
I've turned into my dad. As a teen, I begged him to see a movie I thought was great. We went to see it, and on the way out I was like "well? what do you think?" He thought for a while, and came up with a rather lame compliment he'd obviously struggled to come up with.
Watching that movie today, I agreed with him.
Who is doing that? IMHO the NY Times film reviewers, for example, overrate the superhero movies more than they do anything else.
> Many critics are just sad elitists because now they must share the cultural zeitgeist with everyone else
Who are you thinking of?
BTW, where did you do reviews?
Whereas a play exists at one point in time and space. It has to be remade in every city and every year.
Critics are paid to watch as many movies a possible, even ones they think they will hate (but obviously should keep an open mind). An average movie goer doesn't deliberately watch a movie they won't like, so there is already a disconnect.
With the internet amplifying fan culture critics are more likely to be seen as "wrong".
This does not seem to be accurate description of movie reviews I have read. Like, not at all.
While some self-anointed blogger critics might have certain ideas about what they wish an audience would watch, an actual critic's (broadsheet paper, industry trade) only job is to contextualise a work in the larger bodies of genre, medium, and culture.
> User reviews are retrospective: how much did they actually enjoy watching the movie.
How can ANY review not be 'retrospective'? In fact, probably the majority of film criticism speaks to how much or little the critic enjoyed a film. Pauline Kael (probably the most incisive and celebrated American critic in film history) built a legacy based pretty much on how much she much she enjoyed the film.
> I think a very interesting graph would be so see to what extent critics prescriptions are accurately forward-looking to viewer attitudes.
Why do critics and audiences have to have the same opinions? I this is the fundamental misunderstanding and wonky premise of the article.
Who writes like that? Could you provide an example? I haven't seen it, having read many, many critics, including in sophisticated reviews like the New Yorker, Film Comment, and the NY Times.
I think this really depends on the critics. Lots of critics never explicitly articulate a philosophy—or, if they do, I don't bother to seek it out—but, for one notable example, Roger Ebert explicitly subscribed to the philosophy that you should review a movie based on whether it achieves its goals, not on whether its goals are the same as your goals.
60% of the viewers loose interest after episode 3, 40% of the viewers skip through the fight scene, 80% of the viewers watch the movie in one go...
It's a pitty Netflix knows this but still recommend movies I already watched or don't like.
So the question is: on whose behalf are reviews written?
I once went out with a woman who was highly steeped in film criticism and such. I think she volunteered as dramaturg at a theater company or something like that. We watched "I'm Thinking of Ending Things" together, and I thought it was the most dismal, dispiriting, horrible movie I'd ever seen. Afterward she opened my eyes to how a critic would interpret it, the symbolism, the cultural currents, etc. I hadn't picked up on any of that. I still hate that movie. But I guess I can see a bit better how, if you're in on it, it can be fun to pick things apart in that certain way. It's like a secret language that only you and a few others speak. There's nothing quite like speaking your native tongue when living in a foreign land.
I think a lot of the professional critics are like that. We don't speak their secret language. We commoners are the foreign land they must survive in. They're having a conversation among themselves. It's not for us.
At least, that's what it's become.
Thanks for making this observation, it applies to so many things.
Younger people goes a lot more to the movies, so the average critic will probably be notably older than then average movie audience member.
Critics tend to be negative towards remakes because "this is unnecessary, the original was better". But most in the audience haven't seen the original so it doesn't matter to them.
Critics tend to hate formulaic and derivative movies, but for the audience it is not that bad, they haven't seen the formula enough time to get bored by it. Fans loved The Force Awakens because it was exactly the same formula as the original Star Wars. Critics were less enthusiastic.
Critics tend to value originality more than the average audience. Hollywood have always been formulaic and rehashed old ideas, but they have still been able to make great movies. But the current movies relies on franchises to a larger extent, and the franchises put hard constraints on the amount of originality and character development which can be allowed.
The Force Awakens has IMDB of 7.9 but RT is 93%. Audience scores are lower than critic scores.
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In a way, critical reviews are like celebrity chef cookbooks in that they should be considered aspirational. What we HOPE to be watching to please our senses of austerity, versus the pulp trash we might actually prefer to be watching.
Similarly, sure, we might WISH we were making / eating boeuf en croute regularly, but if you go to a recipe site, the highest rated reviews is more likely to be chicken soup, or something more accessible / makeable on a weeknight.
It's always fun to review Plex and routinely see <95% critic ratings, 25% user ratings> or vice versa, but the deltas are more often closer than not.
I don't know if I have a point to make here other than to point out that there's utility in noting the distinctions between aspirational and practical, and that serious critics have always given off a vibe of divorcing themselves from the practical, preferring arthouse to action, and in both arenas, Julia Childs-esque figures that can bridge the gap between the aspirational and the practical are extremely rare.
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/dont-worry-be-tacky/.
Essentially that what we talk about liking and what the general population actually like are very different.
They interviewed this woman, who as an art student learned all about 'high art' and 'low art' and in a moment of loss of inspiration went back to using some low art she appreciated as inspirationn:
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/flora-yukhnovich-2077868
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If you're 40 years old, you need to be able to consume any kind of media and then place yourself into the mindset of a younger person and judge it from that mindset - because you used to be that younger person.
Truly exceptional media is good enough to transcend the age barrier and is enjoyable for everyone, e.g., The Incredibles is enjoyable for young kids because it's a cartoon and it's flashy and exciting, it's enjoyable for young boys who want to be the "best" at a sport, it's enjoyable for girls transitioning to puberty because of Violet's storyline, it's enjoyable for men who have lost some of their steam and can relate to Mr. Incredible, and it's enjoyable for women because of the struggles Elastigirl has as a mother and a homemaker. Even Syndrome is shown as a sympathetic villain who is evil not because he is a bad person, but because he was dismissed and ignored by his idol. There are plenty of people who can relate to that.
Ghostbusters (1984) is another expertly crafted movie that is fun for kids, but well-written enough to be incredibly enjoyable for adults.
When my young cousins or my nephew corral me into playing a game with them, I'm not playing it from my 41-year old perspective, I'm playing it through their eyes.
If you can't do that, then don't review content. Content always has a specific audience. Really great content can weave together enough bits to at least satisfy every audience. Exceptional content manages to speak deeply to every audience. I still feel that's why The Incredibles is one of the best movies ever made. The struggles shown in that movie are relatable for every single person on the planet.
Most reviewers I watched heading into Horizon: Forbidden West said that it was just "more of the same". But I didn't play the most recent Far Cry or Assassin's Creed or whatever else they were comparing to. It was fresher for me playing though it than it was for them, constantly comparing.
For my whole life, I've learned and then observed that critics evaluate primarily the cinematic quality of a film, i.e. does the film as a piece of art work as a whole when considering acting, directing, screenwriting... This is generally a different axis from entertainment which is what people often care about when looking for something to see.
If a critic likes a film it's because it is good cinema. If you're in the film-watching mood you would likely appreciate that film if it has high critical scores. But if you want something easy or you want to see a guaranteed uplifting film with your friends before going out to a pub round, you want entertainment and then you don't want to look at the critics scores.
You might want to infer something from the review text because often critics do tell you if the film is entertaining and a good watch. The film still got 1 star out of 5 because it was not good cinema.
IME and IMHO, the former has a great effect on the latter; that's why people, including critics, care about it. The qualities are what make the movie engaging, moving, exciting, etc. In UX, users may not understand how it is done but the UX design still impacts them significantly; UX designers can tell you what is making that impact and how.
I think there was a smaller gap in a few respects.
Firstly I think the film industry as a whole has polarized into "art" and "entertainment" films with too little crossover. Films can and should be artful and entertaining.
Secondly I think critics have become too polarized to criticize films as being "low-effort" or "low-value" entertainment films. There's a reason why people go see blockbusters, they enjoy them!
Finally, I think unfortunately some audiences too quickly dismiss some films as "too artsy" or "too intelligent" or "not wanting to think." There's a lot of fun movies out there which don't fit into normal boxes!
Sadly I don't really see that gap closing. I agree with someone in another thread which said that there's much better and more varied content on "TV" (streaming/etc) in medium-form series. Give me a great limited-run series like the queen's gambit any day! it's the perfect intersection of artsy and fun and high brow and low brow!
Mulan - Critics: 73 - Audience: 47
The Last Jedi - Critics: 91 - Audience: 42
Captain Marvel - Critics: 79 - Audience: 45
It's clear that audiences - and you can read this as "people who like movies and are willing to leave a review" - and critics are miles apart. This prompts the common retort: "so what?" I continue to argue that the purpose of movie critics, for many decades, has been to tell the broad audience if they will like the movie. That's it. It has not been to, for example, critically deconstruct the abstract themes of power dynamics in inequitable social system. This kind of analysis appeals to a small minority of viewers. It has its place, but it should not be the majority of critics using this kind of lens, which it is.
This leads us to today, where critic reviews are functionally useless for the broad audience. Said movie minority are of course very happy with the entire critic industry catering to their needs, and they argue vociferously to keep it this way, using all kinds of condescending arguments about our lack of culture and refinement. Sometimes I just want to see cool explosions and fight scenes, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Of the ones you listed I watched The Last Jedi and Captain Marvel. I know what I wrote is also true for Mulan thanks to friends who watched it and the Critical Drinker. He has a couple good films on YouTube actually demonstrating this aspect of modern films:
- Mulan: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIH-eFqBLP4>
- Star Wars: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSj6wEm4zZY>
- Captain Marvel: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKHEjpFF6J0>
I agree. This seems obvious. So why can't these sophisticated critics see this and rate the movie accordingly? They're obviously using a completely different set of criteria to rate movies, and entertainment is far down the list.
The difference is not in the main character, the difference is in how the movies relate to the established conventions of the franchise.
Regarding Rey in context of The Last Jedi, did we watch the same movie? She was basically a mixture of having doubt and uncertainty and being troubled for the large part of the movie. Only in the confrontation with Kylo, we see her inner strength but even that was tempered with her vulnerability - its not like she vanquished Kylo with a smirk.
This is rather over the top, since the article clearly shows reviews and audience ratings does correlate, especially towards the top.
But it is always interesting with movies where the difference of opinion is starkest.
Note that the "audience ratings" does not always correlate with the average audience. Especially with divisive movies like TLJ or the Ghostbusters reboot, disgruntled fans run campaigns to get the score down. TLJ is still one of the highest grossing movies in history, so the audience rating putting it significantly lower than say John Carter or Snakes on a Plane is clearly not representative of the general movie going audience.
I’m not sure about the critics of yore, but, as all of your scores evince, I am drawing the impression that modern critics either 1. self-select as part of group of certain demographics or 2. deliberately pander to that group of certain demographics “as the wind heads in that direction”. Not really something an intellectually honest individual would find value in, and if they belong to your tribe, you can probably find more well-written diatribes on Twitter.
So, if a film has 100x 2.5/4 star ratings from critics and 50 1.5/4 star ratings, it would have a Tomatometer score of 67% (100 positive of 150 ratings).
I haven't paid much attention to film reviews since Ebert died. Sure, he gave scores, but they were not the point. I read his reviews because they helped me to explore my own thoughts about the films. It's the same reason I enjoy chatting with friends about films, books, art, etc. Scoring is not the point. Agreement is not the desired outcome.
Oftentimes, after I watch an old film, I'll look up Ebert's review, to see what he thought. Almost always, I'm enriched by doing that.
In related news, I recall one movie with a director's commentary track. It was full of each of the actors saying their bit about the movie. Everyone (including the dog) casually concluded with he/she had to sleep with the director to get the part. Another one where the commentary track was better than the flick.
Wait you’re not going to tell us what movies these were? Also I assume in the first example they were kidding? Or the director was dead?