Movies / TV Shows - I Have Watched / Plan To Watch

[Thorny]

Not only do I LOVE it, I am writing a screenplay inspired by it.

I love the horror genre, but I just think that movie is so, so bad. It's no different than any horrible teen horror film.

 

I'm sure your screenplay will be infinitely better than that of it's inspiration. Seriously, haha.

[qwksndmonster]

It struck me at the core of my soul. When I was in high school I spent the majority of my time in the music suite. During my senior year I took a piano class and the teacher let me go in the auditorium by myself and use the grand piano. Every day I had 80 minutes alone with a beautiful instrument. Alone with my sounds bouncing around a giant, dark auditorium.

 

The same auditorium I had slept in during grueling marching band camps. The same auditorium I'd spent countless painful hours rehearsing with the pit band for musicals. The place where our concerts were when I used to play timpani.

 

My senior year was a weird time for me. My girlfriend at the time had left for college and I was checked out from the word go. I felt so isolated from everyone else (bc i'm artsy and edgy and obvi nobody else felt that way).

 

 

The Gallows tapped into all of that. The lighting in the auditorium is the most oppressive atmosphere I've ever felt in a film. The mix between tasteful cinematography and found footage was gorgeous, justified by the camera-character being a closet drama lover. The pacing and conceits of the horror drama were justified by the entire plot being executed by an insufferable drama kid and an insufferable drama ghost. That one pointy haired kid who's an awful actor is justified by him also being an awful actor in the play in universe. And also high school guys are just kinda dull and listless anyways. That's reality.

 

It's the finest piece of budget filmmaking I've ever seen.

Edited July 31, 2017 by qwksndmonster

[Thorny]

Dude, I'm not one to rely exclusively on critics but, man, 16% on Rotten Tomatoes. It's not a well made movie. BUT, there is no accounting for objectivity in art. If it meant something to you, all power to you.

 

For me, it lost me as soon as it started the gratuitous shots of that one female lead. One too many close-up boob shots for my liking. At least, for a movie that wants me to take it seriously.

Edited July 31, 2017 by Thorny

[WildCard]

Screw Rotten Tomatoes. They rate Billy Maddison and Happy Gilmore as dog too.

 

Plus, have you ever read those comments? It's like everyone who thinks they're opinion on Yelp is actually meaningful but this time with the word 'metaphor' and 'deeper meaning' sprinkled in

Edited July 31, 2017 by WildCard

[Thorny]

Screw Rotten Tomatoes. They rate Billy Maddison and Happy Gilmore as dog ###### too.

Plus, have you ever read those comments? It's like everyone who thinks they're opinion on Yelp is actually meaningful but this time with the word 'metaphor' and 'deeper meaning' sprinkled in

It's a review aggregator website. It's an exceptionally valuable tool for movie critique. It's only useless if someone is going to look at the single score and base their entire decision on that, rather than reading the actual posted reviews of critics. Find some critics you agree with generally, and read those reviews. Or read a big mix.

 

There's nothing wrong with RT, if you know how to use it. Don't care about the opinion of "nobodies"? Stick to the Top Critics section.

 

It just can't be the be all end all. I love Happy Gilmore, probably my favourite comedy. I can still pick it apart with a critical eye if I chose to. I just ignore the reviews if I don't agree. As anyone should.

Edited July 31, 2017 by Thorny

[josie]

Screw Rotten Tomatoes. They rate Billy Maddison and Happy Gilmore as dog ###### too.

 

Plus, have you ever read those comments? It's like everyone who thinks they're opinion on Yelp is actually meaningful but this time with the word 'metaphor' and 'deeper meaning' sprinkled in

I am enjoying the pithy reviews of The Emoji Movie, however. 

[qwksndmonster]

Oh man I am so anti-rotten tomatoes. It has come to mean absolutely nothing. Get Out and Baby Driver both with near perfect scores? Chyeah.

 

Every time I see a trailer that boasts rotten tomatoes scores I wince.

[ubkev]

Regarding Kingsman

 

Qwk, I really liked this movie....you'd hate it with the fire of 1000 suns.

[Thorny]

Oh man I am so anti-rotten tomatoes. It has come to mean absolutely nothing. Get Out and Baby Driver both with near perfect scores? Chyeah.

Every time I see a trailer that boasts rotten tomatoes scores I wince.

How can you be against an aggregator? It's simply pooling reviews together. You don't have to set stock in the percentage if you don't want to.

 

Those movies only have "near perfect scores" if you don't understand how the website works.

 

How does the site mean nothing? If you can't find value in even 1 cinematic critique out of 200 or so per movie, I don't know what to tell you.

 

Edit: Baby Driver's avg. review score is 8/10. That's not a near perfect score, by any means.

[JujuFish]

Oh man I am so anti-rotten tomatoes. It has come to mean absolutely nothing. Get Out and Baby Driver both with near perfect scores? Chyeah.

 

Every time I see a trailer that boasts rotten tomatoes scores I wince.

 

Near perfect scores doesn't mean the movie is nearly perfect.  It means the movie is nearly universally liked.  It could be a movie that no one loved but everyone liked and it would have a nearly perfect score.

[LGR4GM]

All I know about the movie is that last scene. Sooooo yeah not gonna watch it.

I saw a slightly edited version but ya only part part of the movie I was like... this is just stupid .

[darksabre]

Near perfect scores doesn't mean the movie is nearly perfect. It means the movie is nearly universally liked. It could be a movie that no one loved but everyone liked and it would have a nearly perfect score.

I don't know. Mad Max Fury Road has a 97%. Do I love that movie? Yes, but I have a hard time believing that it's that universally accepted.

[JujuFish]

I don't know. Mad Max Fury Road has a 97%. Do I love that movie? Yes, but I have a hard time believing that it's that universally accepted.

 

I'm just explaining how RT does their tomatometer.  It's based on the number of positive reviews (whether they're "this movie is fantastic" or "this movie is decent", it all counts the same) it gets.  If you look at the breakdown for Fury Road, 354 out of 366 reviews for Fury Road were positive.  354/366 = 96.7213%, which rounds to 97%.

[LGR4GM]

Fury Road was fantastic.

[darksabre]

I'm just explaining how RT does their tomatometer. It's based on the number of positive reviews (whether they're "this movie is fantastic" or "this movie is decent", it all counts the same) it gets. If you look at the breakdown for Fury Road, 354 out of 366 reviews for Fury Road were positive. 354/366 = 96.7213%, which rounds to 97%.

Sure. I'm just amazed it is that positive. There's no way it translates to the general population.

[JujuFish]

Yeah, that's why I like to check out the audience score if I'm looking on Rotten Tomatoes as well (which is 85% for Fury Road).  If there's a disparity, I tend to feel closer to the audience score than the Tomatometer.  (Not that I watch movies very often.)

[qwksndmonster]

Disclaimer: On a fundamental level, I don't like opinions expressed as numerical values. If something is presented with a percentage, my brain immediately processes it as a score.

 

I'm referring to the percentage that comes up when you google a movie.  That's the percentage of critics that gave the movie a positive review.  Baby Driver currently sits at 95%.  One of the Baby Driver trailers I saw before the movie came out boasted a 99% on Rotten Tomatoes.

 

My problem is with how ubiquitous RT scores have become, and how that effects perceptions/expectations of a movie before you see it.  My girlfriend and I wanted to go see Baywatch because we love seeing movies.  We see as many movies as possible in theaters.  We knew there was a strong chance that Baywatch was gonna be hot garbage, but the experience of going and finding out for ourselves is incredibly valuable.  We didn't end up seeing Baywatch because Fandango started putting rotten tomatoes scores above movie times and it was confirmed for us as terrible. Having a movie pre-maturely judged for you takes a lot of the fun out of what should be a subjective experience. Also, seeing a movie you hate can still yield really fun experiences.  We both hated Manchester by the Sea but we quote a certain part of it near daily (MY HAHT IS BROKEN).

 

You can say don't put stock in Rotten Tomatoes scores, but it's not that simple. Once you've seen the percentage you can't discount it because Rotten Tomatoes IS a valuable tool.  It helps movie goers decide what to spend their hard-earned cash on, it immediately gives you a feel for the landscape of reception for a movie. But any sort of score will affect whether or not I watch something.  Back when Netflix had reviews out of 5 stars I couldn't help but put stock into them when I'd never heard of the movie.  There's such an immense amount of content out there and review scores affect how we choose what we do.

 

I think this has a detrimental effect on film criticism.  People are much more likely to go by the quick and easy numbers than to read criticism and find critics they like.  I disagree with so many of my favorite film critics, but I still find value in their opinions.  Obviously most people aren't capital L fiLm dooshes like me but the effect on cinema as a medium is skewing it more towards $$$$$$ rather than art.

 

It started becoming insidious to me this year when I noticed movies basically gaming the RT system so they could advertise their movies as having near perfect RT percentages. I'm not sure exactly how this is done, but the conspiracy theorist in me suspects that it's by targeting certain critics while the film is still in limited release.  Get Out still sits at 99%, despite being a movie that takes a lot from The Invitation (which was playing in festivals while Jordan Peele was writing it) and has a very incomplete script.  When you go into a movie that everyone is proclaiming as great it's so easy to buy into the hype.  The first time I saw Get Out I loved it.  The second time I saw it, I thought "meh." The political aspect of Get Out played no small part in its popularity.  Any other political climate, then there's no way Jordan Peele's debut makes 100 mil.

 

(I don't mind that Get Out was so popular. I love Peele and am super excited about his future as a director.  I do mind that people are still mentioning it as one of the top movies of 2017 when it's not even remotely in the conversation. /opinion qwk)

 

Baby Driver is a different beast.  If you go through and read snippets of the critic reviews, so many of the positive reviews knock the movie for the script/plot being weak.  But because Baby Driver is a charming film and Edgar Wright is a talented filmmaker, it's getting away with being a very shallow film. I'm working on a little something related to Baby Driver right now that fleshes out my thoughts on the movie.  I'm not saying you're wrong if you loved Baby Driver.  Pretty much everyone in my family loves it, but the RT effect trickles down to the criticism community in a really not-good way.

Another disclaimer: I think that if something comes up as part of google's website when you search something (as in not a link), it is immediately legitimized.

Edited July 31, 2017 by qwksndmonster

[josie]

Oh yeah, I saw the Swearnet car on my street out here on Sheridan yesterday. Full livery, trailer park boys paraphenalia, etc. not just some superfan. 

 

Didn't see who was driving it. Also have no idea if any of the TPB crew is in town for whatever reason. 

[Thorny]

I don't know. Mad Max Fury Road has a 97%. Do I love that movie? Yes, but I have a hard time believing that it's that universally accepted.

Sure. I'm just amazed it is that positive. There's no way it translates to the general population.

Right. It is near universally liked by Critics. Whether that shifts over to the general population as well...to each their own.

 

Another good thing about RT is it also incorporates an Audience Score. 85% for Fury Road. Seems reasonable.

 

---

 

I definitely get what you are saying here, qwk. But I think it's a case of Don't Shoot The Messenger. It's not the website's fault people don't choose to follow the adequately posted links to the full reviews.

 

It's chicken and egg. Is RT pushing a simplified format, but tallying a %? Sure. But if that's what the movie going public is responding to, they are just satisfying the demand. The website certainly provides a much more in-depth resource than just the % they use. There's more there for those who are interested.

 

Some will just look at the one score. I certainly don't. But I'm a big movie guy. I'd argue that anyone basing their entire movie going routine on a single number, the % posted, strikes me as a finicky cinemagoer, anyways.

 

RT isn't perfect, but something that gathers varying critical thought into a single location is something I find very useful.

Edited July 31, 2017 by Thorny

[darksabre]

Unrelated to the RT discussion, I decided to give the first season (series 23) of the "new" British Top Gear a watch since it's on Netflix. And my God it is as bad as people said it was. Chris Evans is turrible. I'm not going to watch any more. I'm just going to torrent series 24 where Matt LeBlanc takes over.

 

I guess Top Gear America with Bill Fichtner debuted last night. I'll have to find that somewhere, although I bet it will be less popular.

 

The Top Gear brand seems to be grasping for identity while the three musketeers and Grand Tour are set up to launch what will probably be a very good season 2 in the fall.

[qwksndmonster]

Right. It is near universally liked by Critics. Whether that shifts over to the general population as well...to each their own.

 

Another good thing about RT is it also incorporates an Audience Score. 85% for Fury Road. Seems reasonable.

 

---

 

I definitely get what you are saying here, qwk. But I think it's a case of Don't Shoot The Messenger. It's not the website's fault people don't choose to follow the adequately posted links to the full reviews.

 

It's chicken and egg. Is RT pushing a simplified format, but tallying a %? Sure. But if that's what the movie going public is responding to, they are just satisfying the demand. The website certainly provides a much more in-depth resource than just the % they use. There's more there for those who are interested.

 

Some will just look at the one score. I certainly don't. But I'm a big movie guy. I'd argue that anyone basing their entire movie going routine on a single number, the % posted, strikes me as a finicky cinemagoer, anyways.

 

RT isn't perfect, but something that gathers varying critical thought into a single location is something I find very useful.

We're on the same page. I don't harbor the website rotten tomatoes any ill will. I just worry about how it's being manipulated by the film industry, and how it's shaping discourse.

 

I think you're misreading my point about how seeing a % number shapes preconceptions about a movie, though. Very small things can dictate your experience with a movie.

Edited August 1, 2017 by qwksndmonster

[Thorny]

We're on the same page. I don't harbor the website rotten tomatoes any ill will. I just worry about how it's being manipulated by the film industry, and how it's shaping discourse.

I think you're misreading my point about how seeing a % number shapes preconceptions about a movie, though. Very small things can dictate your experience with a movie.

I agree it certainly can, but much more so when the numbers are misinterpreted. If someone sees a score of 97% and thinks that means the movie is necessarily in the 97th percentile of quality, they'd be mistaken and misreading what the meter means.

 

I get that it can influence opinions. But, on the one hand, that's what it's there for. To provide opinion. Food for thought. Then people can make up their own minds.

 

If people are incapable of understanding how the website's numbers work, or making up their own minds for themselves, not in a bubble, but in the precence of perhaps differing and dissenting opinions, we have bigger problems.

Edited August 1, 2017 by Thorny

[LGR4GM]

I went and saw battleship on a whim when it came out. Loved it. stupid as hell but fun to watch once.

[Thorny]

I went and saw battleship on a whim when it came out. Loved it. stupid as hell but fun to watch once.

It was funny. I also love bad movies though, sometimes.

[MattPie]

Sure. I'm just amazed it is that positive. There's no way it translates to the general population.

 

It may be positive for the intersection of "general population", "people who saw the movie", and "people who bothered to rate the movie on RT".

 

Unrelated to the RT discussion, I decided to give the first season (series 23) of the "new" British Top Gear a watch since it's on Netflix. And my God it is as bad as people said it was. Chris Evans is turrible. I'm not going to watch any more. I'm just going to torrent series 24 where Matt LeBlanc takes over.

 

I guess Top Gear America with Bill Fichtner debuted last night. I'll have to find that somewhere, although I bet it will be less popular.

 

The Top Gear brand seems to be grasping for identity while the three musketeers and Grand Tour are set up to launch what will probably be a very good season 2 in the fall.

 

I watched it all, but yeah. I never quite understood the term "shouty" (usually applied to Americans) until I saw Evans. There's a some good stuff in there, but I'm looking forward to season 24 far more as Matt LeBlanc is surprisingly good and I dig his style on the show.

 

The Plex media server I set is rapidly becoming my bane. One of my favorite movies is "Master and Commander", and now that I had a convenient way to watch it again, I put it on the other night while I was working. No surprise, I watched the entire movie and barely got anything done. A couple days later, I put it on again as background thinking I could ignore it this time, and I watched the entire F'N movie again. Last night it was Das Boot (keeping with the nautical theme); you'd think after seeing that movie several times I'd just ignore it too. Nope. At least that I stopped after awhile as I knew I couldn't watch a 3.5 hour movie starting at 11 PM.