• Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    IMD ratings are stupid. I almost never see a rating even as high as 9 for anything no matter how much people love a movie or consider it one of the greatest ever made:

    Citizen Kane: 8.3
    The Maltese Falcon: 7.9
    Star Wars: 8.6
    No Country for Old Men: 8.2
    The Shining: 8.4
    Lawrence of Arabia: 8.3
    Psycho: 8.5

    Here’s a few 9s.

    Schindler’s List: 9.0
    The Godfather: 9.2
    The Shawshank Redemption: 9.3

    That’s how rare it is. Even The Shawshank Redemption couldn’t get a 10.

    Edit: Whooosh for me on the joke. And I love This is Spinal Tap too. I love it so much I sat through the terrible 4-hour rough cut on the Internet Archive.

    • Steve@communick.news
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      2 hours ago

      Rotten Tomato ratings are stupid.
      With every review being either a 👍 or 👎, the most simple meh movie that nobody hates (or loves), gets a 100% fresh.

      IMDb and Metacritic are much better.

      • amorpheus@lemmy.world
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        44 minutes ago

        I find Rotten Tomatoes much more useful. Knowing that 90% of critics gave a favorable review is infinitely more helpful for my decision to watch a movie than its IMDB score.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        I honestly don’t find any number rating especially useful.

        What I have found useful is to follow 3 or 4 specific movie critics, get to know their opinions and contrast them with my own. We’re never going to agree on every movie, but at least I’ll know why they liked or didn’t like it as a way to figure out if it’s worth my time.

        • Steve@communick.news
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          2 hours ago

          They’re about general critic and public sentiment.
          And for that, no movie should ever get a perfect 10. No movie could ever get a perfect 10.
          They are useful for evaluating a movie’s actual quality. But quality has nothing to do with any individuals enjoyment of a movie.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            2 hours ago

            They are useful for evaluating a movie’s actual quality.

            Sometimes. When they don’t get brigaded. Movies that star women and minorities or, heaven forbid, queer people bizarrely tend to have much lower scores on the IMDB than movies that star heteronormative white men.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            2 hours ago

            Currently- Richard Roeper (Chicago Sun-Times), Justin Chang (L.A. Times) and J. Hoberman (Village Voice), although admittedly these days since I just sail the high seas most of the time, I often just go by the description and turn it off if I don’t like what I’m watching.

            I used to know older critics better though. I was usually able to figure out whether or not a movie was worth watching by paying attention to Roger Ebert, Leonard Maltin and Pauline Kael (if she liked it, I probably wouldn’t).