Jolt Country

What's your TAKE?

Shis-kabob and Eggbert really kinda sucked. The only other movie critic that I can remember is Kevin somebody that used to do phone-ins on Don and Mike. Guy was kinda hyper. I suppose if I had learned sign language or something the movie reviewers would have meant more than silent heads talking

Roger Ebert was the greatest film critic of all time. I disagreed with him a lot, but I don't rate critics based on how much I agree with them, I rate them based on how great they are as a critic.

I agreed with Siskel more, but as a critic, in written form, nobody could touch Ebert's big fat ass.

With few exceptions, I have found critics reviews to be the exact opposite of what I thought of the movie. I figure the ones that got good reviews either paid more bribes or offered more coke to snort. Because these reviewers had to be stoned out of their mind to review the pieces of trash I hated as great films, or to pan the movies I loved.

I don't read them. I actively avoid them, in fact. They're full of shit.

EDIT

Except RedLetterMedia. They're great and enjoyable even when they're wrong and full of shit.

This poll is going exactly the way I predicted. Good job, Pinback!

Flack, Ebert and RedLetterMedia are pretty good. Way back in like 2004 there were a couple critics called "B. Fatt & Lazy" and I liked them, but one of them abandoned the site and then they didn't keep it online.

If I see a movie reviewer (or reviewer of anything) quote a joke they are instantly garbage. I could be wrong, but Ebert never did that. It is a miracle, just as much a miracle as producing a baby that a joke gets created and out there for millions to see, I can't think of anything less useful than a reviewer that just flat-out quotes it (and it happens all the time when humorless twats "review" comedy specials).

So I dunno. Flack gives me a good sense if I should bother with the movie or not. Ebert was great at the whole, ya know, written criticism of it. RedLetterMedia I like mostly because I feel they have similar thoughts as I do when I see stuff, but I actually find myself watching their shows after I see a movie. There is no Norm of movie reviewing, but Rich Evans comes the closest?

There is no Norm of movie reviewing

Flack is pretty close though

Okay, since I'm the only one here who generally agrees with the critical consensus, what's a movie you think was great that got less than a 70 on MRQE?

Not a movie you liked cuz it was fun and campy and had ghost sharks in it and you got a blowjob during the boring middle part. GREAT. That you'd say to a crowd of strangers looking for movie recommendations, here's one that'll knock your socks off.

Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone

pinback wrote: ↑Thu Oct 21, 2021 7:13 pm Okay, since I'm the only one here who generally agrees with the critical consensus, what's a movie you think was great that got less than a 70 on MRQE?

Not a movie you liked cuz it was fun and campy and had ghost sharks in it and you got a blowjob during the boring middle part. GREAT. That you'd say to a crowd of strangers looking for movie recommendations, here's one that'll knock your socks off.

No question. Hellfighters, a 1968 film starring John Wayne, Jim Hutton, Vera Miles, and Catherine Ross. Wayne plays Chance Buckman, the owner of an Oil Well firefighting company, and some fires they face, and have to figure out how to extinguish them. I thought it was a terrific movie, and I'd highly recommend it. The critics who saw it, not so much. The reviews it has, give it a low rating, low enough that it doesn't even have a score.

pinback wrote: ↑Thu Oct 21, 2021 7:13 pm Okay, since I'm the only one here who generally agrees with the critical consensus, what's a movie you think was great that got less than a 70 on MRQE?

Event Horizon.

pinback wrote: ↑Thu Oct 21, 2021 7:13 pm Okay, since I'm the only one here who generally agrees with the critical consensus, what's a movie you think was great that got less than a 70 on MRQE?

Not a movie you liked cuz it was fun and campy and had ghost sharks in it and you got a blowjob during the boring middle part. GREAT. That you'd say to a crowd of strangers looking for movie recommendations, here's one that'll knock your socks off.

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/fight-club-1999

is fight club the one where Brad Pitt is actually the main character alter ego and we don't find out till the end? I think I read the book a long time ago. I suppose this is a Google moment but fuck it

I voted for "I discern no correlation between my opinions and professional critics."

When I was a kid, I could name 4 film critics: Gene Shalit, Leonard Maltin, and Siskel & Ebert. All three of them had television shows or segments. If movie reviews were a science, you would think these three shows would agree on which movies were good and which were bad, but they don't. I just looked up their reviews for 1980's The Shining. Ebert gave it 4/4 stars, Leonard Maltin gave it 2/4 stars, and Gene Shalit gave it a thumbs down and called it a huge let down.

Today we don't have three people doing reviews, we have three million. Maybe three billion. Because it's been all over the internet this week, take a look at the reviews of Halloween Kills on Rotten Tomatoes. It's almost right down the middle, with half the of the people calling it great and half calling it terrible.

Which means you get this:

"A film that so completely sucks the vitality out of John Carpenter's and Debra Hill's original vision that one would be tempted to call it a desecration if that didn't make it sound like more fun than it actually is."

...followed by this:

"Halloween Kills is one of the better sequels (put it alongside Halloween 4 and H20 and a shade below the 2018 production) and contains all the elements to make it popular among horror film lovers regardless of their ages."

And also this:

"It thinks it has an idea, but it would have been nice to been frightened."

...followed by this:

"Halloween Kills is brutal and cruel. And, I have to acknowledge, it does mostly work on its own terms."

There are so many reviews and self-appointed film critics posting things online at this point that you can literally find positive and negative reviews for any film. I guarantee next week there will be one star reviews for Dune along with four star reviews.

Flack wrote: ↑Fri Oct 22, 2021 5:29 am

pinback wrote: ↑Thu Oct 21, 2021 7:13 pm Okay, since I'm the only one here who generally agrees with the critical consensus, what's a movie you think was great that got less than a 70 on MRQE?

Not a movie you liked cuz it was fun and campy and had ghost sharks in it and you got a blowjob during the boring middle part. GREAT. That you'd say to a crowd of strangers looking for movie recommendations, here's one that'll knock your socks off.

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/fight-club-1999

Fight Club has an 81 on MRQE, and I already said I don't agree with Ebert a lot, I just think he's a great writer/critic.

Flack wrote: ↑Fri Oct 22, 2021 6:01 amToday we don't have three people doing reviews, we have three million. Maybe three billion.

The subject of this thread is not "anyone who writes down an opinion of a movie", it's about professional critics. Which there are neither three billion nor three million.

Professional critics are a lot like weather forecasters on local news stations if you ask me. That's about as deep as I'm going with this

Why did you think this thread was going "as you predicted"?