Movie review sites?

[Seth1968]

Hi Beyond.

Any recommendations for a movie review site? Now I know that the whole thing is subjective, so I'll give you an idea of the last two movies I watched. Both were from some random "Top Movies" sites.

Gravity:

(Rated as a top 2013 movie and it got 8.4 on IMDB.

Very boring, cliche, and totally unrealistic. In addition, that lead female was so f'n annoying that I was hoping she would die. Heck, even Clooney was really annoying in this one, but thankfully he died within the first few minutes. I'd give it 4 out of 10.

Rosemary's Baby:

(Found in a top 20 horror movie list and it rated 8 on IMDB).

A top horror movie? Are you fucking kidding me? It was soooo boring and annoying that I turned it off about 3/4 of the way through. I almost did the same with Gravity. I'd give it 2 out of 10.

As far as IMDB goes, you can usually trust a low rating, but high ratings are a total hit and miss. I swear those high ratings are given by teenagers or people associated with the movie.

[Type_S1]

Rottentomatoes.com I find much better. You can vote on it so they have the critic vote and user vote.

Edit: just checked and both are rated good from users and critics. Either not enough users have watched it or you might have a bad taste in movies

[Seth1968]

Thanks for that, but I wouldn't want to use a review site that rated either of those movies anything more than "crap".

Here's 2 clips from reviews that I found to be accurate for those two movies:

RoseMary's Baby:

For a long while, people had been talking about how fantastic and outstanding this "horror" film is, how it's timeless and it's something you wouldn't want to miss out on. Finally, after god knows how long, I decide to watch this movie. My expectations were high, I thought I would be scared to death and whatnot. But that was not the case. The movie doesn't start until a little less than an hour into the movie. That's when we finally get to see what's so "scary" - she's being raped by the devil. Ooooooohh. The next 1 1/4 hour, nothing happened either. All we saw were people talking, Rosemary being in pain, then her running around screaming "Witches are after my baby!" She talked to her husband, to her doctor, another doctor - but "surprisingly enough" they were all in this little satanic cult. So shocking, aye? The movie ends as shitty as it begins. With nothing happening, at all. Usually there is a big "closure" in the end of films but it seems like Polanski just wanted to get it over with.

So the conclusion is: Don't watch this film unless you enjoy being severely disappointed. It's not special in any way - It's long, boring, everything was so foreseeable and nothing was surprising or scary at all.

Gravity:

The short version: Gravity is a real stinker ... what's all the hype? Clichéd, BORING,technically lame, not worth 3-D, and beyond Bullock's abilities ... Don't waste your $$.

The longer version: WHY is this movie receiving so much hype? What a LOSER! Not only is it BORING, but dishonors the brave men and women who are REAL astronauts. Sorry, Neil Armstrong ... not even a BABY STEP for mankind in this stinker.

Every possible cliché is at work here: the damsel in distress, the "strip" of the damsel, the depression of the damsel, the refusal of the damsel to obey orders, the damsel repeatedly wailing "what do I do nowwwwww?", etc. How this lame-o "brilliant medical engineer" EVER qualified to be an astronaut is not explained (must be due to all the budget cut-backs).

Similarly, the other "astronaut," George Clooney, a know-it-all wise guy, suicidally releases himself into deep space early on for no good reason ... so we're stuck with Ms. Lame-o and weak special effects for most of the movie ...

Said damsel is the flyweight actress Sandra Bullock -- whining, preceding every other line with a snurfff (Best Boy! get that woman some Benadryl!), and heavy breathing sum up her portrayal. You wouldn't want HER along as a member of the team, well, anywhere ... even Disney World ...

WhyEVER would George Clooney lend his name to such bunkum?

Don't waste your money ... and the 3-D ... laughable -- not EVEN worth it ..

[Teknix]

What are some good movie youtubers to watch? For reviews and trailers and all that jazz.

[BigMass]

first off IMDB hasn't been good for at least 10 years now. Once kids got a major foothold on the internet major review sites have pretty much been worthless. Back in the late 90s IMDB was mainly frequented by movie buffs and the ratings were far more in-line with reality.

Second, movies often are misleadingly categorized. Movies like Exorcist and Rosemary's Baby are IMO thrillers, not horror. They're not supposed to be wall to wall scares and gore, they're supposed to be like a creepy mystery where you want to know what happens next. IDK if you thought it sucked by it could just be that it wasn't what you expected and that's what pissed you off.

[403Gemini]

I thoroughly enjoyed both of those movies. Gravity is actually one of my real life fears (even though getting stuck in space would never happen to me...) so maybe I just appreciated it for that.

Rosemary's baby needs to be taken into context for the year/era it was made. It was much more controversial and scary back then which I can appreciate and admire it for that

[Seth1968]

Originally posted by BigMass
first off IMDB hasn't been good for at least 10 years now. Once kids got a major foothold on the internet major review sites have pretty much been worthless. Back in the late 90s IMDB was mainly frequented by movie buffs and the ratings were far more in-line with reality.

Second, movies often are misleadingly categorized. Movies like Exorcist and Rosemary's Baby are IMO thrillers, not horror. They're not supposed to be wall to wall scares and gore, they're supposed to be like a creepy mystery where you want to know what happens next. IDK if you thought it sucked by it could just be that it wasn't what you expected and that's what pissed you off.

It wouldn't matter to me if it was placed under the Thriller or Horror genre. My opinion of it is exactly what I wrote in my previous post.

I think your first paragraph nailed it though. In addition, it makes me wonder how much more money these sites get by deliberately giving high ratings. What's also noteworthy, is that by default, IMDB lists their reviews from best to worst.

[Seth1968]

Originally posted by 403Gemini
I thoroughly enjoyed both of those movies. Gravity is actually one of my real life fears (even though getting stuck in space would never happen to me...) so maybe I just appreciated it for that.

Rosemary's baby needs to be taken into context for the year/era it was made. It was much more controversial and scary back then which I can appreciate and admire it for that

I love Sci-Fi, but as noted, I thought Gravity sucked.

As far as Rosemary's Baby goes and the era...The Exorcist?

[403Gemini]

Originally posted by Seth1968


I love Sci-Fi, but as noted, I thought Gravity sucked.

As far as Rosemary's Baby goes and the era...The Exorcist?

Exorcist wasn't scary either, was suspensful but far from scary. Again, it's appreciating the era. With Rosemary's baby you aren't supposed to be scared, you're supposed to be sympathetic with Rosemary and how she has nobody she can turn to or trust, that on it's own is scary/frustrating

[Seth1968]

Originally posted by 403Gemini


Exorcist wasn't scary either, was suspensful but far from scary. Again, it's appreciating the era. With Rosemary's baby you aren't supposed to be scared, you're supposed to be sympathetic with Rosemary and how she has nobody she can turn to or trust, that on it's own is scary/frustrating

I never claimed either was scary. After all, they're movies, not real life

Best cure for insomnia? Watch Rosemary's Baby. lol

[Seth1968]

I just wanted to mention that I finally gave up on finding a good movie review site. I've come to the conclusion that most of the ratings come from simpleton teenagers, or manipulation by the movie industry. Heck, it would come as no surprise to me if it was found out that all of these sites are owned (or funded by) the movie industry. The latest example:

The conjuring.

Rates a 7.6 at IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1457767/

Rates a 7.2 at Rotten Tomatoes: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_conjuring/

Again, note that by default, IMDB filters the reviews from "Best" to "Worst". Anyway, I watched it more for experimental purposes, and it's absolute regurgitated garbage.

Note this comment from the first filtered IMDB review:

Who would've guessed that the director of Saw would end up being the most inventive horror filmmaker working in the industry? James Wan brilliantly takes us back to the retro days of horror, delivering an extremely stylistic, visually striking horror film that stands tall amongst the classics.

Similar accolades follow in bounds. Now filter the reviews to show "Hated it", and the truth is revealed:

First of, the whole hype about the "doll" has nothing to do with the whole plot of the haunted house the family just moved in. Which just imply the hype about stories based on somewhat real events are just mere marketing purposes; which work out really well considering the high rating this movie gets.

Hearing all the reviews saying scares that makes them jump off their seats are just laughable and pathetic at the same time. I was forcing myself to go through the whole slow and uninteresting plot till the end hoping to have just a slight goosebumps, only to get cheesy wuss "finale".

There are easily hundreds of other demonic possessions, haunted house and witchcraft been done before; most of them easily are more convincing than this piece of crap.

My advice is, PASS this crap. It definitely do not worth your 2 hours of your time, go for other classic or Asian horror instead. The only jump you get from watching this movie is like jumping off your seat to head for the exit.

Wow... where do you even start? Horrible acting, a claim of historical accuracy, and a blatant undertone of Christian recruitment... and it's just plain offensive if you have even a quarter of a brain in your head. Apparently we've had it wrong all these years, they really were burning witches in Salem. Just a bunch of evil women with their evil lady parts getting guys in trouble. Thanks for clearing that up you worthless pathetic Christian sacks of excrement. Don't even waste your time with this crap. It's a mindless, clichéd, mess that's been done better without the blatantly overt Christian BS and "based on actual events" claim.

With all that said, I may have just answered my own original question. That is, if you want to know how good or bad a movie really is, then filter the IMDB results to "Hated it", and consider those.

[403Gemini]

^That's not entirely true either. The first "review" you posted stated the movie focused on the doll in advertizing as the "true" aspect to puts asses in seats, that wasn't what the movie was about at all - makes it hard to trust the review from there. The doll was just to discuss other cases the Warren's worked on. The story around the Conjuring (the farm) is "based on true events" (which usually means blown out of proportion )



The second review, anytime i see somebody state something like "Christian recruitment" or "Army recruitment" etc, I find it hard to take the review seriously as they clearly didn't go into the movie for entertainment purposes.

Best thing to do , in my opinion, is to read as few reviews as possible and don't look at numbers (as best as you can) as a rating system, just watch the movie and base your own opinions. If you didn't like it, oh well, if you enjoyed it then go on IMDB / Rotten tomatoes and and see it at 4.6/10 , you'll get angry, read comments and then a movie you enjoyed gets spoiled by so much critique/negativity.

A lot of people on these websites aren't actually educated enough that they should be offering their opinions to anyone, and open voting is always 1's or 10's , there is a rare few who actually vote what the movies true value should be. If they liked it, they will put 10, if they were bored/hated it, will put 1 - so it skews it quite a bit, all you can take from that is more people enjoyed it than hated it if it's over 5.0

[Seth1968]

I see your points Gemini, and as I mentioned, it's all subjective. Just look at the vastly opposing opinions on IMDB.

One of my favorite movies is Pan's Labyrinth (rated 8.3 on IMDB), but many "Hate it" as the filter shows.

I guess it's as you said. That is, maybe do some due diligence, but in the end, you're often just rolling the dice until you watch it.

[jornoz]

Rottentomatoes.com - The Best.

[Mitsu3000gt]

Gravity was a 4/10 movie, but I think most people saw it in the IMAX, and the 3D & effects were done pretty well, so they rated it higher. I personally enjoyed it a lot more than I would have if I had seen it in the regular theaters. I think that is why more people liked it. The story and lead role weren't good.

IMDB is ok, my problem with it is 99% of movies rate around a 6.7-8.5, so "pretty good". Not too helpful when every movie gets basically the same rating.

Rotten Tomatoes is my go-to, even though it isn't perfect. It's critics, so some horribly boring movies get high ratings, but generally they are more accurate. At least you see the full range of ratings from 0-100% rather than a tiny range like IMDB. I look at IMDB and Rotten tomatoes. If it has over 80% on both it's *Probably* a good movie.

Movie rating in general is simply too subjective to have a great system though. It'll never be accurate, as each person's tastes are different.

Same with TV shows.

[CanmoreOrLess]

metacritic.com

All this is heavy on IMO obv.

Another way to find movies you will like, is to align yourself with a movie critic you respect (aka agree with). For example, Pan's Labyrinth (2006) got a 98 Meta Score based on 37 critics. Here are all 37 reviewers:

http://www.metacritic.com/movie/pans...critic-reviews

I follow a few on this list, among the best Pulitzer Prize winning critic Roger Ebert (died in 2013) and James Berardinelli ( http://www.reelviews.net/movies.php ). Ebert gave Pan's Labyrinth a 100 score, Berardinelli gave it an 88 which is a rating of 3.5 out of 4 on his website. To be noted Berardinelli gives very few 4.0 ratings. It is safe for my tastes to gravitate towards movies either of these critics view as being good.

Berardinelli Top 10 for 2006 (Pan's Labyrinth not on it): http://www.reelviews.net/reelthought...identifier=171

Ebert Top 10 for 2006 (Pan's Labyrinth #1): http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-jou...movies-of-2006

On the other hand, Ebert wrote two excellent books, I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie and Your Movie Sucks, in both of these he discusses movies he hated and movies he mildly hated. Ever get ten minutes into a movie and wonder how this POS got made?

[Tram Common]

Based on your thoughts surrounding Gravity I would suggest you join the bodybuilders forum and use their recommendations as a guide.

[Sentry]

mymhm.tv is an old favourite. They stopped a little while ago but there's still like 100+ episodes in their archive.

[BigMass]

first thing I do when I look up any movie on IMDB is sort by "hated it". Not always, but a lot of the time you find the most honest reviews that way

[Unknown303]

I just watch trailers, and decide if it's worth going to or not. Unless I for some reason felt like looking for a critic that has similar views as myself, which I don't have the time to do.