Movies Talk! Talkin' about movies!

[o.pwuaioc]

Has anyone watched the 2020 documentary Console Wars?

[RCBH928]

nope but looks interesting

[RCBH928]

just finished SAW and forgot how good it was. I avoided the sequela because i know from wxperience Hollywood pumps cash grab straight to dvd sequels devoid from any substance.

maybe i should give it a chance.

[PretentiousHipster]

Now that the films of the year are slowly coming in (except some of the foreign ones), here's my top 10 of the year so far:

1. Chime
2. A Different Man
3. Rumours
4. The Substance
5. Trap
6. Bramayugam
7. Anora
8. One More Shot
9. The Apprentice
10. The Count of Monte-Cristo

Honourable Mention: Angels Fallen: Warriors of Peace (so bad it's good)

[RCBH928]

How do you choose which movies to watch? I usually search by genre and filter by ratings in IMDB.com . Recently I learned that different review sites give widely different ratings. For Example The movie The Apprentice has 6/10 (Metacritic) , 7/10 (IMDB), and 8/10 (Rotten Tomatoes). Which do you think is usually more on point with their ratings?

Sometimes I just go with the poster+log line , and maybe the trailer. More recently asking AI but it does not seem to have a high taste, just blurting out the obvious.

[Raging Justice]

Who still uses review sites? That's so outdated. Most people today realize how useless "critics" are. I watch things based on suggestions from certain people on forums, people I know in real life, or certain youtubers whose opinions I tend to agree with. Sometimes I also just go with my gut. If something looks interesting to me, I'll just check it out. It's not perfect, youtubers I follow have recommended things in the past that I hated, but I trust people like that more than I do "critics", "experts" and "professionals"

I've discovered some great retro games recently recommended by people that were critically panned when they originally released. I trust regular everyday people more than I do "professionals".

Metacritic, rotten tomatoes, etc. are completely irrelevant to me in 2025 and I honestly don't know anyone who gives a crap about those sites. I can't believe people still care about that stuff. Get with the times man.

[marurun]

Good critics are still quite useful. They key is to read enough of their reviews that you 1) know their movie preferences and 2) how their preferences align with your own. As an example, while I often didn’t agree with Roger Ebert’s takes on movies, I knew how his views and mine diverged and could usually get a good feel for how I was likely to feel about a film based on the details he provided in his reviews.

So faceless critics are going to be fairly useless, yes, but critics you follow, who write well and consistently, are valuable resources.

[PretentiousHipster]

or certain youtubers whose opinions I tend to agree with

Aren't those critics? A lot of video essayists were even academics in the past for example.

Looking for critics whose opinions you agree with doesn't make it good imo, it's more about ones you can say personally why they enjoy it, and when they do the "if you like x you'll like this" sort of route. If you can write a negative review, but still make a certain group of people wanna see it, then that's a good critic (if it's in good faith of course. A critic going like "this is bad cause a character is black" and people see it cause of that, then that's not really the same case).

The problem with sites like metacritic and rottentomatoes is that since it's an aggregate, people just focus on the score and not the details as to what makes something (un)worthy of their time. Those are also bad sites because the scores were objectively higher recently than they ever were before. It's funny, some insane gen x told me that video game scores were higher back then than now, and he couldn't be further from the truth.

Letterboxd is a good site. It has tons of lists for you to follow from users you can trust, or by books/scholars that seem interesting, and you can find good critics, both amateur, and professional there. Just ignore the overall score and look for those users.

If you're gonna say "why waste time going through that stuff?" I'd rather spend 10-20 minutes reading something to see if it's worth than my time rather than spending 1.5-2 hours going in blind and having no idea how it's gonna be.

EDIT: Also the "critics are useless" argument was always hilarious to me. French new wave, and games like Hades, exist because of critics.

[Ack]

Yes, the YouTubers are critics, regardless of whether they are professional critics, which many of them are trying to be or do consider themselves.

Critics can also be a source of information regarding a film, video game, or other art piece. They may provide insights such as connections to other art,manufacturing background, inspiration, etc. However, it is best to avoid simple ratings and to explore their opinions, be it writing or video, to understand how they come to their conclusions. From there, you can take or leave what they say, but a simple "X out of 10" says almost nothing. I use it for sites like Letterboxd or GoodReads, but that's only so I can go back through later to see what I liked personally, not to shape the opinions of others.

[marurun]

The better critics are also knowledgeable about film and the film industry. They can highlight connections between contexts, careers, etc... For me, sometimes I enjoy a film more when I know more about the context in which it was made, and critics are very important to that as well.