Baby Driver (Edgar Wright, 2017) Movie • Page 10

Waiting for Tuesday night is excruciating!!!

 

It is bad for movies and for criticism. It offers no nuance between approval and disapproval, and instead of people reading what the critics had to say, they rely on a number as if something artistic can be graded as such. Metacritic at least tries to weight the enthusiasm, but it is still an imperfect way to give people information. Another legacy of the Ebert "thumbs up" era.

 

Yeah, I always hate scores for reviews. Especially since people don't actually think logically about them. If something is a 7/10, that's pretty good. But for a lot of people that's on the fringe of unwatchable.

 

If I graded movies, a 7/10 would mean it is better than roughly 70 percent of the movies I see. It would almost certainly make my top twenty, and would be something I highly enjoyed.

This conversation reminds me a lot of teaching. Overachieving students complain about their grade when they get an 85 on something because we have destroyed the meaning of a 100 point scale.

 

RT is a joke and using it as any measure for how good or bad a movie should be is idiotic.

 

People who write reviews don't logically think about them? How do you mean?

So how do you feel people should review films? No numbers. No letter grading. What spectrum would you use to convey the viewer's thoughts?

 

Use words to convey the viewers thoughts

 

Exactly. See, that makes complete sense to me. The need to make things 9 or 10 to call them good is strange to me. It makes the ranking ultimately mean nothing because everything is a either at the top of the scale or bad.

I forget if you're English or history but either way my mind thought of teaching as well. I feel like that's nearly entirely the fault of the school system because of the emphasis they put on grades and tests. For fact based exams, I totally get the need to strive for 100. But I'd personally never expect a 100 on something like an English paper. Granted, every teacher sees things differently, but if I was in their position I'd consider 90 to be something exceptional.

 

There is some that can be gleaned from a RT score itself. For example, there's a reason shitty movies are usually viewed as shitty by a large number of people and end up with incredibly low scores. If I ever watch Book of Henry, without ever reading a review, I can probably expect a bad film based on the score alone. But there have also been highly rated movies that I did not enjoy or care for whatsoever as well. Of course an actual thought out review should carry more weight.

 

Well obviously. That's the review in itself.

 

This is a "chicken or the egg" argument. I don't know if reviewers drove up the scale and readers followed or if readers caused reviewers to be more "kind" with their scores. Either way, there's definitely a perception that anything below 8 isn't good. I've definitely seen reviewers guilty of that thought process too. I mean, maybe they genuinely believe it, but I don't think reviewers always put a lot of thought into their scale. Shit like Joyce Manor being graded 10/10 (just an example, don't know if this happened and if it happened here I'm not intentionally calling anyone out). A ten to me says this is a damn near perfect album that deserves to be regarded as one of the best albums of all time. The willingness people have with throwing out a perfect score makes the score itself lack meaning.

 

By writing a review.

It's dumb to think if 50 people give a movie 2.5/4 it would get 100% on RT, but if 25 give it a 4/4 and the others give it a 2/4, then it gets 50%.

 

Okay so you don't agree with that particular method of grading material. But you don't even think letter grades should be given for a review? Stars?

 

No. It is not something that can be quantified with a number.

 

Those things are fine for surface level, shallow ideas of how good a movie is. But they're still misleading.

I would give Pacific Rim and 2001: A Space Odyssey both 4/4 or A+ or whatever, but if you read a full review of what I thought, it's clear which movie is an overload of action and entertainment and which is a masterpiece and transcendent.

 

I don't like the idea of giving scores. For a review site, I like the idea of building up trust between the writer and reader. But if you do give scores, I think Tetra and I's method works far better. If you grade everything as an eight then it means nothing. If I grade out a lot of fives and sixes and then suddenly hit you with an eight, you'll go see that movie. Though you may not necessarily read my review because you're just searching for the score. That again, defeats the purpose.

 

The only issue is I like to go in to a movie as cold as possible while still knowing it's worth the money so sound bites help with that, I don't like to read the full review until after the movie

 

I think even seeing a 4/4 or A+ ahead of time will skew your viewing anyways. 1/4 or D- as well.

 

What about criticizing a film based on a two minute trailer? That doesn't skew your viewing?

 

Very excited for this. Wright makes films I almost always enjoy. And this cast looks like it's having too much fun. I am all in.

 

Sure, it absolutely does.

I typically depend on who the director, writer, and actors are when it comes to what I go and see.

That and friend recommendations who know my taste.

 

I'm usually not drawn towards these type of films, but I really want to see this.

 

I find the RT score helpful. But I also scroll through and read the reviews from reviewers I like. Either way, I feel like you can look at a 100% score and figure it at least a good movie, and you can look at a 17% and figure its probably terrible. Sure its not a perfect system, but it does work if you view it in the right frame of mind.

 

It's still not a good system. Especially now that it's getting more popular.

 

May not be good, but it does work. And at this point I think its pretty safe to say that its here to stay. RT scores get mentioned in tv spots, posters and bluray cases. The industry has seemingly accepted it.