Keeed,

I'm not so convinced of your Boston hating if you like Marky Mark so much.

I like them. I find it interesting to look at Rotten Tomato's critic's ratings vs. the movie-goers ratings, and then speculating what the spreads mean.

Thought Rogue One was pretty thoroughly mediocre. I cared a little bit at points towards the end when we were supposed to, but for the most part IDGAF. A couple of good characters (robot, blind man), but it's an easy thumbs down from me.

The beginning was extra bad, hopping from planet to planet with new characters and title cards every 45 seconds, not having a clue what was going on or caring about anybody. This reminds me of a Seinfeld bit. Why do I care about these people or this story? "Because it's a Star Wars movie", I imagine the response from the team would be.

I'm not the type who cares if I care about characters - but the movie had nothing else going for it (except some underexplored scenery) so it needed that.

I thought it was as good as the force awakens.

Because they're completely hollow and meaningless. People freak out at scores. Look at the responses to that dude's low score of great movies. Nobody commented on any of the points he made in the reviews. I refuse to read them because the rating means jack ****. It makes me think he has garbage taste in movies, but that's not fair because I haven't read his reviews.

A review like this is far more useful than a simple 2/5 rating with nothing to back it up.

A more effective method is to read a group of critics you enjoy. You don't even have to agree with them. Find ones that make good points, support their views and make you see the film in a different light. With a solid core of critics you won't have to guess if you sound trust the user goredsawx69 on his opinion of Patriots Day.

Pretty stoked for the next couple of weeks. Seeing the following films at my local film fest: Burn Your Maps, Personal Shopper, Free Fire, Burden, Prevenge, Maudie, Theatre of Life, The Girl With All the Gifts (great film), The Salesman, My Life as a Zucchini

Or you could skip all of that and uh, you know, just go ahead and watch the movie from jump. It will probably take less time than reading all those reviews did and most importantly you'll have the opinion on the movie you should value the highest...Your own.

B Jones: agree 100%. Something is wrong when the character I feel the most sympathy for is a robot imo.

Cro: I don't know any of those movies

I liked Manchester by the Sea a lot. Seemed like it avoided a lot of the ways it coulda gone wrong.

Jack Nicholson's Joker is literally the worst high-profile performance I'm aware of in film.

I saw Batman Forever (in 35mm) to prompt that thought. Film is well worth re/visiting. It's a great time capsule of mid-1990s blockbusters. It's got peak Carrey. Two-Face is unremarkable. Kidman and Kilmer are bad, BUT I think that Kidman at least is aware of this and Schumacher definitely is - they are enjoyably bad. When there is that self-important generic Batman dialogue about heroism and psychology, you can feel them all rolling their eyes, and it's great.

The campier tone is good (haven't seen Returns in decades though), and ultimately this is a better representative of that era of superhero movies than the '89 film, which has some strong elements but gets bogged down in a weird mix of seriousness with an awful Joker who doesn't fit.

Note that I'm not necessarily calling it a great film (it might be), but am saying that it wouldn't be a waste of time to revisit and that it's an excellent piece of schlocky '90s nostalgia. And you get big points for not taking Batman seriously.

It really depends what your goal is.

After I've seen a movie I like to read lots about it, but if I haven't yet seen a movie I'd like to go in knowing very little about it so I don't have any preconceived notions.

When I'm trying to pick out movies, I find that ratings (especially aggregates) convey meaningful info without any spoilers. I've certainly been led astray this way, but combine it with what you've heard from your friends / this thread and I've got enough info to decide whether I want to watch something.

Thanks to whoever recommended ARQ as a time loop movie. Exactly what I was looking for. The two lead actors were pretty terrible but the concept and execution was great. Didn't realize it was a Netflix movie. Watched it on groundhog day, obv.

I pretty much never look at reviews or ratings before I see a film.
the only exposure I get to film talk before a film is this thread.

like snoop tho, once I see a film I like I read quite a bit about it.

I was very disappointed in this one. I didn't feel any sort of connection with the characters and the only great scene was when Lee was talking to his ex wife on the street. 6/10 seems about right.

Watched Truman Show for the first time since it was in theaters in 1998. I thought it was fantastic. It has good humor and it's great for a rewatch.

I read on it and noticed the writer is Andrew Nichol, the writer of one of my favorite movies, Gattaca. He hasn't written much sci fi since (with the exception of Sim0ne, which I don't remember being good), but the other movie I've seen from him Lord of War is quite good. Maybe I should check out all of his movies.

I avoid reviews prior to seeing the film as well. If I'm sold on the trailer, talent involved or a recommendation from someone I trust, I'll check it out.

IMDB is shutting down their message boards. This sucks that's where I would always go to get my questions answered.

You don't think Arnold's Mr Freeze is worse?

not shocking with the volume of idiots who post nonstop garbage there. same thing happened with ESPN. too bad because there some legit good posters and discussions in a sea of crap.

Y'all are crazy, Manchester had a bunch of great scenes. Some were hilarious, in a dry way.

I haven't seen it. Kidman and Kilmer in Batman Forever may be worse performances on some absolute scale, but it serves the movie well and may be completely intentional. Maybe I should say "bad performance that has the biggest negative effect on a movie". Easily '89 Joker.

I didn't really connect with the film but I could appreciate the craft and arguably the best script of the year. Really weird because I'm usually a sucker for a film like this. I saw You Can Count On Me and loved that film.

Machine Gun Preacher http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1586752/
Pretty good action movie, based on the true story of Sam Childers, a reformed drug addict who travels to Sudan and starts an orphanage for child soldiers rescued from the civil war.