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[PhoncipleBone]

Which film prompted that?

Late Suicide Squad dig or something?

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

I wonder how critics feel knowing that their opinions on movies mean absolutely nothing.

Critics pan movie, movie succeeds = critics don't matter

Critics pan movie, movie bombs = critics have too much power

 

[PhoncipleBone]

Critics pan movie, movie succeeds = critics don't matter

Critics pan movie, movie bombs = critics have too much power

 

[rothgar]

Saw Gifted last night with my wife. Pretty decent little movies, both of us enjoyed it. I have a man crush on Chris Evans, but the little girl acted better than him . And props for presenting actual advanced math.

 

[Riddler]

BTW saw Fate of The Furious yesterday. Pretty fun film. I especially had the pleasure of watching it in 4Dx in Seattle, so the theater was constantly shaking and we were getting water sprayed on us. You could truly say I was truly on the edge of my seat.

Yea watching the movie in D-Box seat is the best thing ever. I loved the old Days of Thunder ride so yeah it's the greatest.

 

[RipperGrim]

Late Suicide Squad dig or something?

Which film prompted that?

Not just suicide Squad, FF 8 didn't get that many favorable reviews and yet it's destroying the box office. It's the same with a lot of the top grossing movies in recent years like Transformers. They are critic proof because everyone has this mindset that you're not supposed criticize these movies because they are dumb on purpose. When we already have expectations of a movie a critic's review won't really change them until we see it ourselves.

Critics pan movie, movie succeeds = critics don't matter

Critics pan movie, movie bombs = critics have too much power

Movies have failed even with a lot of critical success going behind it. Marketing these days just seems to a much better job than any 5 star review. Thor 3's trailer has basically already made it a blockbuster because of how good it looks, you think people are going to care about the reviews?

 

[Freeza Under The Shower]

I wonder how critics feel knowing that their opinions on movies mean absolutely nothing.

meaning nothing in the short financial term doesn't mean they can't be right in the long term of meaning. A critic's primary job is to simply be honest and consider any product both in terms where it stand compared to the others as well as on its own terms as if it could be the first movie someone ever watched. The rest is just a matter of experience and pretense. Good critics know the difference, and what those products do financially is entirely besides the point. Hell, most movies critics love are indie movies that never even get a wide release, but that doesn't detract in any way or form from its quality. Neither would a big expensive wide release detract from any quality that movie might possess. It's just that the current studio system doesn't favor the emergence of quality from the craft, but forcing it down by marketing. Which doesn't work, and this system is basically blowing up right now. And when it's gone there will still be movies and critics that weren't paid shills will survive it too, as they have the previous rounds as well.

It's not that different from the stock investor cycle. People who survive in that system don't ride the fame train of lucky fools, they make sure they won't blow up too when the system does, which it always will at some point.
I'm going to speculate that Scott Rudin might be one of the latter, giving his pleas in the leaked emails to not have to make a movie that can't be sold anymore, which happened to be Cleopatra. Which btw, fits in with the 'too well-known myth' movie that I discussed earlier in this thread as no longer being sell-able (spell check claims 'sellable' is wrong, is that correct?) to a larger audience.

Making movies that make money is kind of, you know, hard and very random. Ask GitS.
I actually learned that from the NDP threads on gaming side that had the exact same discussions because people wrongly assume there is a causation between the quantity of quality and the number of money made. There is not even so much as a strong correlation, just a mild one at best, with no causation to be found. It's just random.

Which is the long way round of saying critics and gross are completely unrelated by default.


edit: also I think I made this post before and now sound like a broken record. Sorry if that's the case.

 

[Schlorgan]

Critics pan movie, I like movie = critics don't matter

Critics praise movie, I hate movie = critics don't matter

FTFY

 

[PhoncipleBone]

FF 8 didn't get that many favorable reviews and yet it's destroying the box office.

Meanwhile...

And 64% of critics gave F8 a favorable review, while only 26% game SS a favorable review.

Both films made a shitload of money. But to say that F8 didn't get many favorable reviews is demonstrably wrong.

 

[Freeza Under The Shower]

oh, and another not so throwaway other point of interest with critics is that they are still overwhelmingly white. So any appeal of diversity on its own terms rather than the movie it's part of, would be wasted on them. I have to admit I don't see that appeal directly either (guess my skin color, gender, and sexual orientation), even if I see that others do.
I feel kind of weird talking about that being a thing though. Like, does it really matter for why someone would watch a movie? Giving it as a reason afterwards is another thing. You can't always explain why you like or don't like something, so that's a fine excuse. But I wonder if it actually serves as an ad-hoc causation rather than post-hoc legitimization.

 

[MHWilliams]

I wonder how critics feel knowing that their opinions on movies mean absolutely nothing.

As someone who reviews games for a living, they don't really care.

My objective is to tell you what I think about a work. I don't really care if it makes money or has an audience beyond that. I mean, in abstract, sure, I'd like stuff I like to succeed so those creators can make more of it, but I've done this long enough that things I've loved have not succeeded and I just take it as part of the market.

For example, I liked Power Rangers. I'd like more of it. That's not happening. that's just the way it is. If I wrote a professional review on it, that wouldn't really change my feelings on the matter.

If I write an interesting review or critique that's good. If I make you think about an aspect of a work or connect you with something new, that's also good. Job's done.

Someone once asked me on USgamer, "What makes you qualified do review games?" The work. Nothing more. The difference between a professional reviewer and the average enthusiast is just the time spent actually writing about games. I wrote about games enough that someone decided to pay me full time. The same is true of movie critics, by and large.

Which is to say, there's absolutely no crisis buried within the heart of critics because they didn't like Fate of the Furious or Transformers and those films made a ton of money.

EDIT: Let me also add that professional reviewers and critics rarely get to dwell on things, unless that's also part of their job. Last week, I reviewed Dawn of War 3 and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. This week, while folks will still be talking about those games, I've already moved onto Dragon Quest Heroes II and Sniper Ghost Warrior 3. Film critics are the same. We might care about Fate of the Furious. They've already watched and reviewed the next two weeks of films.

 

[Chumley]

I wonder how critics feel knowing that their opinions on movies mean absolutely nothing.

How do you feel knowing your opinions on movies means absolutely nothing?

They get paid for it, and certain high profile critics like Mark Kernode have fans who actually do care about what they have to say. They feel fine.