Rotten Tomatoes is a stupid website, and I still use it.

     I enjoy going to the movies, and I enjoy writing in this blog.  Except for when I travel, I probably do the former far more than the latter.  The other day after watching This Is The End, I wrote a review of it.  Maybe some of you read it, some of you didn't.  Some who did read it didn't care what I had to write.  Some who didn't read it... well, you are missing out on a chance to ridicule my blogging skills.  I will fill both camps in on a little secret-- I enjoyed writing the review.

So, that is my new thing.  I hope I keep up with it.  One a week--that's my goal.  I'm going to throw in some quick research I've just done that prompted this blog, though.

I think Rotten Tomatoes (http://www.rottentomatoes.com) is a stupid website.  And yes, I still use it anyhow.

I've been familiar with RT for probably a decade (they pretty much rolled it out in 2000, I think).  For an average movie, I usually do a quick look at the Tomatometer score from the critics and from the audience (average Joes like you or me that rate on there), maybe glance at the quick "consensus" write-up they have, and see how it stacks up to what else is opening or currently playing.

The scores don't sway me to see or not see a movie.  That's a choice I've already made prior to visiting RT.  What the scores do (for me, mind you) is give me an idea of whether most movie-going people (critics and audiences alike) cared for the movie or not, and gives me a ball-park idea on what I might expect out of it.

I had never given any thought to how this worked out behind-the-scenes at RT, though.  And now, I think some of these rotten" vs. "fresh" ideas could be skewed.  Do you think I was dumb for not thinking this before?  Yeah, I probably was.


My understanding of how a critic's review gets flagged as either "Fresh" or "Rotten" (after doing bad Google searches and finding nothing helpful) is as follows:

If the critic has marked it better than 60% in their own personal movie review (via their own newspaper, magazine, online source, website, etc.), and that critic's review is then used amongst the RT Reviews Counted, RT gives it a "Fresh" rating.  If it is marked below 60% on the critic's original review source, RT gives it a "Rotten" rating.  If there is no numerical/star/whatever score in the review to determine a percentage, then a "person" (yes, I am putting that in quotes) at RT reads the review and determines what to give it for the sake of including it in the Tomatometer score.

Simple math, then, provides the following:

If a movie is given 2.5 out of 4 stars or better, than it should be "Fresh".
If a movie is given 3 out of 5 stars or better, than it should be "Fresh".
Obviously (I hope) if a movie is given 6 out of 10 or better, than it should be "Fresh".

The number of Fresh reviews are then divided by the total reviews counted, and the average is the Tomatometer score.

It is really supposed to be that simple.  But if you take the time to sort through individual critic reviews (that is what prompted this whole thing for me) and look at the score they give, you will see RT marking 3/5 as "rotten", or even 2/4 as "fresh".

As I type this, Man of Steel has a score of 56%, making it "rotten"--however it has an average numerical rating from the critics of 6.3/10, making it (on average) "fresh".

By comparison, The Bling Ring has a score of 61%, making it "fresh"--however it has an average numerical rating from the critics of 6.4/10.  Clearly still fresh--but almost identical to Man of Steel, which is 5 points lower on the Tomatometer and "rotten".

This is not some stupid ratings conspiracy theory.  It is just plain stupid.  RT is putting a product out there that has, in my opinion, a simple thing wrong with it.  They are doing a poor job of aggregating the reviews.  Which just happens to be their main job.

Well, there you have it.  My long-winded rant on why I am now annoyed with RT.  More importantly, it's just a little bit of information on why I want to start doing reviews, too.  I think I will use a 10-point scale.

I am giving this post a 7.5/10 because it was angry.