Unpopular Positive Opinion Challenge

[Philip J. Fry]

I always had fun with this one too.

*dances "I Will Survive"*

[Milky Joe]

I loved The Mummy (2017), currently sitting at 16%.

[Dukefrukem]

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (44%)

Yikes. Gotta ask. What do you see in this one?

[Skitch]

[*]The Ghost Writer (2010)

This excellent film doesn't get enough attention.

[Skitch]

I loved The Mummy (2017), currently sitting at 16%.

I'm with ya!

[Skitch]

Yikes. Gotta ask. What do you see in this one?

Is that the third one? If so I'm in. Third one is my favorite of the series.

[Irish]

I thought "The Strangers," from 2008, was one of the best American horrors of the last 20 years and it's sitting at 48%.

You could probably cheese the contest by focusing on horror made before ~2013 or so, before the genre became really popular and mainstreamed and oddly commercial, somewhere between "Babadook" and "Get Out." Mainstream critics never really "got" it (and still don't watch enough of it).

[Irish]

Which reminds me, RT is a terrible gauge for this because they allow anyone to rate old movies at any time. Eg:John Carpenter's "The Thing" bombed and received terrible reviews on its release but of course now its reputation is much improved and RT rates it a 82%.

I always thought this mechanic was a shame, because the site coulda offered a perfect snapshot to critical reactions of one period or another and simply doesn't.

[Skitch]

Which reminds me, RT is a terrible gauge for this because they allow anyone to rate old movies at any time. Eg:John Carpenter's "The Thing" bombed and received terrible reviews on its release but of course now its reputation is much improved and RT rates it a 82%.

I always thought this mechanic was a shame, because the site coulda offered a perfect snapshot to critical reactions of one period or another and simply doesn't.

And also hold critics accountable for shitty takes.

[StanleyK]

Damn, I couldn't find a single one. There's plenty of acclaimed movies I dislike but apparently none the other way around. The closest is The Fountain at 52%, but that one's fairly well-liked, and I wasn't an adult when it came out anyway.

[baby doll]

Which reminds me, RT is a terrible gauge for this because they allow anyone to rate old movies at any time. Eg:John Carpenter's "The Thing" bombed and received terrible reviews on its release but of course now its reputation is much improved and RT rates it a 82%.

I always thought this mechanic was a shame, because the site coulda offered a perfect snapshot to critical reactions of one period or another and simply doesn't.

I think it's flawed reasoning to suggest that a Tomatometer reading that only counted contemporary reviews would provide an accurate snapshot of a film's critical reputation at the time of its release. If, for example, half of reviewers in 1968 thought 2001 was a mess and the other half thought it was brilliant, that's not going to be reflected in a 50% rating.

[Irish]

I think it's flawed reasoning to suggest that a Tomatometer reading that only counted contemporary reviews would provide an accurate snapshot of a film's critical reputation at the time of its release. If, for example, half of reviewers in 1968 thought 2001 was a mess and the other half thought it was brilliant, that's not going to be reflected in a 50% rating.

I dunno, sorta? It'd be a helluva lot closer than allowing critics to post new ratings 50 years after the fact, though.

(Shit, tbh, I don't care about ratings. I'd just like a centralized database where I can look up & read what every major film critic thought of "Petulia" or "Wild in the Streets" or "Rosemary's Baby" or "Carrie" without decades of crazed fandom and accumulated appreciation layered on top.)

[baby doll]

I dunno, sorta? It'd be a helluva lot closer than allowing critics to post new ratings 50 years after the fact, though.

(Shit, tbh, I don't care about ratings. I'd just like a centralized database where I can look up & read what every major film critic thought of "Petulia" or "Wild in the Streets" or "Rosemary's Baby" or "Carrie" without decades of crazed fandom and accumulated appreciation layered on top.)

It would be helpful if Rotten Tomatoes let you search for reviews from a particular time period, but then the site is designed for consumerism, not scholarship, and most of the major pre-internet reviewers aren't archived there anyway: no James Agee, no Manny Farber, no Dave Kehr. The earliest J. Hoberman review recorded on the site is from 2000 and the link doesn't even work, though I did find the first few paragraphs of Andrew Sarris' report on the 1970 New York Film Festival as the Voice reposted them a few years back (the man sure liked his puns). Not to mention that the site only indexes reviews in English.

[TGM]

Here’s some of mine:

The Chronicles of Riddick (2004) - 29%
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) - 37%
Sucker Punch (2011) - 22% (I still consider this one to be among the Top 5 best movies I’ve seen this entire decade in fact)
The Counselor (2013) - 34%
Need for Speed (2014) - 22%
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) - 28%

I’ll try and think of some more to look into. This’ll be a lot easier to do once I’m in front of a computer anyhow...

And now for a handful of more:

The Time Machine (2002) - 29%
Underworld (2003) - 31%
The Punisher (2004) - 29%
Constantine (2005) - 46%
Kingdom of Heaven (2005) - 39%
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009) - 34%
Remember Me (2010) - 27%
Resident Evil: Retribution (2012) - 29%
Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014) - 18%

[Irish]

the site is designed for consumerism, not scholarship

Sure. But that doesn't prohibit me from wanting something different --- or wishing that the site took a more rigorous approach to what it's already doing (eg: by cataloging reviews from first publication and limiting new ratings on old movies, for instance.)

[baby doll]

Underworld (2003) - 31%

I've been meaning to read the book for ages; I didn't know there was a film. I quite liked DeLillo's White Noise when I read it a few years back.

[Irish]

The Chronicles of Riddick (2004) - 29%
The Counselor (2013) - 34%
Underworld (2003) - 31%

I'd put these on my list.

I saw "Riddick" in the theater and was in a spasm during the entire runtime. The movie was one of the best experiences I've had --- and, from memory, it's over-the-top ridiculous but goddamn if I didn't get a huge kick out of it.

"Underworld" had a low-key charm -- maybe the closest we've come to a legit heir of Universal monsters --- but I think it was made retroactively worse by an inevitable parade of sequels.

"The Counselor" was unfairly maligned and I'd actually go to bat for that one. It's messy, sure, but the cast holds nothing back and the direction is smooth and assured as anything Scott had done previously. I wish more movies were as wild and daring as that one hoped to be.

(Although, tbh, of the 3, I'd only want to see "The Counselor" again.)

[Irish]

Christ that reminds me --- AEON FLUX (2005) 9%

Do I win a prize?

ETA: I just realized I can crib from Duke's Intelligent Sci-fi thread.

Soldier (1998) 12%
Automata (2014) 28%
Death Note (2017) 38%
Alien 3 (1992, cough cough) 42%
Book of Eli (2010) 47%
Robocop (2014) 49%
Tomorrowland (2015) 50%

[Neclord]

MacGruber (48%)

[baby doll]

"The Counselor" was unfairly maligned and I'd actually go to bat for that one. It's messy, sure, but the cast holds nothing back and the direction is smooth and assured as anything Scott had done previously. I wish more movies were as wild and daring as that one hoped to be.

I don't consider The Counselor a successful film, and having read two of McCarthy's novels (albeit not the popular ones), my sense is that plot isn't his strong suit: Suttree is frankly episodic and Blood Meridian is basically three hundred pages of affectless beheadings punctuated by landscape description. Some of the dialogue in The Counselor is amusing for McCarthy's use of anachronistic language (Fassbender barking "Hemlock!" in response to a waitress asking him what he wants to drink just after receiving some very bad news) but mostly it's just awkward (Fassbender telling Penelope Cruz she has "the sweetest pussy in all of Christendom"; the Mexican drug kingpin's monologue about actions having consequences).

[Irish]

I don't consider The Counselor a successful film, and having read two of McCarthy's novels (albeit not the popular ones), my sense is that plot isn't his strong suit: Suttree is frankly episodic and Blood Meridian is basically three hundred pages of affectless beheadings punctuated by landscape description. Some of the dialogue in The Counselor is amusing for McCarthy's use of anachronistic language (Fassbender barking "Hemlock!" in response to a waitress asking him what he wants to drink just after receiving some very bad news) but mostly it's just awkward (Fassbender telling Penelope Cruz she has "the sweetest pussy in all of Christendom"; the Mexican drug kingpin's monologue about actions having consequences).

Oh, I don't consider it a successful film either. But I do think what it tried to do (and sometimes does) was waaaaaay more interesting than most of the "product" loitering about contemporary theaters.

Or, as I put it back in 2017:

One last note: I've developed a soft spot for sci-fi movies that contain ideas, or elements I've never seen before, despite completely fucking up their narratives or generally half-assing it in other areas. I'd rather watch movies like 28 Days Later, Solaris, Aeon Flux, Automata, The Rover, and the Robocop remake than most of the stuff in The Playlist's top ten. They aren't "better," just a helluva lot more interesting. (Automata, for one, is almost a complete clusterfuck but contains an idea I've literally never seen represented in another feature film).

"The Counselor" isn't sci-fi but the idea still holds, ie, from the same thread, "the stuff that interests me most are the movies that swung for the fences and almost totally whiffed it." This is an area of film that rarely gets discussed, because it doesn't fit into the "thumbs up / thumbs down" or "fresh / rotten" binary, which too often captures the conversation.

[DavidSeven]

Two pages deep and not one mention of Speed Racer?

Match-Cut, you’ve changed.

[Philip J. Fry]

And now for a handful of more:

The Time Machine (2002) - 29%

I enjoyed that one.

[Dukefrukem]

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009) - 34%

Another good one.

[Skitch]

Christ that reminds me --- AEON FLUX (2005) 9%

Soldier (1998) 12%
Death Note (2017) 38%
Alien 3 (1992, cough cough) 42%
Book of Eli (2010) 47%
Robocop (2014) 49%
Tomorrowland (2015) 50%

Good stuff!

Per the Kingdom of Heaven pick...I would make an asterisk on that one. Theatrical was butchered. Directors cut is damn near masterpiece. That's my go to for the question if a DC is ever better than theatrical. Totally different films.