zlacker

>>tortil+(OP)
Rotten tomatoes is actually very useful if you know the magic formula:

* If tomatometer & audience score are within 5% of each other, you can trust the ratings to give you a decent indiciation of movie quality.

* If tomatometer is more than 15%+ higher than audience score, it means it's an artsy fartsy movie that critics like and movies don't.

* If audience score is 15%+ higher than tomatometer, it's a fun movie even if it's not oscar worthy. (https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/old_school is a perfect example)

>>ernest+d93
I don't necessarily disagree with this as a rule of thumb, but I thought it would be fun to come up with a few counter-examples. Most of these I would consider "artsy-fartsy" or "artsy-fartsy lite" movies that are popular with audiences but less so with critics.

Lost Highway (1997) - 68% Tomatometer - 87% Audience Score

Fight Club (1999) - 79% Tomatometer - 96% Audience Score

American Psycho (2000) - 68% Tomatometer - 85% Audience Score

Requiem for a Dream (2000) - 78% Tomatometer - 93% Audience Score

Dancer in the Dark (2000) - 69% Tomatometer - 91% Audience Score

Oldboy (2003) - 82% Tomatometer - 94% Audience Score

The Prestige (2006) - 77% Tomatometer - 92% Audience Score

Joker (2019) - 69% Tomatometer - 88% Audience Score

>>faster+tz3
You went for very old movies which skews your analysis.

A lot of the old movies you picked are famous and popular in movie pop culture. Audience scoring this in RT probably went out of their way to watch these films, they are not as organic as recent scores as you have a larger number audience scores created by movie lovers.

If you find examples post 2015 when RT became a mainstream scoring system that would be great.

Only movie that's current in your list is "The Joker" which among critics is considered to be a copycat of other critically acclaimed films (taxi driver, the comedian). This is a film that tried hard to look artsy fartsy but was not.

>>alonso+Tf4
You're right, I explicitly went out of my way to find movies that are widely considered to be classics, but were not loved by critics. It's not an "analysis" of any kind, as I made clear in my post.

I think the critics are wrong about Joker. The fact that it's an homage to Taxi Driver and King of Comedy is completely intentional, to the point of casting Robert De Niro as the talk show host. I don't consider that a detraction from the film at all. Many critics also interpreted it as some kind of political document, which is totally off the mark. One of the big problems with criticism in the 21st century is that people have lost the ability to tell the difference between portraying something and endorsing it.