Lots of people here, including myself, will start threads on new releases of movies in theaters. I am one of those who likes to see movies the day they are released, whereas many on this board seldom go to movie theaters and will wait for DVD or cable channels to show them.
How much faith do you put in these threads vs reviews from “real” critics on Rotten Tomatoes or from your local papers or TV reviewers?
If people here rave about/rag on a film, are you more or less likely to go see it in a movie theater or later on DVD?
Do you find film threads fairly accurate, or do you take what people write here with a grain of salt?
I always try not to read too much about movies I want to see, so I don’t read threads about movies I haven’t seen. Well, I have, but I try not to whenever possible. If I haven’t heard of a movie I learn just enough to know if it’s something I might want to see. That usually is the director. There are many directors I’ll see anything they do, I don’t even need to know who’s in it or hear a synopsis or anything. If I haven’t heard of the director then I’ll look a little closer (who wrote it, what else they wrote, who’s in it) and synopsis comes after all that. Watching a trailer is my last resort. Reviews and articles don’t even factor into 99.9% of the movies I see, until after I’ve seen them.
And then there’s the Dope. I really only pay attention when someone likes a movie, and try to stay out and away from negative threads. I’m always ever-hopeful and optimistic and want every movie to be a good experience. If someone likes a movie I perk up because if they found something to like maybe I will too. That doesn’t mean I’ll go see it, there are lots of movies people like that I don’t see (for instance I didn’t see Sex In The City 2 even though some people actually liked it) but it’s there as an opinion.
If someone doesn’t like a movie I will pay it no mind and will almost always skip over what they’re saying about it. That doesn’t mean I’ll see it anyway (I didn’t see POTC 3, but it wasn’t because of the bad reviews, though they may have put it at a lower priority, which caused me to miss it while it was playing).
If someone is really passionate about a movie, then I almost certainly will see it if possible. Anything that inspires passion is worth checking into to decide for myself. I’m mostly talking positive passion, but even negative passion can be intriguing. “Meh” means nothing. “OH GOD I HATED THAT MOVIE WITH THE FIRE OF A THOUSAND SUNS!!” sounds damned interesting, and would probably be something I’d like.
So, to answer the question,
Like: Perk up and make note. May or may not see.
Dislike: Grain of salt until I know more from other sources. May or may not see.
Passionate: Very influential.
Any new information about anything influences me to some degree. Opinions as to whether something is bad or good don’t really matter, because that’s often just a matter of personal taste. Descriptions of the elements and style of the movie do help. If I was going to see the movie for a particular reason based on the trailers, and that element only exists in the scenes from the trailer, then I might reconsider. Obviously, it’s more influential for films I’m on the fence about.
OTOH, WTR SDMB threads, they tend to be more for people who have already seen the film to discuss it, so I might avoid those as potentially spoilerly.
Not really. But then I don’t put much stock in ‘real’ reviews either. The only time it MIGHT influence me is if I was on the fence about if I wanted to see something or not.
Depends who’s writing about it. There are some people on here who I know have similar taste in movies to me, so if they like a film that does sway me, yeah.
I put a lot of stock into what the Dope says about movies. I love movie trailers and that’s how I usually decide if I’ll want to see a movie. Sometimes someone’ll start a thread about how the movie sucked. Then I’d read their write-up and if they say it’s lame because the humor was immature, I’ll probably see it anyway. If they say it was bad because of horrid writing, then I’ll wait for dvd.
I really didn’t want to see “Bolt” based on the trailer, but there was a thread where everyone talked about how funny the movie was, so I watched it and glad I changed my mind.
Only if there is a general consensus on the merits of the movie, and I was on the fence to begin with.
The most recent examples would be X-Men: First Class and Rise of the Planet of the Apes. I am a comic fanboy but am burned out by the current crop of films, so I was originally going to give the former a pass but the buzz was so good that I watched it, and am really glad I did. It was a lot of fun. The latter’s trailer looked intriguing, but I am not a fan of any of the other movies, so I was also going to give it a pass, but based on the thread here, I am planning on seeing it eventually.
Rarely. I think I decided not to see Conan because of the reviews here, but I wasn’t really that excited to see it anyway. (I’ll probably rent it though.)
It’s hard to be influenced if you, like me, avoid reading threads about movies or episodes of tv shows until after you’ve seen them to avoid spoilers. I might reconsider seeing a movie before it’s out on DVD if there’s a thread called “[movie title] sucks!” before checking out the IMDB rating, but other than that…
I find the Dope threads helpful. They give me a decent idea what the movie is like, and I’ve sometimes found them useful for alerting me to lesser known movies (or books or TV shows, etc) that I might not have known about otherwise.
Rotten Tomatoes is really what I rely on most, though. I find it’s usually dead on.