Oscar Best Pictures - Why???

Not true at all. Almost any film on IMDb could have a 7 or higher. Statistically that's absurd.

True, that's basically a placeholder. Anything around that range could be trash or great... or a 7.

The most reliable way is to read criticism. I've found a couple of critics that think similarly to me, like Jim Emerson, and the folks at Reverse Shot. Reverse Shot has an incredible breadth of film knowledge, and are incredible at helping you see new, especially foreign, films. Here's their best film list for 2012: http://www.reverseshot.com/article/r...hots_best_2012

As you can tell by my list, they opened me up to a lot of films. I think reading criticism is also the second best way to better understand films, next to actually watching films of course, and right ahead of discussing them.

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Mubi

Rotten Tomatoes/Flixster > IMDb.

I rarely let bad reviews deter me if a movie interests me. I mostly rely on them to help me pick out something good I otherwise would probably ignore or overlook.

But I don't go by the final score. I actually like to read the reviewer's thoughts on it to get an idea about why it's good. Reading thoughts on film is part of what I like about them.

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#31 on SC's Top 100 Mofos list!!

That's why I read critics who don't give films a score!

My Oscars "why?" is "why wasn't Moonrise Kingdom nominated for Best Picture?"

I think it's better than all the nominees, and I loved some of the nominees.

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~ I am tired of ze same old faces! Ze same old things!

It's possible to give a film a score and also have something to say about it. I should know; I do it all the time.

You are wrong.

A small minority of films have a 7 or higher. Very few films manage to reach around 7.5 or higher. The bulk is between 5.5 and 7.0.

Here are the statistics for Action Films in the IMDB rankings (http://www.imdb.com/search/title?gen...e_type=feature).

total number of action films with over 1,000 votes: 2,645 titles

Number of titles by rating interval:

9.0 > 62 > 8.0
8.0 > 197 >= 7.5
7.5 > 355 >= 7.0
7.0 > 472 >= 6.5
6.5 > 451 >= 6.0
6.0 > 408 >= 5.5
5.5 > 250 >= 5.0
5.0 > 163 >= 4.5
4.5 > 297 >= 1.0

As you can clearly notice, film density peaks between 7.0 and 5.5. Usually films over 7.5 are less than 10% of all popular films (with more than 1,000 votes) and they are usually very good. The median film rating in the IMDB is 6.3.

In the category of drama, the proportion of popular films who scored more than 8 was 5.2%. In action, 2.3%. The discrepancy can be understood by the fact that dramas make it easier for people to give perfect ratings ("how sad that movie is I give it a 10/10").

Overall, the IMDB ratings have provided me with the most reliable indicators if the film is fresh or rotten: usually films over 7.5 are fresh while under 6 are rotten.

I find it odd I need to clarify but "films people are remotely aware of." IMDb's statistics are less reliable since it compounds every film ever. Really you shouldn't count on other people's opinions in the first place I dunno why I'm having this conversation. I can cite numerous films that have 8s or higher with most reviews being 10 stars and I think every single one of them is utterly wrong. Are people rotten? Where is the line? Usually films that I don't like are rotten, regardless of their IMDb rating.

PS: When I brought up statistics earlier I mean that in a general sense it's impossible for most films that are made to be good. Just like how in any given music genre, the majority of the bands are bad.

If the average person's IQ is a 100 then it would stand to reason that the average movie goer's knowledge of film would be quite limited. If one was to just look at commercial ratings of movies, then surely the average movie goer's tastes are to be questioned.
If we were to assume that specialized forums have a better taste and appreciation of relevant subject, then it would be also safe to assume that the people envolved in the actual making of movies ( members of the Academy ) would certainly be better qualified to rate them.
People may not agree with them, whatever their subjective reason, and in that case can feel free ( such as on this forum ) to present us with their own top ten picks ( for the Oscars or anything else ).

I'm not judging the statistics of it. Why I'd say that any film could have a 7 or above, it's because I don't trust the majority of the rating body. Forgive me if I have a hard time trusting the people who rank 4 Chris Nolan flicks, The Usual Suspects, and The Matrix over Citizen Kane. IMDb is also very heavily weighted towards modern movies, and "classic" to them is mostly 90s stuff (ergo Goodfellas 15, Taxi Driver 54).

I agree that the four Chris Nolan's films, The Usual Suspects and The Matrix are worse movies than Citizen Kane, though, I wouldn't say they are bad movies (in fact, I rate the Matrix , and all the other five films at least ). Though you should notice that all these six films are way more entertaining than Citizen Kane, which explains why they are rated higher: they fit more the tastes of a modern audience. I am impressed that Citizen Kane managed to score a 8.5 rating for modern audiences, that speaks volumes about it's timeless nature.

My point is that the IMDB ratings are a good way of sorting good from bad movies. I never said that the top 250 ranking is an accurate reflection of the greatness of the movies and that movies ranked in the top 20 are better than those ranked in the bottom of the list.

But, overall, the probability that I will like a movie is very strongly correlated with it's IMDB rating: I liked all the top 20 films in the IMDB top 250. That's why they are the top 20: everybody likes these films.

Great movies can be those that speak strongly to certain subsets of people but not to all, so that their IMDB ratings may be lower (The Tree of Life, for instance, is rated 6.8, because there are people that loved it and people that hated it).

Overall, for me the top 250 of the IMDB appears to be a better list than the top 250 of the British film institute. The films in the top 250 of the IMDB are generally safer to watch (I had some traumatic experiences trying to watch some critics favorites: they bored me to death).

Anyway, It is always impossible that you will agree fully with any film list ever made besides yours own favorite movies list.

Take the IMDB ratings for what they are: movies with high ratings are movies that appeal to broad sets of people, movies with low ratings are movies that appeal to smaller sets of people.

Nothing will ever top the 2003 Oscars for me. I actually find myself caring less and less about them each year. I like having a clear favorite to root for through the ceremony.

Watching Return of the King blow everything out of the water was ridiculously amazing. (sadly, the hobbit is not in the same league).

Then the 2004 Oscars came and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was forgotten, and not even nominated for best picture. That film deserved so much more.

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" I see in your eyes, the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, whe we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. May and hour of wolves and shattered shields before the age of men comes crashing down, but it is not this day! This day we Fight! For all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand men of the west!!"
-Aragorn: The Lord of the Rings the Return of the King

The average IQ of critics is also around 100 so they are not that smarter on average than IMDB voters.

Also, generally, the greatest movies (for me at least) tend to be popular movies that also receive critical praise: The Godfather was the highest grossing film in 1972, 2001: A Space Odyssey was the highest grossing film in 1968, Star Wars was the highest grossing film in US history in 1977, Seven Samurai was the highest grossing film in Japanese history in 1954 and again, Spirited Away was the highest grossing film in Japanese history in 2001. All these films also received massive critical praise and they also have very high IMDB ratings.

Films that critics love and fail at the box office are generally self indulgent artsy crap (or, at best, inaccessible films that are not easy to watch). While films that succeed at the box office and fail at the critics are dumb blockbusters, generally mediocre films.

IMDB ratings also tend to be more forgiving to dumb but enjoyable movies. Such as Resident Evil: Apocalypse. Roger Ebert gave it 1/2 star (a score I didn't know existed!), but it has a 6 rating on the IMDB.

The problem is that people who make movies do not watch that many movies themselves. The IMDB ratings have the advantage of comparing every movie ever made based on average rating in that it doesn't need for the voters to be aware of every other movie.

Also, the IMDB uses certain mechanisms to weight the votes of those who have more experience. Basically, the ratings of those who have many reviews and rated many films have greater weight than the ratings of those of have less reviews and rated fewer films.

The fact is that there are around 200,000 movies in existence. A professional film critic with 20 years experience has watched around 10,000 movies, or 5% of the total. And also, he didn't watch most of these movies several times in order to really master every one. That means that critics are also not able to differentiate the greatest movies since they haven't watched more than a small fraction of all movies and also they brains cannot reliably store their impressions of every movie they watched so when they vote for the top 10 greatest movies they vote for the conventional choices (Citizen Kane, Tokyo Story, Vertigo, Godfather, etc).

One blogger noticed that the British Film Institute's top 50 greatest movies in their 2012 pool resembled the basic viewing list of film school. The reason is simple: these movies are those that made the strongest impressions on the largest number of film critics since all these critics watched these movies when they were in film school and thus hold nostalgic value.

The IMDB ratings are less biased in that they don't tend to overvalue classics over more modern movies and that they give every movie a fighting chance. Though, it is true that they are biased torwards modern movies because they are voted by modern people and so reflect modern tastes and modern movies are made for these tastes while old movies aren't.

First off, Citizen Kane's reputation both helps and hurts it. There are two types of people that see it: those that understand its greatness, and those that don't. Many that don't will rashly (in a very Internet mannered way) instantly give it a very poor rating. Some don't want to look stupid by not getting it, so they rank it higher and attribute its greatness to innovation, influence, or something else that isn't relevant anymore (which is dead WRONG! But part of why it has as high a score as it has). Also, I would DEFINITELY say that Citizen Kane is more entertaining than the above 6 I mentioned, and many more on the list. Even if you don't get Kane, you have to admit that the script is superb. Nolan's films are not at all visual, and could be seen by just reading the script, all of them (to a lesser extent, Memento) have incredibly dry, didactic writing, that I'd fall asleep in those if it weren't for a blasting horn sound every 15 minutes. The Usual Suspects lost my interest from the start, I knew it was being overly confusing in order to pull the rug out from under us at the end. And The Matrix is much more needlessly confusing and inferior to its predecessor, Dark City.

Second thing, are you relating the top 20 to the bottom 100, or last of the 250?

Once again, if much rather watch some of these critic favorites over the top 20. There are very few there actually, that I'd be willing to watch at any given time (maybe Pulp Fiction for its writing, and Seven Samurai, but I much prefer Ozu to Kurosawa). While places like BFI can be a bit fussy about their seminal films, their films do represent a great number of examples of high caliber filmmaking. When looking at what films can be qualified as art, or elevated cinema to an art form, we certainly aren't going to look at Fight Club or a Star Wars film.

Kaufman is always getting snubbed. That's how I felt when his S,NY was practically unheard of come awards season. It had all of the brilliance that comes in a Kaufman screenplay, without all of the novelty of a Spike Jonze direction. Surrealism fits him much better, which is why I think Apichatpong Weerasethakul (try pronouncing that) would be his ideal directorial companion.

First off, I'd argue that a person's IQ has very little to do with their ability to comprehend a complex film as long as it's above a certain level. My school's valedictorian, who was in the gifted program with me (IQ > 130) loved movies like Transformers. Also, many modern critics don't need a background in film, especially reviewers. They usually get any English or Journalism major with an interest in film, or even not to do newspaper reviews.

I hope you're not considering a film's financial success when discussing its merits, it had absolutely no place there. I hope it's just an afterthought observation. Ideally, a film should be able to be discussed and fully analyzed within the context of the film itself (which is my problem with Sorkin).

Why is artsy so constantly used in a negative connotation? Is it wrong for films to try to achieve a level beyond entertainment? I think it's the opposite, and I think the indulgent films are the summer blockbusters living out childhood fantasies or attempting to validate their love for something juvenile (my vote for most self-indulgent film of 2012 is by far The Avengers). At least when an artistic filmmaker is self-indulgent, there's something to be gained from their opinions. Even if you don't agree, a great artistic filmmaker know how to express himself cinematically, and not just through dialogue.

You're completely underestimating how the greatest films list is formed. Your analysis is based completely on using pure statistics to generate at minimum, flawed logic. As the saying goes, "There's lied, d***ed lies, and then there's statistics. What you're saying is what a kid who's trying to look knowledgeable does, he picks out the usuals. If you read what critics have to say, it can be incredibly insightful. Making a top 10 is futile anyways, what most critics do is choose the ten films that left the greatest impression on them. Others actually look objectively at the film's achievements.Very few just say, oh well, another year, more awards for Vertigo.

The movies have changed over the years. They're more comnercial now, and that reflects in their differences aesthetically. I think to say that critics overvalue classics because they're nostalgic is a very ignorant point of view. Sure, they may move slower sometimes, and don't contain the flash-bang power of modern movies (though there's nothing like an astounding train pitfall as in The General), but they contain a great deal of cinematic merits that easily go overlooked by an average viewer.

If anything, IMDb's modern people don't give classics, or any only films really a fair chance. How many of your friends could you convince to see Tokyo Story (or any past or present foreign film really)? Now how many could you get to watch Avatar (which, while beautiful, is painfully bland and didactic)? Very few people care about older films, because most people watch movies for pure entertainment. Anyone who watches movies from a highly observant or critical perspective will have more of an open mind when it comes to that.

2003 was good, but the main reason being Penn and Robbins winning their respective oscars. LOTR really has grown on me though.

I could be mistaken, but I thought Eternal Sunshine did get the best original screenplay Oscar.

Not only should that film deserve to WIN best picture, Kate Winslet equally deserved to win Best Actress. It was also (arguably) Jim Carrey's best role to date. It's the only film he's made where I actually forget that it's Jim Carrey.

Sorry, I love that movie, and am still astonished by the snubbery it received at awards.

True, but as a Kaufman fan, I think Eternal Sunshine is the weakest of his four successes. I'd rank them from worst to best: Eternal Sunshine, Being John Malkovich, Adaptation., then Synecdoche, New York. Granted, his weakest film in this set is far from bad (Though Human Nature and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind weren't great).

I enjoyed Human Nature.

Eternal Sunshine the worst? Being John Malkovich second worst? WTF?

Synecdoche, New York was good, but it was just too much. I adore Eternal Sunshine and Malkovich, but Synecdoche was too surreal. It was surreal to the point where I felt a lot of detachment from its characters.

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