Does avoiding bad movies inflate average ratings?

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that I'd given several films in a row rather high ratings. I wondered whether or not I'd been fortunate enough to see so many high-quality films consecutively. Or if, say, my standards were dropping. Or if I simply enjoy the act of watching a movie enough that I almost always enjoy the movie itself at least somewhat.

Then I thought about it a bit more, and concluded that I might give out fairly high ratings in part because I've become somewhat pickier about which films I see. After all, as I'm not on salary anywhere as a professional critic, I don't have to wade through the dreck simply to have something to write in a given week. Thus, I largely see the movies I desire to see, so it's possible I simply have a fairly developed sense of which movies I think I'll enjoy.

The only real exception is with rentals, wherein the barriers of entry (and therefore, my standards) are significantly lower.

Does anyone else find themselves in this kind of situation? Do you enjoy a higher percentage of the movies you see because you've gotten better at avoiding the ones you won't enjoy?

Generally, yes. But sometimes I'm in the desperate mood to watch something that I go watch something I know will be crap. So I'm pretty much able to tell what I will enjoy, or not enjoy. One of the curses of getting dragged to a movie I know I'll hate.

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"This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact, that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined." -Baruch Spinoza

I do, yes. I am pretty focused when it comes to what I will watch. Then again, I have expanded my horizons, genre-wise, over the past few years, due to excellent input for MoFo members. I do tend to do a fair amount of research into a film before checking it out, though. Well, unless it's the new Lynch or something...

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There has to be something that provokes my interest in a movie before I'll make an effort to seek it out at a theater, at a movie rental, or even dig it out of my own DVD or VHS collections.

In Saving Pvt. Ryan, it was the scene in the TV ad for the movie of the mother walking out on her porch and collapsing as the Army officiers came toward the house to inform her of the deaths of most of her sons. That and the fact that Tom Hanks was in it--after a rocky start in a lot of silly films early in his career, he's developed into a good actor. But the real clincher is that my two sons invited me to a dinner and a movie for Father's Day, my birthday, some occasion, and picked that film because of my interest in the history of WWII. However, the film turned out to be a disaster as far as I was concerned. The touted "realism" was a complete washout to me. I had read that Hanks and the other actors had gone through a week or 2 of training under a combat veteran so that they would look like real soldiers, but virtually every move they made violated the basics of cover and concealment that the Army taught me (and thousands of others) back in 1961. Plus the plot was disjointed and totally unrealistic.

On the other hand, I was flipping TV channels one night and came across Unconditional Love already in progress. I had never heard a thing about that film but I could see that Kathy Bates was in the cast and that another main character was a midget! And it was a role that didn't necessarily call for a small person, just someone who was different physically--could have been a blind person, an amputee, Down's syndrome. Got me interested in what they were going to do with that person. Turned out to be a great little movie--no great message, just a funny, feel-good film. Went out and got it the next day so that my wife and I could watch it from the beginning.

I think that the general public is braindead when it comes to watching movies that make sense and are done in good taste rather than the ones that don't make sense, have dry humor and are done terribly.

Think about it. Take this for instance. I was looking on Netflix last night at the movies popular for Oklahoma City, at the top of the list, Transmorphers. Obviously a leech off of Transformers, but come on. The funny thing was, its average rating was 1.5 stars.

People have become too impatient and movies that last longer than 1 1/2 hours are generally doomed anymore cause the average person's attention span is slowly fading.

When I hear someone say "They just don't make em like they used to", I have to agree.

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"I was walking down the street with my friend and he said, "I hear music", as if there is any other way you can take it in. You're not special, that's how I receive it too. I tried to taste it but it did not work." - Mitch Hedberg

And when exactly was this golden period of cinema when each and every movie that came out was a gift from the film gods? There have always been terribble movies. The only possible reason there are more bad movies today is because there are simply more movies overall.

Good movies are out there. You cant frequent the same multiplex week after week and then complain if your expectations arent met. It's simple- 'good' movies dont sell popcorn.

Go dig. Find an art theater, rent foreign movies, join a cinema club. Good movies are out there if we are willing to step outside the Landmark 24.

I think most of us want to enjoy ourselves when we go out to a movie. Yes that sounds obvious, but sometimes I wonder. I think the theater has also become a place to hang out, or a place to take a date, or a place to skip school, etc.... Certainly a theater is these things, but it is ultimately, IMO, a place to enjoy movies. I think the D movie of the past has become the C movie of today, but I also think that the A+/5 star movie is more and more difficult than ever to produce, if only because originality is harder to come by as more and more films enter the cache of history. Originality in and of itself does not make an A+ film of course; I mean I could film the underside of my desk at work, boogers/gum and all for 90 minutes and have a narrative done by stuttering janitor with a lisp from Cleveland, but I do not think it would be a good film. Sometimes I think even if we are mildly entertained we are satisfied, I do not want to be just satisfied, I want to be blown away, I want to think about the movie long after it ends and I do not want to go to a "bad movie" So I guess yes the old D is the New C....good luck finding a new A+ movie.

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“The gladdest moment in human life, methinks, is a departure into unknown lands.” – Sir Richard Burton

I don't totally disagree with you. What I meant with "They don't make them like they used to" is that it seems these days...studios are more about quantity rather than quality. They're all about making money, which is understandable, but instead of getting mad at themselves for putting crap out, they jump down the production teams throat because of the flop. So who's to blame really?

Yes, there always has been and probably always will be crap movies out there. Whether it be your Snakes on a Train, or what have you, they will be out there.

Back to the topic at hand...I think the ones of us who know to avoid cliche movies and drawn-out sequels, won't be able to affect ratings. There's just more of them than there are of us.

With all this in mind what do you guys/gals think is best Blockbuster Movie? You know a movie that made tons of money and was excellent 5 star/A++ viewing at the same time in the last 40 or so years? I guess Star Wars (The Orig) comes to mind, but what others?

For me, absolutely yeah. There's so many films I'm desperate to see, and because when I see them, I usually like them it's quite rare these days I that I see a film I dislike...and I can't even remember the last film I saw that I really hated, it may have been months ago.

I must own about 30 or 40 DVDs that I haven't seen yet...just about all of them I'm dying to see, and still...I continue to order more DVDs, watch more films on TV and go to the cinema more.

I think about 2 years ago I just watched anything that was on, and although some stuff I saw was good, I was watching a lot of crap, things with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal and the Scary Movie films and crap like that because I didn't know how to look for great films and where to look...but now I try and avoid films like that and I'm much better off for it and the films I watch mean a lot more to me.

Yeah- one more point and i'll drop it...but Hollywood wasnt exactly started by a bunch of leotard-wearing beatniks looking to make the perfect film. Guess what? It has been all about money since the beginning. As sad as it is to admit...artistic perfection is a byproduct of the hollywood machine. Always has been. Film is unique among the arts in this respect; it is an industry.

If only that were true...

I was just thinking about this the other day, actually. I would say that I do, yes. There are specific films of specific genres that I know I will at least give a weak *** to. However, my girlfriend likes films that are somewhat different to the usual films that I like, so since we've been together she's played a factor in which films we go to see in the cinema and vice versa.

Then again, the more I think about it, the more I notice how versatile my flick picks have become more recently. I'll rush to see most things from This Is England to Transformers to Sunshine. I guess it's because i've learned to accept a healthy balance of artistic independent films and commercial ones.

Yes, but it seems that this the case more often now than it was before, studio's trying to capitalize on one success by ordering up sequel after sequel, etc.

I think I have a huge advantage, when i pick movies to see usually it takes a long time for movies to come to my town or Australia in general, I have had the advantage of reading here what people think about a movie so i mostly make my choice based on the reaction of people at MoFo

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Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.
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I'm sure I do.
I blame it on taking rental tips from mofos.

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Review: Cabin in the Woods 8/10

I think avoiding bad movies might actually deflate the ratings I give. If I watch a whole bunch of good or classic movies I probably try to differentiate between them by giving one that I didn't enjoy so much a lower mark, whereas if I watched a lot of really rubbish films in between, the 'classic' might get a higher mark, by virtue of being compared to the rubbish film rather than the other classics. IYSWIM.

I also think that expectation affects the rating - something I expect to be good which disappoints me will lead to a lower rating than if I had expected it to be rubbish nd been pleasantly surprised.

I agree with you in a lot of ways. Not only is easier to find the good ones today it's also easier to find the bad ones as well.
I seriously doubt your standards are dropping and I tend to do the same thing. A lot of times these days I know I'm not going to be seeing the next modern masterpiece so I just take it for what they are. Most of the time I call these films "Popcorn movies" high on visual fluff and not much substance. But that's fine with me because I already knew that in advance. Take Transformers for example, I'm a fan of Micheal Bay films. I find his style colorful and fun to watch so I knew ahead of time that I was probably going to be entertained. I didn't get all hung up on the sanctity of the Transfomer dogma and sit there picking apart all the supposed discrepancies because really, why bother? That's not the reason I went to see the film.

Totally, I go through these phases that I call bad movie days where I actually seek out some of the worst films I can find. Typically Horror and Sci-fi films but there are plenty of others as you well know. I still do the same thing as far as directors and producers and such, however I have lists of these things that i try to collect, LOL Lately I've been trying to get all of the Fullmoon studios movies that I can possibly find. Why? You may ask... lol I have no idea because the boy in me still likes them i guess.

Any way yes in general I do find myself enjoying more films. Because I know what to look for.

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We are both the source of the problem and the solution, yet we do not see ourselves in this light...

No, there's never been a period where every film was perfect or even good. But there used to be people who could make a film much better than it might have been. For instance, there was a time when some of best-selling authors wrote screen plays from their and others' books. The result was a great improvement in scripts. And there were veteran actors who used their experience and imagination to turn what was going to be a B-grade movie into a cult favorite. There was nothing special about Casablanca during its planning stages. Ronald Reagan was among those first offered the lead. But luck brought a great cast together, including several great character actors already under contract to the studio and they added a new ending to punch it up as a box office favorite. Same thing with Cagney who put in some extra bits of business--kicking the chair Virginia Mayo is standing on and making her fall on the couch, building up the relationship between Cody Jarret and his ma, walking the length of the prison mess hall table and falling on the two convicts seated at the end when he learns of his mother's death, asking a kidnapped victim if he can breathe all right before shooting "air holes" in the car trunk--to take White Heat out of the B-grade.

I think the old studio system was better in some ways where they bought up and filmed books and plays, scripts by great playwrites, with contract players who had time to develop their crafts and the character actors who added so much color to those films, and the use of black-and-white film to enhance certain stories. Now everything is about "the deal"--not necessarily the best director and cast, but the hot "names" who are easy to bankroll; not an original script, but a knockoff of a film, TV series, or comic strip that the Baby Boomers might remember. Or a popular foreign film reshot for American audiences who can't be bothered with subtitles. And all the emphasis on computer graphics, special effects, added romantic interest, and car chases.

Just read that The Invasion Starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig (for some reason a lot of people do not know who he is) was avoided by many movie goers. Superbad and the The Simpsons movie both ,among others (pun intended) beat it at the box office. Did all these "movie goers" know this film was going to reek? I have yet to see any of them but actually Invasion doesn't look too bad, does it? In comparison I mean.