Posted on 04/29/2012 3:58:10 PM PDT by BenLurkin
UPDATE: Sunday, April 29th: “Battleship” is now up to $170 Mil worldwide without US release until May 18th.
“Battleship,” Universal Pictures’ big summer entertainment, cost over $200 million to make. You know it’s cheesy and not very good, so why subject the studio to American reviews? Very wisely, Universal has been opening “Battleship” around the world in advance of its May 18th U.S. landing. And the result: already $129 million in the bank. And more to come. These numbers are from Boxofficemojo.com. And they tell you why Ron Meyer is so good at his job running the studio. The movie has terrible reviews–it’s scored a 48% on Rotten Tomatoes. One British reviewer simply called it “trash.” Universal calls it “money” and there will enough of it by May 18th to avoid a “John Carter” disaster. This is the new trend. If your movie is bad, play for it people who just need to see explosions and special effects. The movie stars non-actor Rihanna, and “John Carter” hero Taylor Kitsch.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
I've never in my life had enough free time to get past the "movies I’ll go see no matter what the reviewers say because they’re topically in my wheelhouse" stage. If there's nothing on I want to see I just don't go.
If I had listened to Rotten Tomatos, I would have gone to see Cabin In the Woods (91% good), but not Act of Valor (26% good). Instead I saw both, and with Cabin, the only thing I really lament isn't the $10 bucks, but the two hours lost out of my annual movie theater alottment, which is sparse. If you can spend an hour reading the reviews, why not just go anyway and save time.
I'm glad the Act of Valor did well despite the ridiculous overemphasis on reviews. I'll listen to friends and colleagues occasionally, but not online strangers or movie critics. Never trust the opinion of anyone who gets paid to sit in the dark and watch movies all day, even on movies.
I wanted to go see Cabin but didn’t have time. I like horror movies, and I like horror movies that mess with the rules. I didn’t want to see Act at all, the whole non-actor war movie thing just doesn’t appeal. Yeah I see a lot of movies, big theaters and arthouse, which is another reason check out reviews, having multiple movies I’m at least kind of interested in out the same weekend is pretty frequent, but there’s only so much time.
Anyways, my main problem is the rating/review culture that is permeating all aspects of American life. Do we really need reviews for fast casual restaurants and hair clippers? Last month I had to cancel a lawn service appointment because my wife got online and told me they got "bad reviews". She wanted me to check the "reviews" on a Samsung front loading washer I had picked out to replace our old one. For crying out loud, who the hell cares?
It's like people want a personalized panel of diving judges to hold up "10" signs before they take the chance on buying a pack of microwavable ziti. It won't kill you to put the big boy pants on and take a chance.
I'll read reviews if I'm picking out a heart surgeon. Anything else I can handle on my own without hearing what the masses think.
OK, rant off.
Are they real.. Ahhhh who cares
Are they real.. Ahhhh who cares
Hold my beer and watch this ...
She has the most beautiful pair of eyes that i’ve seen!
By the way was that photo taken at high or low tide?
You gotta know what to do with reviews. I usually don’t read restaurant reviews, and I have the best barber in town so I don’t need to worry about them. By the same token in a world filled with tons of choices it’s handy to get reviews. Last year I went to buy the wife a new apple slicer, hit Amazon to get some books for her too, well if you go over to Amazon and search on “apple slicer” you’ll find yourself in decision crisis because they have 402 of them. How to decide which one, reviews.
I totally check the reviews on any multiple hundred dollar item I’m buying. Generally it’s the reviews that I use to narrow my choices down to 2 or 3 then I check the availability and bang. Of course for that I’m not usually going for the masses, I’m usually hanging around cnet, good review source.
Doctors and cars? OK, I'll check the reviews. Everything else is overkill. People overestimate the value of their own opinions to other people.
She didn’t tell me to, it was a gift. But when I landed with 400 different slicers to chose from, most with basically the same price, what else should I do? Random? Sort for highest reviewed, ignore the ones with less than a dozen reviews, read 1 or 2 high and low reviews on a few, buy. The data is there, might as well use it.
I bought my wife a rice cooker on Amazon for Christmas and just picked the first one that looked functional. It's a rice cooker, what's there to review? Does it cook rice? Check. Done.
Thanks for the ping!
When does “Chess: The Movie” come out? I hear Oprah is playing the Black Queen and Chris Rock is the Queen’s Rook.
And Alexis Arquette plays a transgendered White Pawn who dreams of someday being Queen.
Moving on from board games, this one is really a possibility.
Remember “Twins” with Ah-nold and DeVito? I saw it the other night.
TRIPLET’s, Eddie Murphy, enough said.
It might have been an April fools joke but I hope not!
Now you’ve done it! Some get all the breaks.
You spoiled and olde man’s fantasy and I’ll have to wait for another Dream Girl to get my heart stirring again.
I just hope my wife doesn’t see these posts.
ps You always have great posts, Thanks!
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