KGator

Sunday is Mother's Day right? Isn't that going to effect it's performance on Sunday? It doesn't seem like the type of movie you can convince your mom to go to.

To Kill a Mockingbird is a pulitzer prize winning novel that has wide critical acclaim. It is also often required reading in many secondary education courses in the US. However, the vast majority of students who read the book (well over 90%) find the book boring and implausable with laughable dialog and unnecessary plot points. So, which holds here? The critical review or the reaction from the general public? Is the novel simply out of touch with its modern audience and therefore should be downgraded or does it keep the high standing it garnered through the years after its first release? My point is, who is (and should be) the reigning authority on this matter - the classically trained or self-appointed critics or majority opinion from the masses? And given the various points of view you can find in a cinema audience isn't it plausible or even likely that a meaningless plot point to one person could be a significant point to another? Or like Snyder hammered forth in his Pa Kent scene regarding the farm flooding, "One man's hero can be another man's villian."

I didn't dispute his opinions about the film, I said the reviewer was biased. You and I seem to be having a very different discussion here. You have not only admitted his review was INDEED biased, but then gone to the extraordinary length of claiming that its all cool because hey . . . all reviews are misleading or purposely misrepresented. That is patently ridiculous!!! I guarantee that if the general public knew a particular reviewer had a separate agenda that he would LOSE credibility and not be praised for his "unique prejudicial slant on things". LMAO. Did you go to the Ku Klux Klan website for their review of "Selma"? I'm sure they have a VERY passionate take on the subject that you might have enjoyed. Since your perspective seems to fall outside the generally accepted views on this matter, I agree . . . continued discussion on this topic is pointless. I'm out.

A formal investigation, product review, food critique or film review ar all forms of independent analysis. They only vary in degrees of importance due to the subject matter. Roger Ebert was objective because he did NOT go into movies with preconceived notions and instead would rate each film on its own merit. As long as he applied his own viewpoint to each film that was not personal bias. Now if he went to a movie and immediately downgraded it if he saw a prominent ethnic actor because he had a deep rooted aversion to non-white actors . . . THAT would be an incorporation of personal bias because certain films would automatically be treated differently. Bias is bringing a specific prejudice or favoritism into a situation, not simply viewing a film from a unique perspective. Perhaps you like to rephrase your argument.

Warning or accusing a review of being misleading or inaccurate due to the reviewer's state of mind or pre-existing bias is by definition a criticism of the review, not the reviewer. So your actions in this matter do not seem to follow your stated intent.

I disagree in the sense that we need to be careful in applying simplistic benchmarks to individual scenes. While I personally thought the Pa Kent scene was unnecessary and would have preferred it to have been exchanged for the Lex Luther parademon extra scene released recently . . . hindsight is 20/20. If Snyder felt the scene was important to establish Superman's state of mind (and perhaps preach about how one man's hero can be another man's villain) then the scene had a purpose. How effectively that point translated to the average viewer is another matter. While you and I found very little value in the Pa Kent vision scene, that in itself doesn't make it anymore pointless than say . . . .the flash contact dream sequence. To people not versed in comic book lore the Pa Kent scene might have been much more humanizing while the Knightmares just confusing and out of place.

Then why are you attempting to admonish me for expressing reservations about what seems to be, from all indications, a misleading and highly partisan review. Just as public criticism is a form of protected speech so too is any subsequent criticism directed towards the original critique. Isn't that right?

Whoa, whoa, whoa, WHOA!!! That's NOT TRUE AT ALL!!! if I gave you three versions of a crime scene investigation: one performed by the victim, one conducted by the accused and one created by an independent crime scene professional . . . You wouldn't put more faith in the third??? When we read on reviews we rely on the impartial analysis of others. Would you really trust a reviewer who openly admitted to not having a sense of humor and finding little value in the genre to help you decide whether a recently released comedy was worth seeing? Would you value a review of the newly redesigned Toyota Camry from a reviewer who openly admitted to disliking foreign cars? Do you really want a McDonalds spokesman writing an article on which fast food restaurant has the best hamburgers? It is the whole expectation of objective analysis along with an assumed measure of technical expertise that differentiates a product review from just another form of marketing.

My basic point is the reviewer was partial and thus his review is (or will be construed as) tainted. Debate that if you want but it would dispute the reviewers own admission. Why would I defend the film? I don't work for WB, I have nothing vested in the movie. His criticisms are not of me, I have no dog in this fight. I saw flaws even if, overall, I enjoyed it more than he did. At least Rukiao was honest enough to admit his animosity at the beginning, even though it gave his overall review much less value than it would have had if he was not so emotionally vested. While the value of a purely analytical and unbiased examination may not hold much importance to you personally, many people favor a less partisan exploration of a topic. So how exactly is my pointing this out to the author not a valid point? How is criticism now a protected form of speech?

And depending on how their agreement with DC handles merchandising rights . . . they could make a very big sum of money even outside direct film revenue.

It is hard to say. I looked at some large school districts in Texas that took off 2 weeks ago (14th-18th), much of Florida was off last week and yet two of the bigger school districts in California are off this week. I don't think it would be possible to say anything definitive.

The vast majority of working Americans don't. There may be some schools that are out on spring break although that can be staggered. Schools in my area and in another state where I have family were out last week (the week before Easter) but different school districts might handle it differently as well as private schools, universities, etc.

I'm pretty sure that's how the first Spiderman movie ended (and on a somber, depressing note of Peter having to turn away his true love as well) yet people left my theater saying the movie was friggin' AWESOME!!! I guess it all has to be put in context.

You are incorrect, I didn't complain that rukaio had a negative opinion of the film. I simply pointed out that in the beginning of the review he told his audience that he hated what they did to the DC characters he treasured so much. All I did was let him know that everything that followed was going to be less a review of cinematic technique than an ongoing presentation of his growing resentment towards a film he was born to hate. Seriously though, rukaio states that he hated BvS because of it's convoluted plot, unnecessary length and meaningless plot points. So he goes on to write an unnecessarily long review that has a convoluted structure filled with meaningless examples of the individual scenes. Is that not hilariously ironic to you? "I'm going to show you how bad the movie is by designing an even WORSE review using the exact same structure I'm complaining about?" I still can't decide whether this is a case of brilliant satire or juvenile tirade. I purposely didn't address specific points because anything he thinks is a flaw is his opinion. I'm just stating that he openly admitted his motivation at the beginning (even if he could not himself see it) which destroyed any guise of impartiality. Upon even slight examination it is obvious that his review resembles less of a technical breakdown of the film's storytelling and more of a rant from a scorned lover (of DC comics in this case). And I'm not even being accusatory, I'm just repeating out the obvious inference established from his OWN introductory statements.

So let's get this straight, complaining about the structure and craftsmanship of an artistic piece is valid. However, any critique of the form or validity of the actual criticism is . . . NOT. Am I hearing you correctly? Because that sure does sound somewhat hypocritical on it's surface. And just for a wee bit of clarification. Everyone is entitled to their opinions. You can love skittles and think M&Ms are abhorrent to the human condition. HOWEVER, once you formulate and post your opinions in a PUBLIC forum like . . . I don't know, let's say a public message board for example . . . you no longer can claim that your personal opinion is protected from external comment. After all, YOU are the one soliciting people to READ your opinions expressed!!! For example, you may think that Grandma's cooking is terrible. This is your opinion and since it is subjective it is wholly personal in nature. It will always be accurate from your perspective. Unfortunately, once you make this opinion public to either Grandma or other people who know Grandma they are completely justified in disputing your opinion. If you didn't want to open yourself up for critical analysis . . . why publicly speak ill about Grandma's cooking skills? You are the one openly broaching the topic. If you didn't feel comfortable putting forth a potentially unpopular opinion on either the subject OR it's method of presentation (which would be the point of contention in this case) then you shouldn't call everyone's attention to your position. Once Ruka-eieio went through the trouble of posting on a board, enticing people to read his review and then continuing to keep his review on the forefront of discussion with continued posts . . . it's clearly open for public debate now. Besides for those posters who are thin skinned, cannot deal with criticism or incapable of processing any line of thought that differs from their own, there's always the "ignore" button to run to!!!

Do you really want a point by point debate? And if so, wouldn't you lead off with that kind or challenge BEFORE putting someone on ignore? lol . . . I see how mind works. Sort of like challenging someone to a duel after you have already left the country forever. Clever!!! Kind of an obvious red herring there for everyone else to see though wouldn't you say?

Yeah, speaking of piss. You did dedicate a lot of your review to talking about piss . . . literally droning on and on and on (and on and on) about it. See!! It proves I did read your diatribe! In fact, I can honestly say I've never before read a review that spends so many paragraphs obsessed about the symbolism of pee in a cup (and admittedly, I hope I never will again). Still, Kudos to you for being the first to accomplish this! Your friends and family must all be very proud. At least if they can overlook the fact that the first thing that came to your mind in the Senator Barrows/Lex Luthor interaction was some perverse sexual episode. Seriously man . . . WTF??? And FYI the old man's name was Jack, not Chad. I know you cared about him very deeply (see more review tidbits) so feel free to go back and edit that for future clarification in your pointless rant . . . . errrr . . . . I mean your RANT about POINTLESS scenes (my bad). I can see how that name confused you, considering how Bruce only called out his name like 10 times in 2 minutes. Maybe you drank a lot before the movie and had to piss so badly at the time so you couldn't focus. At least that would explain the emphasis on that topic in your review.

I'm not sure if you realize this or not but you pretty much sum up all the problems you really have with this film in your first few paragraphs. This is not the Superman character you grew up adoring and this more flawed, complex version of the character pains you to the core. After reading this admission, I think 90% of the free world could predict where the following BvS dissertation would go. I even felt bad when I saw that you so badly wanted this movie to "fix" the contaminated "Superman" character you saw in Man of Steel. As if Zach Snyder was going to suddenly revert back to the beloved character you had in your mind. And with that, I am by no means suprised that 1) You found Batman too violent and out of character and 2) Lex Luthor wasn't played in the same mold that you envisioned him from growing up. Do you notice a common theme here? Let's face it, this could have been the greatest movie achievement since Shawshank Redemption and you were never going to like it. Snyder stole your heros from you and made them flawed. Your shining beacon of hope became hesitant and humanized. They took your black and white absolutes and made them grey. You took this personally and there was nothing that could have been done to win you back. I'm not saying your highly detailed nitpicking is useless but at the very least it is quite predicable. You might as well dedicate a paragraph to the color of Superman's uniform or the design of the batwing because you don't seem to fully grasp your own motivation. Look, most people love Star Wars. However if for some reason you couldn't get over the fact that the Empire couldn't construct a baffle over their exhaust port, or design some retractable sheilding or even place a few spaceships in the one area that's a weakness in your enormous death star when you notice it is the exact place the rebels are attacking . . . it could literally ruin the WHOLE movie for you!!! That's really all it takes, a person being unable to accept some premise of a story to such a degree it ruins everything else good in the movie. For you, the exhaust port was Superman's portrayal. After you reached that point . . . everything else was simply a lesser degree of resentment. I can sympathize that you desire to become a writer and it is only natural that you will dissect every story you come across and wonder what you would have done and how you could have improved upon it. However, in this case, have you ever bothered to step back and wonder where all this vitriol and contempt comes from? I mean you aren't just complaining about the script, you are delving deeper and inserting your personal interpretation of plot points that go BEYOND the presented story and then bashing those assumptions. And you are so emotionally vested, so outraged at the blasphemous portrayal of your childhood heroes that you can't even recognize that you have gone off the deep end my friend. Your review has gone from impartial critique of cinematic technique to full blown outraged fanboy rant. And it veered off so early in the process that the point where those two points of view blur together is unrecognizable. I cannot relate to disliking a movie so much that it becomes an obsession but if putting your outrage and sorrow to words helps to serve a therapeutic purpose for you, then by all means continue. Hopefully after the emotional pain starts to subside you can even revisit your lengthy dissertation and do a little self-discovery about yourself. Perhaps recognizing your own tendencies and what you are uncomfortable with will help you move beyond these limitations in your future writing endeavors. Good luck.

I went into this movie half expecting a mess based on the critical review. However, I had seen mostly positive WOM on twitter so I wasn't sure which way it might go. There were some people in the audience clapping at the end (Seriously? It's a movie, not a play folks. They can't hear you.). While walking out of the theater I finally turned to the person I had seen it with and said, "You know for something that got such bad review, I thought it was pretty good." and he agreed. From what I could hear of other patrons (people discussing it while waiting in the bathroom, fathers talking to their sons, etc), the reaction seemed to be positive from what I could tell. Was this a great masterpiece of cinema? No, not by any stretch of the imagination. But how did this get a 30% on twitter while such clearly mediocre superhero devices like Iron Man 2, the Thor films, Hulk, etc, get in the 60s and 70s? This was no Avengers, CW:WS or DOFP but what is with all the inconsistency for judging comic book movies these days? Overall I would give this movie an 8, maybe an 8.5 out of 10 (B to B+). It was a little long, Luthor's plan seemed highly convoluted and lacking the design and detail that one would expect from an evil genius and the Doomsday character with his enormous power seemed a bit over the top. If anything a supercharged Doomsday seemed to bring up that old adage of . . . "Hey Batman, why are you here again? You have no real superpowers. What are you going to do against an enemy with the ability to destroy the planet . . . hit it with a batarang?". But I had no problem with most of the movie. The parts that got me the most was the bombing in the capital and Superman's face as he realized his collossal failure. The fact that Luthor callously sent his trusted assistant in to die to ensure plausible deniability probably showed Lex's singularity of purpose and cemented his insane cruelty for me. I thought Batman fighting in the warehouse to be an enjoyable action scene with more of the gritty violence and destruction you would expect in real life (compared to some more cartoonish interpretations). I thought the middle part of the movie that put together Batman's plan and investigation of Lex was presented as well as can be expected and the insertion of Wonder Woman to be an interesting mystery thrown into the mix. The Knightmares were a bit disjointed but I can see the point of a man haunted by dreams of Superman as a monster would drive even a logical man like Bruce Wayne to become obsessed and desperate. The introduction of the rest of the JL other than Wonder Woman seemed pretty shoe horned in, I think it could have been done better but hey . . . the movie was already dragging along at 2 and a half hours. The ending/funerals seem to go on for way too long for me but these are secondary nitpicks. Overall, the acting of the leads was acceptable, Gal Gadot looks great (not sure about her acting though, there wasn't much to draw from), and the story/explanation of why these two heros would be battling each other seemed plausible enough. It is definitely a movie worth seeing but not one that you are going to hold up as the new standard in superhero films.

That's true. My point was more that the "word of mouth" will be more noticeable for a movie with a larger audience. If that WOM is positive it will overwhelm the critics negative revew. On the flip side, if critical review was high and word of mouth was terrible it would again overwhelm the professional critics. Now if WOM matches the reviews or is split then the reviews hold more sway. On most films where WOM is smaller (simply because fewer people will have seen the movie and be able to offer their opinions) and harder to notice, critic ratings might be the main source of information used in a decision to view a movie because you just don't know anyone who has seen it yet. In other words, the scale of a movie can give WOM a greater and more immediate impact (Good or Bad) so big blockbuster events have to be looked at a little differently than the typical movie fare. I'm not predicting what the WOM will actually be and even then its effect won't be felt immediately (especially if a movie already has a lot of presales or has already made a lot of people's weekend plans).

This is partially correct. However, this has a slightly different dynamic than most movies because of the size of the audience. We are looking at a tremendous opening weekend which means a LOT of people will see the movie. Back in the day I had no interest in Transformers. I thought it would be stupid to take a kids cartoon and make it into a live action movie. The critical reviews were also nothing to be proud of. However, word of mouth was pretty good around me and I kept hearing on how it was the number one movie at the box office so I took a chance. I actually enjoyed the movie and I'm glad I went to see it in the theater. Plus, the bigger the box office, the more people see it and can spread word of mouth. Now granted, Transformers was not as dark as this movie is supposed to be and more of a popcorn flick but the bottom line is that if your friends and people you know say they like a movie, most people will elevate those opinions above the reviews of people they don't really know or relate to.

True, San Francisco isn't slowly sinking into the ocean. It will probably break off and be submerged almost instantaneously during some enormous earthquake.

A cute movie. Nostalgic and charming and the ending was heartwarming. Not a great movie but much better than most animated films I have seen of late.

Good flick. Not great but worth going to see. Excellent visuals and mood music in parts (especially in the beginning involving Juarez and the border). I thought Blunt did a satisfactory job but her character wasn't as compelling or engaging as she probably should have been. Brolin and Del Toro stole the film IMO.

I give this movie a solid B. Visually it had some great moments and the soundtrack was very well done. The movie seemed to lag towards the end for me and I didn't care that much for the FBI characters although I did feel Blunt's character was sympathetic and could feel her internal conflict. To me Brolin and Del Toro stole the film. As for Del Toro, to me his character is the prototypical good guy who turned to the dark side. He wasn't good nor evil but driven for revenge. He was the perfect "the end justifies the means" type of character. He wasn't just a brutal killer because he enjoyed it. He could have easily killed Blunt when she drew her gun on him (impeding his mission) in the warehouse. He could have killed the maid (she could have summoned help, screamed out a warning, etc) but assessed her as a non-threat and simply bypassed her. He was the perfect killing machine because revenge was his primary motivation and he didn't care about his own well being. However as someone earlier mentioned, he wasn't a sociopath, his killings were directed towards a purpose. He threatened to kill Blunt but when she signed the form he disassembled her weapon and left her alive even though once she signed he probably could have killed her and left one less loose end. In the end though, his rage was directed against the cartel, not the general public. It was sad that Del Toro killed the corrupt cop but then again, leaving him alive would have breached operational security and I can't imagine that as a Mexican Prosecutor who's family was killed by the cartel that he had much compassion for corrupt officials. Especially as he foreshadowed how the Mexican Police are the ones you couldn't trust during the extraction mission.