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Rottenwatch: AVATAR (82%)

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Karma Kramer said:
Transformers 2 sucked balls and I think most everyone agrees with this. I am talking about films that when they come out, are seen as "art films" or "experimental" ... he'll often pan those movies because he knows his audience doesn't want to hear their "favorite critic" start telling them to go see "a clockwork orange" and then end up finding it a waste of time and money.
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I don't know if that's fair to say. He may do that sometimes, but he's certainly championed relatively obscure indie films before, a fairly recent example being Moon which he gave 3.5 stars to.

Ebert said:
"Moon" is a superior example of that threatened genre, hard science-fiction, which is often about the interface between humans and alien intelligence of one kind of or other, including digital. John W. Campbell Jr., the godfather of this genre, would have approved. The movie is really all about ideas. It only seems to be about emotions. How real are our emotions, anyway? How real are we? Someday I will die. This laptop I'm using is patient and can wait.
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Ebert's writing is often tremendous and thought-provoking, in my opinion. I do agree though that sometimes he takes seemingly trivial things and blows them up to greater proportions, but I haven't seen that enough from him to call it a habit.
 
I don't think Ebert has ever been like that...back when he was MUCH bigger and had a TV audience he always pushed great movies, whether mainstream or independent. You aren't going to agree with everything he says. He was one of the big reasons Hoop Dreams and numerous other small films have become recognized on a mainstream level. Read his review of Baraka and tell me that Ebert panders.
 
Karma Kramer, overcompensating for his inability to properly defend his own taste in films himself, thereby lashing out against people who can as "populists" and "hacks."

Ebert, a hack. Fucking hilarious. Dude can write his way around the history of cinema better than you can even fucking wipe your ass, sure enough.
 
Ebert is just completely unpredictable. He's just as often insightful as he is completely narrowminded. I just never know which one is coming to review the film. It all depends on his mood at the time of seeing the movie. He can either be completely open to something or bitter beyond belief.

I just hope AVATAR can live up to 2012 which he gave 3.5/4.
 
Scullibundo said:
Ebert is just ccompletely unpredictable.
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You mean unpredictable... just like EVERYONE'S taste is?

You write a map to your own tastes, and I'll follow it to one of the many exceptions to your rules.
 
Karma Kramer said:
lol yeah okay
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The only way to reach the conclusions you've is by first seeing some reviews you disagreed with and then cherry picking his other reviews until you find a few that fit that conclusion or by not reading his reviews period. He is often wrong from my perspective and certainly too lenient when it comes to certain types of films, but he definitely does not pander and his reviews are always worth reading.
 
Amir0x said:
You mean unpredictable... just like EVERYONE'S taste is?

You write a map to your own tastes, and I'll follow it to one of the many exceptions to your rules.
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Hey, I'm not bashing Ebert at all. I'm just expressing my hope that it will be the well-reasoned Ebert that writes the review for AVATAR. If he hates it, fine - I just hope its not because he got hung up on the colour of the trees or by one character's one-liner that tainted the whole movie for him.
 
The mark of a good critic is that even when you disagree, you can respect his opinion. If you don't respect Ebert's opinion, it's because you don't have an opinion worth hearing.

Scullibundo said:
If he hates it, fine - I just hope its not because he got hung up on the colour of the trees or by one character's one-liner that tainted the whole movie for him.
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Sounds like pre-emptive damage control for "sure, the movie has cheesy dialogue... and sure the plot his hilariously predictable... but that's small hiccups in an otherwise AMA-ZING visual feast!"
 
Ebert's gonna give Avatar like one star and then I'll be wondering why I kept defending him.... :lol

.... BUT, to be fair to him again, he has a pretty logical star-rating system:

Roger Ebert said:
In connection with my affinity for genres, in the early days of my career I said I rated a movie according to its "generic expectations," whatever that meant. It might translate like this: "The star ratings are relative, not absolute. If a director is clearly trying to make a particular kind of movie, and his audiences are looking for a particular kind of movie, part of my job is judging how close he came to achieving his purpose." Of course that doesn't necessarily mean I'd give four stars to the best possible chainsaw movie. In my mind, four stars and, for that matter, one star, are absolute, not relative. They move outside "generic expectations" and triumph or fail on their own.
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He describes his entire thought-process when rating films here in detail:

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/09/you_give_out_too_many_stars.html
 
Amir0x said:
Karma Kramer, overcompensating for his inability to properly defend his own taste in films himself, thereby lashing out against people who can as "populists" and "hacks."

Ebert, a hack. Fucking hilarious. Dude can write his way around the history of cinema better than you can even fucking wipe your ass, sure enough.
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Defend my own tastes in films?

He's a much better writer then I will ever be, but saying I am lashing out at Ebert cause I can't defend my own tastes is ridiculous. :lol
 
Amir0x said:
The mark of a good critic is that even when you disagree, you can respect his opinion. If you don't respect Ebert's opinion, it's because you don't have an opinion worth hearing.
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That's what I was just popping in to mention. I disagree with Ebert a LOT, but I respect him, and especially his writing. Calling him a hack is just laughable. He's earned his place among critics.

He is, however, very unpredictable. So it's fair game to wonder "which" Ebert will show up.
 
Amir0x said:
The mark of a good critic is that even when you disagree, you can respect his opinion. If you don't respect Ebert's opinion, it's because you don't have an opinion worth hearing.



Sounds like pre-emptive damage control for "sure, the movie has cheesy dialogue... and sure the plot his hilariously predictable... but that's small hiccups in an otherwise AMA-ZING visual feast!"
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Nope. If you'll read back through this thread, I don't care for damage control. I only care how I find the movie. It could still be underwhelming, who knows.

If you want to see what I'm talking about, search youtube for his War of the Worlds Review or Gladiator review. That is the Ebert I'm hoping doesn't show up.

Don't lump me with others because I'm not agreeing that Ebert can be counted on to be completely rational and intelligent in his reviews. He definitely has proven the ability to write intelligently and rationally, but that isn't always the Ebert that comes out to play. Its a roll of the dice with Ebert.
 
Scullibundo said:
Nope. If you'll read back through this thread, I don't care for damage control. I only care how I find the movie. It could still be underwhelming, who knows.

If you want to see what I'm talking about, search youtube for his War of the Worlds Review or Gladiator review. That is the Ebert I'm hoping doesn't show up.

Don't lump me with others because I'm not agreeing that Ebert can be counted on to be completely rational and intelligent in his reviews. He definitely has proven the ability to write intelligently and rationally, but that isn't always the Ebert that comes out to play. Its a roll of the dice with Ebert.
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Those were both mediocre to bad movies so he was pretty much spot on. Personally I'd hope the Ebert that gave Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties 3 stars doesn't show up.
 
Karma Kramer said:
I'll also just say this... now that hes pretty much well known, he does go out on the limb more, but back in the day when he was just starting as a critic, he was far more in line with what I am talking about. His motivation is fame/money imo...

Lets get back to avatar though, ... if you guys like Ebert thats fine. I personally don't trust him.
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Ebert has been "pretty much well known" for decades now.

Unless you're trying to argue that Ebert pandered to the mainstream with his reviews back in the 60s, then your argument makes no sense.
 
It's okay for him to give WOTW a 2 score, it was just an action movie.


Gladiator, however, was a really really good film and he disgraced himself by not giving it 4 stars.
 
Karma Kramer said:
His audience is the mainstream... if he starts scoring positive reviews for films that are "out there" ... his audience will stop finding his opinion as accurate, and he will lose money. I've talked with people who have been inside the industry for quite awhile and they have all told me Ebert is more in for the fame/money, then being a genuine critic.

He's definitely a good writer though.
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What the hell are you talking about?

One of his favorite movies of all time is Dark City... That movie is about as "out there" as you can get.
 
I first heard of that Ebert guy on GAF. I read some of his reviews afterwards...sometimes I agree, sometimes I disagree but I can't say his opinion is worth more than others from what I saw.
 
DieNgamers said:
I first heard of that Ebert guy on GAF. I read some of his reviews afterwards...sometimes I agree, sometimes I disagree but I can't say his opinion is worth more than others from what I saw.
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It isn't. Hes a dime a dozen among reviewers now as he has fallen off quite a bit for the past several years in the quality of his reviews.

Ever since the end of Ebert and Roeper he has pretty much lost his luster and is more interested in riling up internet fanboys.
 
rhino4evr said:
you know for a "moderator" he sure is one stubborn son of a bitch. So much for keepers of the peace.
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It's not that he's necessarily stubborn, but that some people pride themselves in going against the grain and even over things so immaterial. Whatever. That describes the majority of us. He's just more clamorous when he does it.
 
All the positive and negative criticism has a striking resemblance to how Titanic was portrayed, and I think very highly of Titanic!

So yeah...my hype level is still ridiculously high. I’m predicting an 88-93% score when all is said and done on the tomato-meter.

And for all you Aussies, The Herald Sun today has an article on AVATAR saying how the critics love it, plus you get a free poster!
 
Amir0x said:
The mark of a good critic is that even when you disagree, you can respect his opinion. If you don't respect Ebert's opinion, it's because you don't have an opinion worth hearing.
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I don't respect his opinion in his review of Team America: World Police. He doesn't understand the movie at all and he doesn't understand the running theme in Stone and Parker's work that they live to poke fun at anyone and everyone without prejudice. They pride themselves in being apolitical with their work and if they were to exclude a viewpoint or group from ridicule then they would be playing favorites.
 
Krev said:
I really don't understand this mentality. Have you actually seen the film?
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Chill. I think he just means the fact that its constantly being updated is funny. When he happened to observe the title it was falling.
 
Karma Kramer said:
Weird... there were 4 rotten and now there is 3...
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money_hat.jpg
 
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