I think about online movie scores almost every day and, in fact, probably should include them in my list of "things that make me irrationally angry" because they do make me angry and also bring me agony and despair.
In addition, like a lot of you I am sure, my relationship to online movie communities has changed pretty drastically since starting to write about them. I've learned some things about myself, and discovered some things about others — one of the earliest sour memories that come to mind was seeing Black critics getting harassed on Twitter for critiquing Green Book (Note: It has 8.2 on IMDB).
I've also been in the aggregator movie review cesspool for long enough to know that my taste can be very different from theirs, and even a little too genre-adjacent for theirs, so I mostly use those ratings as a general guideline rather than something I take too personally. But when I love a movie and I see it getting a low score, I can't help but feel a little antagonistic. Like how dare you! I’ve seen plenty of movies that are critically acclaimed with high Letterboxd scores that I thought were total snoozers, and I’ve seen plenty of movies with low scores that deeply, deeply resonated with me on a personal level.
And my heart truly goes out to the beautiful talented souls whose first feature is met with a bunch of 1-star reviews simply for being different or weird. It's tough. I find myself asking, whose opinion do I trust? And should I be trusting anyone's?
This is all a long-winded way of introducing what Jos P asked for this month’s TFS Hotline, which I was very keen to jump on below.
As a reminder: Do you ever find yourself with a thought that's a little too weird for your friends or family? That's the premise of the TFS Hotline, my monthly feature where I take reader takes and unpack them. My response is for paid subscribers only but all readers can submit to snag a 3-month TFS membership ✨
It’s a space to let your freak flag fly!
From Jos P:
Transcript: What do you think of online movie review scores? Are there communities to disregard, trust or use with a grain of salt?
Sophie’s take:
Dear Jos,
Everything that follows is my own opinion, so I want to be clear that this is totally subjective — I know so many people who feel differently, and that's okay! I also want to preface this with the fact that I do still find value in aggregate scores, at least to some extent. All that being said, let's get into it: Maybe I'm a hater but I'm kind of anti-Rotten Tomatoes?
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