(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Movies open thread: Tomato and popcorn far apart [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-12-30 The 355 is a movie that seems designed to trigger right wing snowflakes, at least in its concept. The movie passes the Bechdel test easily. Men are very important to the plot, some really bad ones set in motion the potential for a series of disasters that the women then have to prevent. But in the execution, The 355 turned out to be a formulaic crowd-pleaser that fell flat with critics. I think it’s an adequate movie. I would have liked to have liked it a whole lot more. I’m inclined to give it ★★★☆☆. If everyone agreed with me, Rotten Tomatoes would show something like a 60% score for this movie. Rotten Tomatoes actually shows a Tomatometer score of 24% and a Popcornmeter score of 86% for this movie. No concerns here about review bombing here like there was with Captain Marvel or the lady Ghostbusters movie, both of which still show a Popcornmeter much lower than a decent Tomatometer, the opposite of The 355. As you might have surmised if you didn’t already know, the Tomatometer score is an aggregate of critic reviews and the Popcornmeter is an aggregate of reviews from that site’s users who are not professional movie critics. So if the vast majority of professional critics gave 355 ★☆☆☆☆ or ★★☆☆☆ and one outlier gave it ★★★★★, that would certainly explain the 24% Tomatometer. Meanwhile, most site users apparently gave it ratings of ★★★★☆. Top critic Liz Shannon Miller’s review is quoted thus on Rotten Tomatoes: What The 355 offers up is a perfect Saturday afternoon dad movie, but instead of starring [Sylvester] Stallone or [Clint] Eastwood or [Charles] Bronson, it stars five women with six Oscar nominations and two wins between them. (And [it] was written by the creator of NBC[‘]s Smash!) Miller also points out that much of the plot is “Frankenstein’ed from other action movies” and claims this 2-hour movie could just as easily have been a 1-hour episode of Alias. Verified Rotten Tomatoes user Kelly gave the movie ★★★★☆ and a half star, and wrote The 355 was exciting & action packed. It had a good story line that had real life consequences for the main characters. I thought they did a good job casting the girls, except I think they could have found someone better to play the main part than Jessica Chastain, she is [a] very dry actor. The movie’s producers seem to be very proud of the opening shot in which a nice mansion in some place without palm trees is made to look like a nice mansion in Colombia. Frankly, I wouldn’t have noticed if it weren’t for one of the special features on the DVD. By the way, that’s how I watched the movie. I was completely unaware of it when it was in theaters. The earliest dialogue in this movie makes it quite clear that the owner of that mansion is a drug cartel leader looking to expand his business to other immoral endeavors. Lupita Nyong'o and Jessica Chastain take a little dance break during the filming of an action scene on wires for The 355, in which they star as MI-6 and CIA agents, respectively. The son of that drug cartel leader has invented a device that can defeat all cybersecurity measures. As a mild demonstration of the device’s power, the cartel leader shows a potential buyer how the device can knock a plane out of the sky and deprive an entire city of electricity. Bored yet? Later on in the movie, the device is described as a suite of tools against cybersecurity, which is more believable. Still, it’s the kind of powerful thing that all the major intelligence agencies and terrorist organizations of the world would like to get their hands on if such a thing existed. I didn’t quite follow how CIA psychologist Graciela Rivera (Penélope Cruz) gets drawn into this mess, she’s the first person who gets to talk to the guy who wants to turn the device over to the CIA for a measly $3 million. After a failed attempt to exchange the device for the money, Graciela meets Mason Browne (Jessica Chastain) from the CIA, Marie Schmidt (Diane Kruger) from the Bundesnachrichtendienst and Khadijah Adiyeme (Lupita Nyong'o) from MI-6. These four women then form an ad hoc team, though Graciela is reluctant because she worries about criminals targeting her family. Halfway through the movie, the women have retrieved the device and turned it over to some deputy director at the CIA. But the world is not safe just yet, the device is going to be stolen again. Most people who saw this movie liked it. But, to the disappointment of people expecting a sequel (The 356? The 355 Dash 2?), this movie didn’t recoup its budget at the box office, and in the two years since it came out the numbers for home video and streaming show no sign of this movie becoming any kind of cult classic. Those numbers matter more to Hollywood executives than any number on Rotten Tomatoes. The topic of movies showing great disparities between their Tomatometer and Popcornmeter scores is one that I have been thinking about for a few years. I actually started drafting this open thread almost five years ago. That was when Dolittle, starring Robert Downey, Jr., opened. I actually wrote in the draft “On opening day, its Rotten Tomatoes page showed 19% tomato 74% popcorn” (and I actually wrote nothing else in the draft until last week). Back in 2020, the Popcornmeter was called “Audience Score” (the change was announced earlier this year). In the interim, the Tomatometer for Dolittle has fallen to 15% and its Popcornmeter has improved to 76%. Back then, ChatGPT wasn’t available, or maybe it was available but it hadn’t generated this craze of people thinking it can answer absolutely any question. But at least the question of which ten movies have the greatest disparity between their Tomatometer and Popcornmeter scores is one that ChatGPT should be able to answer, or so I thought. ChatGPT actually listed Bohemian Rhapsody in its response to my question. The Freddie Mercury biopic has a difference of only 25% between its Tomatometer and Popcornmeter. ChatGPT did list Venom (51% difference) and The Boondock Saints (64% difference). In most cases I have trusted that ChatGPT’s score quotes are reasonably up to date, so I have not cross-checked them on Rotten Tomatoes. Remembering that ChatGPT can refine responses, I then explicitly asked for movies with a difference exceeding 50%. ChatGPT responded first with Grandma’s Boy, which definitely fits the bill with a Tomatometer score of 16% and a Popcornmeter score of 85%. I have a feeling I’d agree with the critics on that one. But then ChatGPT reiterated The Last Jedi, which as of yesterday did show a difference of exactly 50% with Tomatometer 91% and Popcornmeter 41%, but ChatGPT listed it with Tomatometer 91% and Popcornmeter 42%. Meaning that it shouldn’t have listed that movie at all, even if it understood “exceed” to mean “is equal or greater than.” Lastly, I tried asking ChatGPT for movies with no difference between Tomatometer and Popcornmeter. It responded with The Godfather (1972), which has a 1% difference, but left out Bros, which also has a 1% difference, and listed movies with differences ranging from 7% to 13%. ChatGPT might as well have listed Bohemian Rhapsody again. By the way, I came across Bros in a Google search for review-bombed movies. The gay romance was the subject of homophobic backlash instead of the usual misogynist backlash that motivates most review-bombing. Well, I guess I should write a Python script to answer these questions about Tomatometer and Popcornmeter differences. The main problem is figuring out which API to use and how to query it. My OMDB key should still be good, I suppose. Or maybe I’ll have to reset some passwords before I can renew that key. So in the meantime, I will put this question to good old-fashioned natural intelligence and the wisdom of crowds. The open thread question: What is your favorite movie that shows a major disparity between critical and general reception? [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/12/30/1912203/-Movies-open-thread-Tomato-and-popcorn-far-apart?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/