Well, that solves that problem (that problem being that I wasn’t all that captivated by the end of Season 4 of Lost).
My wife and I tried watching Season 5 of Lost when it was on TV, but after watching the first 4 seasons straight through, we couldn’t really handle waiting a week in between episodes. In addition, I got really sick one week and fell asleep in the middle of – I believe it was – episode 5. So, after that, we just decided to wait until the season was over and watch it straight through like we did before.
Oops.
Turns out ABC decided to pull the idiot move of only making a certain number of episodes available online (on what was probably a rolling basis – i.e., only 6 episodes available at a time with the least recent removed when a new ones is added). Well, guess what ABC? Now we’re not going to watch Lost. That’s it. Done.
Why?
Well, aside from my boiling hatred for ABC for making the decision to do it the way they did, the DVDs don’t come out until December (according to Amazon), and even if we wait until then, we would only get one DVD at a time from Netflix. I refuse to buy TV series on DVD while I am also paying for a subscription to Netflix. Also, it always feels like a waste of time having to watch four episodes and then mail back the DVD to get the next four. Especially when I could just watch them whenever I wanted if they were available online, and get other movies from Netflix that aren’t online. Finally, I sure as H E double hockey sticks am not going to pay $49.99 to buy Season 5 on iTunes (doesn’t look like you can even buy an online version on Amazon).
So, when you add all that those hurdles to the fact that I wasn’t anticipating it like I currently am the premieres of Dollhouse, Fringe, Terminator: TSCC, and Chuck (which won’t be until March ), then I’m content (though still upset with ABC) to let sleeping dogs lie.
Here’s a couple things that Toru Okada needs to get right away:
1. An answering machine
2. Caller ID
I was told this book was abstract, bizarre, and experimental, but in the amount of the book that I made it through, I encountered none of those… Okay, maybe the bizarre, but not in the way I wanted. It was just felt strange, odd, and boring as opposed to experimental, hallucinogenic, or exciting.
The intro was fairly intriguing and made me want to read more, but after the first couple chapters, there was a tremendous amount of telling and not showing, and not much going on. I went back to Amazon and read a bunch of reviews and realized that nothing much was going to happen for the rest of the book. And so I returned it to the library. Unfortunately, I’m a very slow reader, so I can’t afford to spend time with books that don’t capture my attention.
While I’m happy to see that District 9 is currently at 94% on Rotten Tomatoes, I’m also a little skeptical. Why? Look at these reviews, all of which were rated as “Ripe” as opposed to “Rotten”…
“District 9″ does show that Blomkamp is not without talent and could very well one day make a truly great genre film, even if he hasn’t quite done so here.
But, that reviewer (when you click through) gave the movie 4 stars (although I’m not sure what the max is).
…a marginally entertaining endeavor that’s sure to leave most viewers wondering what all the fuss is about.
That reviewer does give it only 2.5 out of 4 stars, which I suppose does technically qualify as Ripe, but only by 2.5%…
I’m still excited about the potential of District 9. The problem is, I’ve already seen it.
Then that review goes ahead and gives it 3 out of 4 stars. I read the rest of the review, and it doesn’t seem like a 3 star review.
Could have been better if it had remained focused on the main character rather than trying to show off a variety of filmmaking styles with a lot of flashy CG FX-driven action.
Again a 7 out of 10 for a fairly tepid review.
Okay, so I’ve disproved my original hypothesis that Rotten Tomatoes is rigged. A better hypothesis appears to be that reviewers are inflating ratings. Now, whether they only do this for movies that they think they’re supposed to give higher ratings to, or if this is just a widespread phenomena that I haven’t really noticed will require further analysis.
It wants desperately to engage our hearts, but for long stretches will leave most of us scratching our heads.
This reviewer gave the movie 3 stars despite not really having anything good to say other than Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams do a decent job of portraying their characters. Again, 3 out of either 4 or 5 stars is enough for it to qualify as Ripe on RT. So, I think that while maybe ratings aren’t particularly overly inflated, perhaps RT needs to raise the level to 65% to cut off movies that only get 60% or 62.5% from reviewers who are working with a scale that doesn’t provide enough room for differentiation.
I guess I’ll have to unsubscribe from the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter and see if MetaCritic will deliver the latest movie releases to my inbox, as their ratings seem to be much more accurate: District 9 gets an 81 and The Time Traveler’s Wife gets a 50.
You are currently viewing the archives for August, 2009 at Fanatical Pupil.
In the near future, a government intelligence agent uses her position within The Agency to search for her brother while also fighting an organization whose technology is years ahead of anyone else on Earth.
Well, aside from my boiling hatred for ABC for making the decision to do it the way they did, the DVDs don’t come out until December (according to Amazon), and even if we wait until then, we would only get one DVD at a time from Netflix. I refuse to buy TV series on DVD while I am also paying for a subscription to Netflix. Also, it always feels like a waste of time having to watch four episodes and then mail back the DVD to get the next four. Especially when I could just watch them whenever I wanted if they were available online, and get other movies from Netflix that aren’t online. Finally, I sure as H E double hockey sticks am not going to pay $49.99 to buy Season 5 on iTunes (doesn’t look like you can even buy an online version on Amazon).
), then I’m content (though still upset with ABC) to let sleeping dogs lie.
