Movie Critics Critiqued
By Hannah Isom
Great news for all you budding film critics out there: a new study has revealed that regular punters like you and me actually have impeccable taste when it comes to going to the flicks.It has long been the assumption that, unlike those lofty film critics who scoff at anything dark moods and subtitles, we plebs merely shuffle along like sheep to whatever mass-produced Hollywood bilge happens to be showing at the local multiplex.
Previous studies have shown that there is hardly any correlation between what the ‘experts’ judge to be a decent film, and box office sales, suggesting that the cinema-going public simply don’t have ‘good taste’.
However, a new study carried out by Columbia University and Boccini University in Italy seems to suggest that this simply might not be the case. Instead of using box office figures as a measure of consumer choice, the researchers looked at film reviews that have been written by non-professionals on various web forums. They found that the films that the regular-Joe reviewers raved about were the same ones favoured by trained film critics.
This alternative method seems to be far more accurate than those taking ticket sales alone into account, as those figures can be massively distorted by marketing hype and opening weekend takings.
We don't have a film about Hannah, but there ought to be one. In any case, here's her biography.Watch out for our science film reviews - coming soon. In the mean time, care for anything else?
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Image: Linnell Esler
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