Speaker 1: I'm Manny, I'm Noah, and this is no such thing.
Speaker 1: The show where we answer our dumb questions and yours
Speaker 1: by actually doing the research. Today we're talking about letterboxed
Speaker 1: and how it's changed the ways we watch movies, possibly
Speaker 1: for the worst.
Speaker 2: The part that freaks people out is.
Speaker 1: That, uh, maybe it's for people who are like staring
Speaker 1: at TikTok or something.
Speaker 3: My god, everyone is so hot in this very.
Speaker 4: True that creeps me out.
Speaker 2: There's no no such thing, such thing, such thing.
Speaker 5: All right, so we all love movies, that's right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, accurate, and letterbox has many great uses. But
Speaker 1: my concern is that turning movie watching into social media
Speaker 1: data logging might hinder our.
Speaker 5: Engagement with the movies themselves.
Speaker 1: So on this episode, I want to dig into how
Speaker 1: we use letterboxed and try to find out what, if
Speaker 1: any impact this has on our movie watching experience. Do
Speaker 1: we like movies more or less by committing to this
Speaker 1: cataloging and rating system. But first, let's back up in
Speaker 1: case you have no idea what we're talking about. Letterbox
Speaker 1: is a social media app for logging movies. It was
Speaker 1: started by a couple of red designers in New Zealand.
Speaker 1: Back in twenty eleven, but it saw a massive boost
Speaker 1: in popularity during COVID, going from about one point eight
Speaker 1: million users in March twenty twenty to roughly thirteen million today.
Speaker 1: Over a billion movies have been logged on the app.
Speaker 1: Users SKW younger, the largest age group on the app
Speaker 1: being eighteen to twenty four, followed by the coveted twenty
Speaker 1: five to.
Speaker 5: Thirty five set, of which we're proud members.
Speaker 1: Still In twenty twenty three, when a majority stake was
Speaker 1: sold to a Canadian company called Tiny, Letterbox was valued
Speaker 1: at over fifty million dollars. The reputation Letterbox carries is
Speaker 1: that ski is a little bit more indie or art
Speaker 1: house versus something that's kind of more.
Speaker 5: Broad like IMDb.
Speaker 1: Our former colleague Graham was the inspiration for this episode
Speaker 1: because his ratings are insane insane.
Speaker 5: They kind of lean.
Speaker 1: He leans pretty heavily on like the five are rating
Speaker 1: versus something a little more modest.
Speaker 6: Yes, I love movies. I love to watch them. I'm
Speaker 6: happy when I'm watching them. Sometimes, yes, they're disappointing, but thankfully,
Speaker 6: for the most part of the movies that I choose
Speaker 6: to watch usually make me very happy. And I'm sorry
Speaker 6: if that offends people, but thank you so much for
Speaker 6: having me and good luck, good luck.
Speaker 2: Thank you Graham. Yeah, thank you Graham.
Speaker 1: So to start off, how do you guys each use letterbox?
Speaker 7: I have some sympathy for Graham because I also have
Speaker 7: a rating system that people think is crazy. I'm pretty
Speaker 7: much grading the movie on how well it was made,
Speaker 7: like the production quality of it, and also screenplay, apply
Speaker 7: all that stuff. But then it does mean that like
Speaker 7: a movie I didn't like that much will get a
Speaker 7: high rating because I thought that they did they had
Speaker 7: a vision.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you're not rating on your personal enjoyment as
Speaker 1: much as the technical side. Yeah, Like I can acknowledge
Speaker 1: that a movie was good without liking it, without having.
Speaker 3: To like it, But that's what your rating system is
Speaker 3: based on.
Speaker 7: Yeah, Because then the part that freaks people out is
Speaker 7: that that means some of my favorite movies end up
Speaker 7: being like two.
Speaker 5: Star three stars.
Speaker 7: An example one of my favorite movies ever is the
Speaker 7: second rush Hour movie Rush Hour Too.
Speaker 4: I don't even know why the hell.
Speaker 5: I mean, I ain't need chiny.
Speaker 7: I think it's hilarious, it's got good action sequences, But
Speaker 7: you want me to grade the screenplay on that one's
Speaker 7: like not good, it's like so that. So I'm like,
Speaker 7: all right, as a movie, this movie's whatever. It's fine,
Speaker 7: it's a two or three star.
Speaker 3: But so in your letterbox, you're giving your favorite movie
Speaker 3: a two, two or three stars.
Speaker 7: In this instance, it would probably be like a three
Speaker 7: star movie, two and a half three stars. It's not
Speaker 7: a five star like bet one of the best movies
Speaker 7: ever produced.
Speaker 3: Okay, so I have I have the opposite rating system,
Speaker 3: which is this is my letterbox. If we just rating
Speaker 3: the quality of the movie, that's when you go read
Speaker 3: the New York Times or some shit. I am not
Speaker 3: rating the movie based on how beautiful it is or
Speaker 3: what the sound makes is, or only in so far
Speaker 3: as it connects with you exactly, because there's movies that
Speaker 3: do all that stuff really well that I do not
Speaker 3: find entertaining, and I actually think those movies are worse
Speaker 3: than something that has tons of flaws or like that
Speaker 3: plotline doesn't really make sense or whatever. But like I
Speaker 3: don't know, connects emotionally for me. My rating system is
Speaker 3: based on how much did I enjoy this movie? Yeah,
Speaker 3: but there's two extremes to that too, right, I gave
Speaker 3: Trapped five stars. I had a really good time this
Speaker 3: whole concept to Trap, watching all the exits, checking everyone
Speaker 3: that leaves. There's no way to get out of here.
Speaker 3: It is not a five star movie. There are a
Speaker 3: lot of issues with that movie. I also saw Cuckoo.
Speaker 3: It was a horrible movie, and I was annoyed in
Speaker 3: not having a good time, so that got like star
Speaker 3: and a half. You could have a bad movie, like
Speaker 3: the media movies. I'm giving those fives. That is the
Speaker 3: most fun our twenty minutes I've had.
Speaker 1: You know, in my life. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: And then there's.
Speaker 3: Stuff that is just really bad that you're like, oh
Speaker 3: my god, what is just gonna be finished? At the
Speaker 3: end of the year, I may have four or five
Speaker 3: movies at the top level that I've given fives to.
Speaker 3: Most of the movies I see are not getting fives.
Speaker 3: But I also think most of the movies that I'm
Speaker 3: seeing are just not three.
Speaker 7: I think when I look at ratings, maybe this is
Speaker 7: because I'm a good citizen. I feel like my rating
Speaker 7: system is in service of other people. Perhaps your review,
Speaker 7: your five star review is Trap does not help me
Speaker 7: at all. But that's okay. I don't think it needs
Speaker 7: to do that. But that's what I try to do
Speaker 7: with my ratings. But I'm not a critic on.
Speaker 3: Read my ring because if you see me give Trap
Speaker 3: five stars, you got to click in and Rew, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so what did you write for this?
Speaker 2: My first line is, and there's a heart on this one?
Speaker 7: Is a heart?
Speaker 2: Do you do hearts? I don't do hearts. I don't
Speaker 2: know what they are.
Speaker 3: Really hearts will actually be helpful for you? Yeah, I
Speaker 3: wrote this is the stupidest thing I've ever seen. No notes.
Speaker 3: Then I talk about specifics from the movie that don't
Speaker 3: actually make sense. But yeah, it's very dumb.
Speaker 1: My system is I don't put a number rating on things.
Speaker 1: I'll just heart something. There's no point in that. I
Speaker 1: keep a watch list, which helps me if I just
Speaker 1: want to throw a movie on.
Speaker 5: That's mainly how I use it.
Speaker 1: I don't look at other people's things so much, except
Speaker 1: for like what pops up when I open it. If
Speaker 1: I see Devin's reviewed something or I've had after I've
Speaker 1: seen something, I'm curious, like, oh, I wonder you know
Speaker 1: if my friends have seen this, or what they think
Speaker 1: or that sort of thing.
Speaker 5: Aside from what I'm just.
Speaker 2: Curious, like what the worst reviews of something?
Speaker 1: Or I'm not reading other random people's reviews really, so yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll throw a heart on something if I like and
Speaker 1: then otherwise I just if I didn't love it, then
Speaker 1: there's no heart.
Speaker 5: And that's all.
Speaker 7: Here's a fun experiment because many of the movie we
Speaker 7: log on letterbox, the three of us have seen together.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm seeing the Killer here.
Speaker 5: If I'm effective, it's because of one simple fact.
Speaker 3: I don't give.
Speaker 7: What are your guys's reviews are rankings of the Killer?
Speaker 7: I think we all had. We all came out thinking
Speaker 7: pretty much the same thing, so it'd be interesting to
Speaker 7: see how the reviews vary. I'm pretty sure that that
Speaker 7: was a no heart from me because my immediate reaction
Speaker 7: was low, but certain friends had such positive reactions. And
Speaker 7: then afterwards I haven't rewatched it, but I then softened
Speaker 7: on it in my mind.
Speaker 5: At least.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I gave it a higher reviewed than I remember.
Speaker 3: I gave it three stars.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: One issue I had was just the way the viewing
Speaker 3: experience of seeing this movie.
Speaker 2: You saw the para theater, horrible theater. Everyone's big ass head.
Speaker 3: Yeah, It's like I didn't even notice was still a thing.
Speaker 3: You go to movie theater and if you have to
Speaker 3: be worried about the person sitting in front.
Speaker 5: Because you can't see.
Speaker 3: That's to say I gave it a higher rating because
Speaker 3: I was like, part of the reason why I was
Speaker 3: frustrated by this movie is just the way I was
Speaker 3: watching it. But I thought it was like, Okay, yeah,
Speaker 3: not probably not something I'm gonna watch again or even
Speaker 3: really think about.
Speaker 2: Our reviews weren't that far off. You had three.
Speaker 7: I had two and a half, and my review was
Speaker 7: that it was really well made and underscores the value
Speaker 7: of simplicity, but it didn't leave much of an emotional impression. Yeah,
Speaker 7: the first twenty minutes or so would have been an
Speaker 7: incredible short film.
Speaker 2: Yeap, Yeah, that's fair enough.
Speaker 1: With these things in mind, do you think it changes
Speaker 1: how you watch movies knowing you're gonna put a number
Speaker 1: or a star rating on it.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 7: I think the letterbox has become such a staple in
Speaker 7: social media that like, when I go into a movie,
Speaker 7: maybe subconsciously I am thinking about what I would say
Speaker 7: in a letterbox review. I think that's been a change
Speaker 7: in the past couple of years, especially when I was
Speaker 7: watching Challengers, all the Challengers reviews, and I was like, Okay,
Speaker 7: what am I going to say when I get.
Speaker 5: Done with this spee? It's like reacting to the hype.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, I definitely think about it. I think I
Speaker 3: use it as a gauge for how much I'm liking
Speaker 3: the movie. Especially when I don't like a movie, I
Speaker 3: feel like I think about it more.
Speaker 5: I'm like, this is like and like during the movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's kind of part of what inspired
Speaker 1: me to stop doing the Stars, because it was like,
Speaker 1: why am I thinking about this at all?
Speaker 3: Well, it only happens in movies where yeah, that's good
Speaker 3: because otherwise you're just engrossed in the movie. But it's
Speaker 3: usually when I'm like, okay, this is gone from the
Speaker 3: two to one and a half, We're going to lose
Speaker 3: another star if it keeps going for another twenty minutes. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And especially like these last couple of bad movies I've seen,
Speaker 3: I've like actively been like, all right, what star rating
Speaker 3: are we at? And what did we just lose? Based
Speaker 3: on how bad that scene? A constant yes, or like
Speaker 3: sometimes I'm like, oh, you know what that was? Actually
Speaker 3: pretty interesting. Wait, we had two and a half. Now
Speaker 3: I don't love that. I do that, but it only
Speaker 3: happens in movies where I'm not fully in a movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, even if you're thinking about it during it, do
Speaker 1: you think it helps you engage with the work knowing
Speaker 1: that you're going to do that versus Okay, you're not
Speaker 1: going to raid anything. You're not going to do anything,
Speaker 1: are you actually then just coming to terms on it
Speaker 1: on its own, because I think part of what I
Speaker 1: don't like is you end up automatically. Then you're doing
Speaker 1: a comparison system where it's like, oh, well that's a
Speaker 1: five star, so I guess this has to be a
Speaker 1: five star, or then if not, and you don't care,
Speaker 1: then it just looks ridiculous sometimes because it's.
Speaker 2: Like, well, why is that five and this is three?
Speaker 1: Even though this is great, And then I'm not actually
Speaker 1: I'm just thinking about numbers and I'm turning a piece
Speaker 1: of art into data basically instead of just like, oh, like,
Speaker 1: this was very evocative of some feeling for me as
Speaker 1: an actual thing, and it's like, why does it make
Speaker 1: me feel that way?
Speaker 5: Xyz whatever?
Speaker 2: That's why?
Speaker 1: To me, it's like thinking and talking about it. That's
Speaker 1: where the review part writing can help put that into words.
Speaker 1: And even just like okay, whoever you saw the movie
Speaker 1: with talking with.
Speaker 5: Them out of bar afterwards.
Speaker 1: That's what I love when you can have the fun
Speaker 1: where we're just picking it apart and plot holes or whatever,
Speaker 1: and maybe my friend or someone has some idea and
Speaker 1: so I didn't think about that, but I actually agree
Speaker 1: or yeah, yeah, and so I think that that's kind
Speaker 1: of more helpful for actually like engaging than like, well
Speaker 1: that's three, you know, which is so reductive. But you
Speaker 1: can easily do that and then deduce the number afterwards.
Speaker 1: And I don't think it necessary. I don't think it
Speaker 1: necessarily has to degrade the piece, but I think ultimately
Speaker 1: turning everything into a ranking or a list is pretty harmful.
Speaker 1: All right, So next I want to talk to a
Speaker 1: researcher about how movie reviews and ratings might impact our
Speaker 1: experience of a movie. And then I want to talk
Speaker 1: to a movie critic about how they approach writing reviews,
Speaker 1: assigning ratings, and.
Speaker 5: How they feel about letterboxed.
Speaker 1: And for me, I want to start assigning some star
Speaker 1: ratings some movies I've watched. Finally writing some reviews and
Speaker 1: seeing how I feel about it.
Speaker 3: Welcome to the dark side, Yeah, wish me to like.
Speaker 1: So I talked to a researcher from the Netherlands. His
Speaker 1: name is Rude Jacobs. His master's thesis from twenty twelve
Speaker 1: is titled Everybody's a Critic Influenceability of Motion Picture of
Speaker 1: Valuations from expert and consumer reviews. Of course this was
Speaker 1: a bit before Letterbox became so prominent, but his paper
Speaker 1: looks at a few of the things that we were
Speaker 1: talking about, as far as just how reviews and ratings
Speaker 1: can impact your experience.
Speaker 5: Here's how he explains it.
Speaker 8: So the paper was from quite a long time ago.
Speaker 8: It was my master thesis back in the day actually,
Speaker 8: and it's since been published. The paper was about trying
Speaker 8: to understand if movie reviews create a more or less
Speaker 8: interest in people to actually see those movies, and also
Speaker 8: to change whether or not people are enjoying the movies
Speaker 8: as they're seeing them. So I was trying to see
Speaker 8: if if you read a movie review beforehand and then
Speaker 8: you watch the movie, if you have a worse or
Speaker 8: better time because of it. That was the main goal.
Speaker 1: So the experiment went like this, five groups of people
Speaker 1: or assigned to read either a professional positive review, a
Speaker 1: professional negative review, a consumer positive review, or a consumer
Speaker 1: negative review. And in this case, a consumer review is
Speaker 1: the equivalent to a letterbox review. It's written by a
Speaker 1: normal person, not a professional critic or something. Or they
Speaker 1: were given no review at all. They were just given
Speaker 1: some very basic information about the film without any evaluative statements.
Speaker 8: And we designed those reviews based on a short content
Speaker 8: analysis of reviews that we found online, both on the
Speaker 8: consumer side and on the professional critic side. So there
Speaker 8: they took elements from reviews of that movie, and they
Speaker 8: were kind of matched together in a way that fit
Speaker 8: our manipulation, so that they are identical except for the evaluation,
Speaker 8: and they're identical except for the tone professional or consumer.
Speaker 1: So they were watching this short Spike Jones film I'm here,
Speaker 1: great movie?
Speaker 5: Do you mean?
Speaker 1: Recondryclusey can make it up? Says like it's kind of
Speaker 1: an issue because the movie's just good. So it kind
Speaker 1: of skews the results almost like they need to find
Speaker 1: something maybe more middle of the road.
Speaker 3: But yeah, college staple.
Speaker 1: So that's how they did the experiment, and these are
Speaker 1: the results they found.
Speaker 8: So the only effect that we found was of a
Speaker 8: negative consumer review. Those were the ones where the grade
Speaker 8: went down from what we found in a control condition
Speaker 8: to I think at one point out of ten lower
Speaker 8: or something or zero point seven points out of ten lower.
Speaker 8: And that was mostly because of the emotional engagement that
Speaker 8: people had with the movie after reading the review, because
Speaker 8: if they read a negative emotional review, they distanced themselves
Speaker 8: from the movie. They did not allow themselves to be
Speaker 8: engaged in the movie. And they were quite good at
Speaker 8: seeing which of the reviews were kind of emotional and
Speaker 8: which weren't. And they were also pretty good at guessing
Speaker 8: what the grade was that the reviewer would have given
Speaker 8: the movie based on just the narrative review without the
Speaker 8: actual grade.
Speaker 7: So there's pretty clear evidence that reading a review paints
Speaker 7: what your experience what the movie is going to be
Speaker 7: if you read it beforehand.
Speaker 1: And as you heard, he says, these negative, more emotional
Speaker 1: reviews which are going to skew towards the consumer side,
Speaker 1: So letterbox and other things are going to have more
Speaker 1: impact than the more distant, sort of straight writing style
Speaker 1: from a professional who's not going to probably try to
Speaker 1: engage you on that yeah, intense level, as like this sucks,
Speaker 1: you're wasting your time and money, Like a newspaper review
Speaker 1: probably isn't going to talk about like the money you're
Speaker 1: spending right to see a movie or something.
Speaker 3: You know when he's talking about there. Basically reading a
Speaker 3: negative review makes it so that you go into the
Speaker 3: movie not like already.
Speaker 9: Not invested, right, Yeah, like standoffish exactly, that you already
Speaker 9: create a distance which rings true to me, right, Like
Speaker 9: there are movies that if you hear about ahead of
Speaker 9: time being particularly bad.
Speaker 3: You go in with the let me see what this
Speaker 3: dumb ass movie is going to be, and like you
Speaker 3: don't give it a ants to be sucked in.
Speaker 7: Yeah, a recent examples like I heard how people thought
Speaker 7: Megalopolis was bad, and then I went to go see
Speaker 7: it and I was like, yeah, that was bad.
Speaker 1: It's funny because for me, I feel like it goes
Speaker 1: both ways, where in some level I hear something's trash
Speaker 1: and then I'm like, oh, it can't be that bad, almost.
Speaker 5: The contrarian thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So like Megalopolis and Joker Too are to both
Speaker 1: movies that were totally disparaged by critics and normal people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was like France for Coppola's a legend he can't
Speaker 1: be totally worthless.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and you think one year of medical school entitles
Speaker 6: you to plow through the riches of my Amersonian mind.
Speaker 1: And then Joker not a movie I was that interested in,
Speaker 1: but I saw and also did terribly box office wise
Speaker 1: and critically, and I was like, well, this isn't as
Speaker 1: horrible as you would think.
Speaker 5: Maybe he did.
Speaker 1: Mention that reading reviews afterwards can also impact your opinion,
Speaker 1: even if you don't think so. So this is about
Speaker 1: something called the third person effect.
Speaker 8: One of the things that I see is that people
Speaker 8: who read reviews after watching a movie, they tend to
Speaker 8: think that those reviews do not change what they thought
Speaker 8: of the movie. So they feel like there other people
Speaker 8: might be affected these by reading these reviews, but not
Speaker 8: they themselves. This is called the third person effect. It's
Speaker 8: very broadly found when you're looking at advertising research, that
Speaker 8: kind of stuff, but I think it's also there a
Speaker 8: lot for reviews. Many people in my friend group as well,
Speaker 8: we had long discussions about whether or not people are
Speaker 8: impacted by reviews, and they say, maybe the grade, maybe
Speaker 8: the rating is what does it for me. But I
Speaker 8: think it's actually even if you're reading a review before
Speaker 8: or after that you change the way you think about
Speaker 8: a movie if the review is compelling or if the
Speaker 8: reviews has good arguments. But we are very bad at
Speaker 8: admitting for ourselves when that is happening, and we tend
Speaker 8: to say, oh, it's always been like that. I actually
Speaker 8: always hated that movie, even though it came out of
Speaker 8: it thinking that it's a really good movie.
Speaker 1: Actually, certainly my feelings on movies have changed after reading
Speaker 1: a review or talking to people.
Speaker 5: Oh, for sure, have you had the opposite happen?
Speaker 1: Do you think you come out of a movie thinking
Speaker 1: you really like it and then someone's like, oh, this sucked,
Speaker 1: and then you're like, oh, yeah, okay, it wasn't actually
Speaker 1: that good.
Speaker 7: Yeah, because I'll be like, I won't fully flip my opinion,
Speaker 7: but I'll be like, yeah, I can see how some
Speaker 7: people think that's dumb. It's also subjective, yeah, of course,
Speaker 7: but definitely it feels like your peers can influence how
Speaker 7: you feel about something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which is why I always write my letterbox review
Speaker 3: first before I look at other people's reviews.
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, you want a peer review?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I read reviews before I write mine. But like,
Speaker 7: I don't think I've ever changed my mind, Like I'll
Speaker 7: go into it knowing what I want to say, but
Speaker 7: I just want I'm curious.
Speaker 1: We need to do run a study on Manny's reviews.
Speaker 1: So I also talked to a movie critic as I
Speaker 1: was myself planning on writing some ratings and reviews, so
Speaker 1: I talked to it Tasha Robinson. She's written and edited
Speaker 1: at a bunch of outlets. Currently, she's the entertainment editor
Speaker 1: at Polygon. She and some other critics have a great
Speaker 1: movie podcast called The Next Picture Show. I asked as
Speaker 1: far as her approach to star ratings. Here's what she
Speaker 1: had to say about that.
Speaker 4: The rubric that I've always used and tried to get
Speaker 4: other people to use is what was this movie doing,
Speaker 4: Does it do it well? And is it worth doing?
Speaker 4: And you know, if what the movie was trying to
Speaker 4: do is sell toys and sells the toys pretty well,
Speaker 4: that's probably a two and a half star review. If
Speaker 4: all the movies trying to do is sell toys and
Speaker 4: it does it badly, then we're probably looking at.
Speaker 5: Like a star.
Speaker 4: If the movie makes you feel not only that you've
Speaker 4: wasted your time, but then everybody who touched it in
Speaker 4: any way is wasting their time. Then you can go
Speaker 4: lower than that, But that kind of well I added
Speaker 4: half a star for this and subtracted half a star
Speaker 4: for this. That creeps me out. That just sounds like
Speaker 4: the kind of person that walks into a restaurant and
Speaker 4: puts ten dollars and ones on the table and looks
Speaker 4: at the waitress and says, every time you make a mistake,
Speaker 4: I'm taking a dollar off your tip. You get whatever's
Speaker 4: left over at the end of the night.
Speaker 1: Tasha mentioned a similar issue to me as far as
Speaker 1: once you're reducing movies to a number grade, you kind
Speaker 1: of end up with some weird, unfair comparisons that can
Speaker 1: kind of paint you in a corner.
Speaker 4: I certainly think a lot in terms of, well if
Speaker 4: I if I give this three stars, what are people
Speaker 4: immediately going to pull up from my past that I
Speaker 4: gave two and a half stars too and say you
Speaker 4: think that's just better of them?
Speaker 7: There.
Speaker 4: If somebody made me sit down in a locked room
Speaker 4: with every movie rating that I've ever made and told
Speaker 4: me to reorder the rankings until I found they were perfect,
Speaker 4: I'd probably be in there for ten years and wouldn't
Speaker 4: come out any happier than I am right now.
Speaker 3: I have definitely had the issue where I've rated something
Speaker 3: after watching it immediately, and then a couple days later
Speaker 3: look at my letterbox and look at like the last
Speaker 3: movies that I've watched, and I'm like, this movie was
Speaker 3: definitely better than this movie. Yeah, have the same rating
Speaker 3: or house is higher. I hate to admit it, but
Speaker 3: I have changed ratings.
Speaker 7: You've edited them, yeah, yes, wow, retroactively.
Speaker 3: Retroactively. It's not like I go back six months later.
Speaker 3: It has to be within the same week for me. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and after that it is what it is. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 3: not like changing the older rating, I'm adjusting the new one.
Speaker 1: I think a pro for consumer or letterbox reviews is
Speaker 1: you're not in this promotional bind, even if you, as
Speaker 1: a professional critic, don't want to be. It's like you
Speaker 1: don't want to be punished quote unquote by studios or
Speaker 1: whoever who are getting access to previews or other things.
Speaker 1: Like there's obviously like a political element to how a
Speaker 1: major website or publisher reviews things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I think there is also just the weight
Speaker 3: to studio pressure aside, like there's a weight to writing something.
Speaker 3: Don't at the end of the day's it's all art,
Speaker 3: and if you're writing a review that could actively stop
Speaker 3: people from experiencing this piece of like she says, art
Speaker 3: for yourself. There's a lot of weight to that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: there are obviously movies that we all seen that are
Speaker 3: just like this is just despicable from beginning to end,
Speaker 3: Like everyone involved should be ashamed. I think a lot
Speaker 3: of people are putting in a good faith effort to
Speaker 3: make something good and sometimes it just doesn't work out.
Speaker 3: So it's like, like dunking on a movie could really
Speaker 3: have a negative effect on something in a way that
Speaker 3: us writing about it doesn't.
Speaker 1: So after taking in all this research and talking to
Speaker 1: professional critic, I wanted to kind of do some reflection
Speaker 1: on the movies I've seen recently.
Speaker 2: I work without caring what happens to either of us.
Speaker 2: So go back to the club, bear it all, and
Speaker 2: stock the kind of people that you.
Speaker 1: Enjoy Megalopolis, I found, is probably the movie I've wrestled
Speaker 1: with the most as far as thinking about it, probably
Speaker 1: because of all the lore I know he's been working
Speaker 1: on this in different form since the eighties. I really
Speaker 1: wanted to love it, but I for a movie that's
Speaker 1: about grand ideas. I found it didn't really have many
Speaker 1: great ones to back it up with. And there's some
Speaker 1: really cool expressionistic stuff and some cool visuals, but a
Speaker 1: lot of it is pretty hideous to me. I hope
Speaker 1: to revisit it in a few years and maybe I'll
Speaker 1: be able to get something more out of it. But
Speaker 1: right now I've got to give it I think a
Speaker 1: one point five.
Speaker 5: Damn.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he said a lot of it is pretty hideous
Speaker 3: to me. That's crazy.
Speaker 7: I mean some of it was like green screen in
Speaker 7: the basement quality, Like really.
Speaker 3: I haven't seen him, boy ad him.
Speaker 5: He's great. I mean, the performances are great.
Speaker 1: Everyone's doing what they're asked to do, but it just
Speaker 1: doesn't come together to me. Yeah. Yeah, And then when
Speaker 1: you add in he's been working on it for fifty years,
Speaker 1: it's like, this is this is your masterpick, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? And like then everyone throws out, oh,
Speaker 1: it's one hundred and twenty million dollars.
Speaker 5: It's like it doesn't.
Speaker 3: Doesn't look great.
Speaker 5: Look like that.
Speaker 7: Yeah, let's hear a joker too, because that was one
Speaker 7: that a lot of people hated.
Speaker 1: So this is for joker. Fully, I'd do my life.
Speaker 5: I feel so alone anymore.
Speaker 1: I'm not a big superhero guy. I thought the first
Speaker 1: Joker movie was totally fine. This one I was actually surprised,
Speaker 1: based on maybe all the bad reactions. I thought it
Speaker 1: was actually pretty thoroughly entertaining and interesting.
Speaker 3: I heard it was boring.
Speaker 1: A lot of it is rehashing the first movie and
Speaker 1: a core ram sort of thing. And then I think
Speaker 1: they underused Lady Gaga, who I think is a great
Speaker 1: actor obviously a great singer.
Speaker 5: They don't do as much of the musical stuff as I.
Speaker 1: Expected, honestly, and I wish they leaned in even further,
Speaker 1: like if you're gonna do it, do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Instead it felt like one one foot out sort of thing.
Speaker 1: And yeah, they do some bold choice as far as
Speaker 1: the arc of Joker and what the Joker means to society.
Speaker 5: Not gonna be one I revisit.
Speaker 1: But I mean I kind of walked out of it like, oh,
Speaker 1: that was actually pretty fun.
Speaker 5: I think I'd give it three stars.
Speaker 7: Wow, that's good care Okay, considering the rest of them,
Speaker 7: I mean.
Speaker 1: Is that choice as good as Megalopolis? I don't really
Speaker 1: know if I can say that, But now I was entertained.
Speaker 7: Interesting, and then it does end up you put a
Speaker 7: number on it that you because they're so limited as
Speaker 7: five options exactly. Yeah, you have to start thinking about
Speaker 7: whether you did think it was twice as good as Meg.
Speaker 5: Yeaholis and I don't.
Speaker 3: All right, let's do what I've seen. Let's do Anura.
Speaker 3: I am coming you.
Speaker 1: You do not annoy this guy Anora Again. I was
Speaker 1: thoroughly engaged throughout. It does a great job of kind
Speaker 1: of it moves really fast in the beginning, and then
Speaker 1: it kind of traps you in one location for a
Speaker 1: long time and then flips some.
Speaker 5: Things on you. I thought the performances were great.
Speaker 1: There's some good actors who've never seen before and things,
Speaker 1: so that was fun. And it has that good kind
Speaker 1: of intensity. So I was kept on my toes in
Speaker 1: that way, and I liked it. And I thought it
Speaker 1: had a very strong, interesting ending that I wasn't necessarily expecting,
Speaker 1: even though looking back it's obvious some of the things
Speaker 1: that happened, but in a not in a bad way,
Speaker 1: in a to me satisfying way that said, I'm not
Speaker 1: dying to watch it.
Speaker 5: Again or I'm not really mulling over it so much.
Speaker 5: In my head. I guess for that reason.
Speaker 1: I'll give it a.
Speaker 5: Three as well.
Speaker 7: Now this is where the rating system gets interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's that Joker.
Speaker 7: Too and Noura have the same rating and the Noah
Speaker 7: review system.
Speaker 3: Four and a half.
Speaker 5: Four and a half.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, it's pretty good. Yeah, it was really good.
Speaker 1: I think to me, if I think if I had
Speaker 1: rated it right when I walked out, it would have
Speaker 1: been higher. And I think just in the you know,
Speaker 1: two weeks, I'm just not that drawn back to it now.
Speaker 1: If I watched it again, I don't know if I
Speaker 1: would gain so much more necessarily, Which doesn't mean it's
Speaker 1: bad even It's just it's a movie.
Speaker 5: Which is fine most movies are.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I mean, after doing all this and writing
Speaker 1: these reviews and doing the ratings, I still feel like
Speaker 1: I end up painting myself into a corner of making
Speaker 1: strange comparisons. But at the same time, it's kind of
Speaker 1: like who cares? Is kind of my feeling. It's it's
Speaker 1: it is kind of objectively fun to just say, like,
Speaker 1: fuck it, that's a one point five, and it does
Speaker 1: garner a much more intense reaction than kind of thoughtfully talking.
Speaker 5: Through my feelings on a movie.
Speaker 1: So for that reason, I am maybe leaning towards opening
Speaker 1: it up and let a few reviews and ratings spray.
Speaker 7: Wow.
Speaker 1: Do I think it's, you know, for the better of
Speaker 1: my movie going? Probably not, but it's fine. And I think,
Speaker 1: you know, you kind of need to let things go sometimes.
Speaker 5: And just let it rock.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just let it right.
Speaker 7: And the other thing is like, I'm glad to hear
Speaker 7: this because there is a very tiny community of us
Speaker 7: who have been wanting to see reviews like we get
Speaker 7: them in real life if we want them to see
Speaker 7: them on the app more often. So I don't know,
Speaker 7: I'm happy to hear this.
Speaker 5: I won't be starving you all anymore. So there's that.
Speaker 5: And then we had a few reviews in this.
Speaker 1: If you want to hear a few more reviews, we
Speaker 1: talk about the Substance and Manny's controversial Challengers review and
Speaker 1: Gladiator two. We're gonna throw those up on our substack.
Speaker 1: You already know, but go to www dot No Such
Speaker 1: Thing dot show to subscribe and you can check that out.
Speaker 1: No Such Thing as produced by Manny Fidel, Noah Friedman,
Speaker 1: and Devin Joseph. The theme song is by Manny and
Speaker 1: this song is by nine Inch Nails. Thank you to
Speaker 1: our guests Rude Jacobs and Tasha Robinson.