Rotten Tomatoes: Difference between revisions
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**[http://www.rottentomatoes.com/critics/authors.php List of approved RottenTomatoes Critics] |
**[http://www.rottentomatoes.com/critics/authors.php List of approved RottenTomatoes Critics] |
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**[http://www.rottentomatoes.com/vine/forumdisplay.php?f=2 RottenTomatoes forums] |
**[http://www.rottentomatoes.com/vine/forumdisplay.php?f=2 RottenTomatoes forums] |
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**[http://www.rottentomatoes.com/guides/ |
**[http://www.rottentomatoes.com/guides/best_of_the_best_pictures/ Rotten Tomatoes: The Best of the Best Pictures] |
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**[http://www.rottentomatoes.com/features/special/2007/wotw/ Rotten Tomatoes: The Worst of the Worst Pictures] |
**[http://www.rottentomatoes.com/features/special/2007/wotw/ Rotten Tomatoes: The Worst of the Worst Pictures] |
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**[http://www.theyoungturks.com/story/2009/1/22/214324/147 Matt Atchity on The Young Turks Show] |
**[http://www.theyoungturks.com/story/2009/1/22/214324/147 Matt Atchity on The Young Turks Show] |
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Revision as of 11:57, 15 March 2010
| File:Rt-logo.svg | |
Type of site | Online cinematic reviews |
|---|---|
| Owner | Flixster |
| Created by | Senh Duong |
| URL | http://www.rottentomatoes.com/ |
| Commercial | Yes |
| Registration | Optional |
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films. The name derives from the historical cliché of throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at stage performers if a performance was particularly bad.
History
Rotten Tomatoes was launched on August 19, 1998 as a spare time project by Senh Dong.[1] His goal in creating Rotten Tomatoes was "to create a site where people can get access to reviews from a variety of critics in the U. S."[2] His inspiration came when, as a fan of Jackie Chan, Duong started collecting all the reviews of Chan's movies as they were coming out in the United States. The first movie reviewed on Rotten Tomatoes was Your Friends & Neighbors. The website was an immediate success, receiving mentions by Yahoo!, Netscape, and USA Today within the first week of its launching; it attracted "600 - 1000 daily unique visitors" as a result.
Duong teamed up with Patrick Lee and Stephen Wang, his former partners at the Berkeley, California-based web design firm Design Reactor to pursue Rotten Tomatoes as a full-time start-up company, officially launching on April 1, 1999.[3]
In June 2004, IGN Entertainment acquired Rottentomatoes.com for an undisclosed sum.[4] In September 2005, IGN was bought out by News Corp's Fox Interactive Media.[5]
On January 4, 2010 it was reported that Flixster acquired Rotten Tomatoes from IGN Entertainment.[6]
The site has some of the heaviest traffic on the Internet, ranking in the top 1,000 websites visited according to Alexa Internet.[citation needed] The current Editor in Chief is Matt Atchity and the Vice President and General Manager is Shannon Ludovissy.
Description
Rotten Tomatoes includes online reviews from authors that are certified members of various writing guilds or film critic associations. The staff then determine for each review whether it is positive ("fresh", marked by a small icon of a red tomato) or negative ("rotten", marked by a small icon of a green splatted tomato). At the end of the year one film will receive the "Golden Tomato", meaning it is the highest rating film that year.
The website keeps track of all of the reviews counted (which can approach 270 for major, recently released films) and the percentage of positive reviews is tabulated. If the positive reviews make up 60% or more, the film is considered "fresh" in that a supermajority of the reviewers approve of the film. If the positive reviews are less than 60%, then the film is considered "rotten." In addition, major film reviewers like Roger Ebert, Desson Thomson/Stephen Hunter (Washington Post), and Lisa Schwarzbaum (Entertainment Weekly), are listed in a sub-listing called "Top Critics", which tabulates their reviews separately, while still including their opinions in the general rating. When there are sufficient reviews to form a conclusion, a consensus statement is posted which is intended to articulate the general reasons for the opinion. The ratings favor recent releases and films with large numbers of reviews over older films, due to the scarcity of archived reviews for such older films.
This rating in turn is marked with an equivalent icon when the film is listed, giving the reader a one glance look at the general critical opinion about the work. Movies with a Tomatometer of 75% or better and at least 40 reviews from Tomatometer Critics (including 5 Top Critics) receive the "Certified Fresh" seal.[7] As a result of the requirements for quantity of ratings, there may be films with 100% positive ratings which don't have the certificate due to insufficient reviews to be sure of the freshness.
There are several films that have received a 100% freshness rating with fewer reviews including A Hard Day's Night, Toy Story, Cool Hand Luke, Toy Story 2, The Evil Dead, The Wizard of Oz, The Terminator, Before Sunrise, Dr. Strangelove, Citizen Kane, The Godfather, On the Waterfront, All About Eve, Singin' in the Rain, The Band Wagon, North by Northwest, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Pinocchio, Rear Window, Jaws, Man on Wire, Mary Poppins, Zulu, The King and I, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Say Anything..., The Heiress, and The Killer, and there are over 200 films that have so far received a 0% freshness rating such as universally panned films like Witless Protection, One Missed Call, Jaws: The Revenge, and Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2. The site includes a page of the "100 Worst Reviewed Films of All time."
In addition to reviews, Rotten Tomatoes hosts message forums, where thousands of participants take part in the discussion of movies, video games, music and other topics. In addition, users are able to rate and review films themselves. Every movie also features a "user average" that calculates the percentage of users that have rated the film positively in a manner similar to how the critics' reviews are calculated. However, this score is more specific as the users are able to rate the movie on a scale of 1-10 (compared to critic reviews, which usually use 4-star ratings and are often simply qualitative). Like the critic's reviews, a score of 6 or higher is considered "fresh".
Correlation with profits
According to a non-scientific study by Erik Lundegaard, films released in 2007 which are scored "fresh" make, on average, $1000 more per screen than films which are scored as "rotten".[8]
Another study by USA Today in 2003, unrelated to Rotten Tomatoes, also produced similar results: "the better the reviews, the higher the box office". The newspaper found that, contrary to popular belief, film critics and moviegoers agree more often than not.[9]
International
Localised versions of the site are available in the UK and Australia. Readers accessing Rotten Tomatoes from France and Germany are automatically redirected to the UK version of the site that provides local release dates, cinema listings, box office results and promotes reviews from UK critics. There is currently no way for these users to view the US version of the site, other than via tunneling or through the use of a suitable proxy server. The localized versions of the site contain all of the US editorial content, reviews and film lists and are augmented by local content maintained by editors based in London and Sydney.
The Rotten Tomatoes Show
In early 2009, Current Television launched the televised version of the web review site, The Rotten Tomatoes Show which is hosted by Brett Erlich and Ellen Fox. The writer of the show is Mark Ganek. The show appears every Thursday at 10:30 Eastern and Pacific Time on the Current TV network.[10] However it re-runs itself on occasion.
See also
References
- ^ "San Francisco Chronicle, 2000". Sfgate.com. Retrieved 2009-12-04.
- ^ "Senh Duong interview, 1999". Asianconnections.com. 1998-08-18. Retrieved 2009-12-04.
- ^ Ryan, Tim. "Rotten Tomatoes Oral History". Rottentomatoes.com. Retrieved 2009-12-04.
- ^ "Hollywood Reporter, 6/29/04". Hollywoodreporter.com. Retrieved 2009-12-04.
- ^ "Hollywood Reporter, 9/9/05". Hollywoodreporter.com. Retrieved 2009-12-04.
- ^ Graser, Marc. "Flixster buys Rotten Tomatoes". Variety. Retrieved 2010-01-04.
- ^ "Frequently Asked Questions". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2009-12-04.
- ^ Lundegaard, Erik (2008-07-02). "Why We Need Movie Reviewers: Despite popular belief, critically acclaimed movies actually sell better". Slate.
- ^ "Movie critics, fans follow surprisingly similar script". USA Today. 2004-02-25.
- ^ "The Rotten tomatoes show on current". Therottentomatoesshow.com. 2009-11-23. Retrieved 2009-12-04.