There are the National Board of Review Awards, the New York Film Critics Circle, the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild Awards, the Independent Spirit Awards, the Los Angeles Film Critics Awards, the Producers Guild Awards and the British Film Institute Awards.
Oh, and the Oscars, too.
There’s no shortage of critics circles, guilds and groups that doll out awards this time of year. But there is an arguably more efficient way of deciding the best movies of the year.
The Web sites RottenTomatoes.com and MetaCritic.com are aggregators of critical opinion. They each cull reviews from around the country and average out the critiques.
Neither system is perfect. RottenTomatoes relies on determining whether a review is simply favorable or not (there can be a lot of gray area in between), and MetaCritic assigns a number on a scale of 100 (again, not all reviews work in a number system).
But if you want the broad critical consensus, it’s difficult to do better than these sites.
This week, Rotten Tomatoes announced their awards: the Golden Tomatoes. They split their best picture honor into two categories: best-reviewed wide-release movie and best-reviewed limited-release movie.
“WALL-E” won the Golden Tomato for wide-release with a “Tomatometer” score of 96 percent. In 10 years of the Golden Tomatoes, a Pixar film has topped wide-release movies five times; the other Pixar movies to do so: “Toy Story 2,” ”Finding Nemo,” ”The Incredibles” and “Ratatouille.”
The documentary “Man on Wire,” which recalls Philippe Petit’s tightrope feat between the World Trade Center towers in 1974, won the limited release Golden Tomato. It scored a perfect score on the Tomatometer, meaning that there were no unfavorable reviews from the surveyed critics.
The site also breaks down the best-reviewed films by genre. For the results, see: www.rottentomatoes.com/guides/rtawards.
Both “WALL-E” and “Man on Wire” were among the top four films as measured by MetaCritic. “WALL-E” and the French classroom drama “The Class” tied with a top score of 93. Tied for second were “Man on Wire” and the animated Israeli war film “Waltz with Bashir.”
The big winner at the Golden Globes, “Slumdog Millionaire,” followed as the fifth-best reviewed film, as computed by MetaCritic.
One could argue that these mathematically derived aggregators are a more true reflection of the best movies of the year. They are, after all devoid of influence from Oscar ad campaigns or celebrity shmoozing.
Some critics haven’t been such fans of the aggregators, though, which emphasize consensus over individual experience.
Matt Atchity, editor-in-chief of Rotten Tomatoes, said his site can lead readers to a critic they might not read in their hometown newspaper, but who’s more in line with one’s taste.
“I hope that Rotten Tomatoes is still a champion of film criticism,” said Atchity. “I still think film criticism is very important.”
Actor Steve Guttenberg Returns To L.A. Neighborhood Now Charred By Devastating Wildfire
Steve Guttenberg awoke Thursday morning to a grim reality: The treacherous wildfire that tore through the Pacific Palisades had left his once-lush neighborhood charred and unrecognizable.
With homes smoldered, streets emptied and friends scattered by evacuation orders, Guttenberg counted himself among the fortunate. His property was miraculously spared. But the actor-producer still struggled to reconcile his relief with the haunting sight of his ravaged, once lavish community.
"Just this morning, I woke up and I was really conscious of my mental state and my mental health, because the last three days, I've seen so much tragedy," said Guttenberg, pacing through the ruins of his neighborhood. He said his home has electricity but no running water.
Guttenberg thanked God that his block was safe, but he said about 20 homes were burned "pretty bad" in his 80-home community after wind-whipped fires tore across Los Angeles, destroying homes, clogging roadways as tens of thousands fled as the fires burned uncontained Wednesday. He said the fires are the worst he's ever seen in his 66-years.
The wildfires have burned the homes of several celebrities including Billy Crystal, Carey Elwes and Paris Hilton.
Guttenberg said he never expected all of this to happen.
"It's like when someone dies suddenly," he said. "It's like when someone gets hit by a car. You never expect that to happen. That's how shocking it was."
During Guttenberg's stroll, it was an eerie scene with scorched palm trees, homes reduced to ash and rubble, and the daytime skies casted an ominous twilight over the devastation.
"I've seen people scared, people in wheelchairs, mothers and fathers trying to find their kids, people having anxiety and panic... Read More