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.”
Apple and Google Face UK Investigation Into Mobile Browser Dominance
Apple and Google aren't giving consumers a genuine choice of mobile web browsers, a British watchdog said Friday in a report that recommends they face an investigation under new U.K. digital rules taking effect next year.
The Competition and Markets Authority took aim at Apple, saying the iPhone maker's tactics hold back innovation by stopping rivals from giving users new features like faster webpage loading. Apple does this by restricting progressive web apps, which don't need to be downloaded from an app store and aren't subject to app store commissions, the report said.
"This technology is not able to fully take off on iOS devices," the watchdog said in a provisional report on its investigation into mobile browsers that it opened after an initial study concluded that Apple and Google effectively have a chokehold on "mobile ecosystems."
The CMA's report also found that Apple and Google manipulate the choices given to mobile phone users to make their own browsers "the clearest or easiest option."
And it said that the a revenue-sharing deal between the two U.S. Big Tech companies "significantly reduces their financial incentives" to compete in mobile browsers on Apple's iOS operating system for iPhones.
Both companies said they will "engage constructively" with the CMA.
Apple said it disagreed with the findings and said it was concerned that the recommendations would undermine user privacy and security.
Google said the openness of its Android mobile operating system "has helped to expand choice, reduce prices and democratize access to smartphones and apps" and that it's "committed to open platforms that empower consumers."
It's the latest move by regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to crack down on the... Read More