The other afternoon I was wasting far too much time in one of my favorite sections of any store - the used DVD section of Newbury Comics. Browsing through loads of movies I didn't particularly enjoy but still thought about buying because they were on sale for $2.99, I noticed that a lot of the packages still have the old-school marketing tactic of putting favorable reviews on the front of the DVD case. The more I thought about it, the stranger it seemed to me, because who exactly is going to buy a DVD based on the review? Sure, you may rent something you've never seen if it has positive feedback, but when was the last time anyone could physically hold the case of a movie they planned to rent? The only time I ever see movies in their cases anymore is when they are for sale and I don't know of anyone who would plunk down $20 to buy a movie they have never seen before. Like almost everything else, people can usually see the reviews online now and have a general idea of how the movie was received by the public before they add it to their queues, so putting the reviews on the cover feels like a waste of time and ink. It just struck me as another one of those practices companies continue to do for no other reason than that is they way they have always done it.
Now, you can't blame the distribution companies for this because at the end of the day it is still good press and you can never have enough good press. (That is why I think it still makes perfect sense to put positive reviews in commercials for movies which are still in the theater.) If some famous writer from a big paper tells people that your movie is good you want as many people as possible to know about it. Newspapers may not have the power they once had, but some names still carry weight. That is why as a general rule of thumb you tell how good a movie is by how low they have to sink when looking for a positive review. If the best review they could find for the cover was from some person no one has ever heard of and comes from a movie review blog which hasn't been updated in a year, then it is a safe bet that is a pretty awful movie. But, you can tell these kind reviews still matter to movie companies by a story which came out a couple years ago. Some bored reporter was looking at a DVD case (unfortunately I don't remember which movie) when they noticed the positive review on the cover was supposed to be from a newspaper in a nearby town. They did ten seconds of research only to discover that the entire thing was made up - neither the paper or the reviewer existed.
Still, I think even a made-up review carried more weight than what I saw last night. I was watching "South Park" when they ran a promo for "Ugly Americans", the show which comes on immediately after. [Sidebar: A show that I actually want to know how and why it is still on the air, as it is truly awful. I gave this show a legitimate shot when it first came out, watched most of the first run and never found it funny. But because I like "South Park" and "The Daily Show" I often find myself catching the first and last few minutes of it and I still have never laughed, even once. It may get decent ratings, but you could stick a test pattern in a slot between two great shows like that and it will be watched by a couple million people who are simply too lazy to get up and change the channel. I refuse to believe this is the best Comedy Central can do.] Anyway, the best reviews they could come up with to run during this promo were from fans off Twitter. Now, I have come to love Twitter in the last couple of years, but it is not where I go to get my movie reviews. I don't even like to follow people I don't actually know in real life, so I'm certainly not about to watch something based on the positive words of @MonkeyFarts69. (By the way, I apologize if that handle, which I just made up for comedic effect, actually belongs to a real person. I'm sure your Twitter feed has a lot of savvy political insight on it.)
I imagine that on some level this is Comedy Central trying to show us how hip they are. "Look, kids, we take our reviews right from you! You don't need press credentials to let your voice be heard." But, while I can understand what they are trying to do, I think Comedy Central would be better served by finding more official-sounding endorsements. I know that at the most basic level a film or TV critic is nothing more than a person who got lucky enough to land a sweet job and that their opinion shouldn't count more than any one else with something to say, but at the same time at least you know they are using their real name and taking what they are writing seriously. Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure 95% of the things people say on Twitter should be read with a sarcastic tone. There is an above-average chance that the people giving positive reviews of "Ugly Americans" on Twitter were high while doing so. I know that to some people a compliment is a compliment no matter what, but occasionally you need to consider the source. If the only positive review you can come up with is a random person off the internet who might not even be real, you may be better off not having any at all.
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2 comments:
It might be a good idea to watch more than the first or last few minutes of an episode to get an idea of whether or not it's a funny or interesting show. I would not personally give any credit to the opinion of someone criticizing a book that they had read only the first or last few pages of. I would trust the twitter'd praise of a person who's seen an entire episode of a show over the vague paragraphs-long criticism of a person who hasn't. "I think it looks bad but can't list any specific reasons why, and wouldn't even know for sure, I just think it does," is a bit of a weak criticism in any case. Happy blogging.
Excellent point and I totally agree with you that people who haven't seen something should never review it. I actually wrote about how annoying I find that to be a few months ago.
To clarify, I actually did give the show a legitimate shot when it first started, watching several full episodes of the first season, none of which I enjoyed. That is why I don't watch the full episodes anymore and only catch the first and last few minutes of current episodes by accident. Probably should have made that clearer in the original post.
Also, I didn't go into all the reason I don't like the show not because I was trying to be vague or
didn't have any specific reasons, but because it wasn't the point of this post. The point of this post had more to do with people trying to use random quotes off Twitter as legitimate sources and not meant to be about "Ugly Americans" specifically.
Thanks for reading.
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