 Welcome to the Adam does movies podcast. I'm of course Adam and we have a fun one for you today last week I talked about movie sensitivity The films people see they have these deep connections with for some reason and they get upset if Others don't feel the same. Oh, you like Fast and the Furious 10. You loved it. It's your favorite Well, I didn't like it that much. I thought it was kind of dumb. Well, how dare you You're a fool and you should burn for all eternity for not liking that movie It's an extreme position to take but it's one that person makes on the internet when they're not feeling good about themselves And you made them feel worse. It's a sad state of affairs for sure What's also a sad state of affairs on the other end of the coin is? Movie criticism and how I don't trust it anymore and I am one Certified Ron Tomatoes movie critic doesn't trust himself at this point and This all happened. I Don't know. I feel like it's been seven or so years when things really took a turn There was a while where you'd go and rotten tomatoes and for me at least I lined up with the so-called experts 98% of the time to throw out a phony number But now It's gone way down and the reason for that is the same reason everything goes to shit the perversion of money That sweet coin you can make by having a polarizing viewpoint and now in 2023 Social media is all about playing off those odds on different ends of the spectrum You better love the shit out of something or hate the shit out of something If you're somewhat in the middle you are boring and we don't want to hear from you and our algorithm doesn't even know what to do with you I sadly fall on that more often than not Occasionally I'll hit a sweet thing avatar 2 for instance that one got me a whole lot of subscribers and a whole lot of love But I didn't make 35 more avatar sucks videos because that's not genuine to me Now if I was one of these grifting types I absolutely would have made a lot more of those videos and then I would have gone all in on it Not only does avatar 2 suck But this movie sucks and this one sucks and everything that's mainstream and popular and by Disney is Awful and trash and next thing you know I have hundreds of thousands of new followers and I'm making a lot of money Saying the lamest stuff over and over and there is a cottage industry for those groups of people when I've talked about them before It's not worth diving into that. It's boring. It's old hat and We can go on the other side of things and we can see it there, too There are lots of channels lots of tiktok influencers that just love and praise Everything that comes out by certain companies or by certain corporations and brands and they will go head over Heals for these new films and maybe maybe make the most mild of Criticisms because they can get away with that and look like they're not completely impartial Or I'm sorry completely partial Impartial would be what we want That they're not completely perverted by the the beautiful rainbow of pot Gold potted gold on the other side. I got there almost but I tripped over my own stupidity So, yeah, why people don't trust the movie critics money's in the game Money is a big thing When I look at Ron Tomatoes and new big movies about to come out It might be a month away actually and the early reviews by these critics will hit I Instantly know something is amiss because they all read exactly the same as each other This is the greatest MCU movie yet. You've never seen anything like this before So-and-so is at the top of their game this person is Capital I capital S this character Brie Larson is Captain Marvel and I'll see that four or five times Halle Bailey is the little mermaid okay Sometimes it's to prove a point because there's a bunch of you know racist people on the other side saying I don't want a Black mermaid or whatever you want to call them or just people that maybe genuinely Want to see an aerial that look closer to the original since the movies basically a shot-for-shot live-action remake They want to see the red hair pale skin version from the cartoon because everything else matches up except for that Which is really freaking stupid But this is the game that's played in Hollywood and with Disney and these different companies because they can stir the pot And they can get people talking and unfortunately it comes at the expense of some of these actors or actresses that truly are Talented now they're caught in the crossfire and I've learned from the commercial in the 90s You don't want to get caught in the crossfire But that was kind of an aside. Let me get back to the focus at hand, which is these critics I put Eric I should put bunny quotes around that they all sound the same and They all conveniently all come out with these reviews at the same time because they went to the same private screening Sometimes they're flown out to the event. They're given the red carpet treatment They get to walk with the stars or interview the celebrities and they they get the press pass and they get put up in a hotel This shit actually happens when people say paid reviews. They don't mean outright paid cash They mean they're paid in other ways With access and access is the most important commodity to a movie critic That's the separator between seeing a movie the day it comes out like I do or Two months in advance sometimes like some of these other channels Now I want to point out they're not all this way There are legit movie critics in the space that do get early access that maybe do Think you know certain movies are better than I do or worse than I do and they have a legitimate reason behind them I'm not talking about them But it's these other ones that ruin it for the good ones that are in the same space That say that so and so is the best film to date or you you know, whatever whatever it is The criticism is always the same the praise is always over the moon You have to see it in theaters day one or you're gonna miss out on what everyone's talking about And people are starting to see through it. I Brought up avatar to this was a great example. I just refuse to believe That it has I Guess I should look but I'm pretty sure it's in the 80s or 90s as far as the Ron Tomatoes score goes that movie was dreadful It was a remake of the first one basically with a dumber plot Nonsensical storyline character motivations that make no sense and it goes on for an eternity and The visuals while they are of course state-of-the-art. I guess They're state-of-the-art from over a decade ago The first avatar in the theaters was an experience like no other the 3d was out of this world The the way the trees and the jungle moved around with your eyes was was mesmerizing. It truly was Something very special I didn't get that same feeling from the next movie which took an eternity to make Because I thought James Cameron was gonna do something completely new again with the space Maybe there was gonna be missed machines Maybe a Navi was gonna you know be in the audience and punch me in the face and make me feel like I was there But instead it was kind of the same thing but worse because we didn't have that depth of field It was all in the ocean. It was underwater So nothing's really layered like it was in the first film So I lost some of that magic and on top of losing that you have a very lame storyline So it's got nothing going for it in my book But the critics the early reviews were just over the moon for this film It's so hard to believe It's so hard to trust that And I've talked to a bunch of people about this movie and of course it's anecdotal evidence It's not like hundreds and hundreds of people, but the ones I talked to they either Hated it Hadn't had a desire to watch it or thought it was all right Couple of online friends think it's amazing. So but I don't count them Some of them actually are some of them actually do respect their opinion on but they're wild They're wildly different than my own so I don't count theirs But I think people know what I'm talking about when it's about rotten tomatoes You can just you can just read through the bullshit now and Their incentive is is revenue and it is seeing the film early and that's the axis portion is so incredibly Important it's just as valuable if not more valuable than just getting cold hard cash Because you become a critic that people can rely on to get a movie review out way earlier than the rest and Being first to market is just so damn important when you're on YouTube or TikTok or any of these platforms You want to be the guy that gets the review out right away? You don't want to be me who's scrambling to get to the theaters the day it releases and hopefully get home in time and not Feel too tired to put out a genuine reaction or a full-blown review on the film That's tough, and you don't build the support you don't get you don't show up in the Algorithm like someone that's had that review out there for a while who gets those early views and those early likes and that early Engagement that person's going through the system while you're just trying to play catch up So yes early access is hugely important being in the ear of these studios knowing what's on the surface Knowing what's coming out months ahead of time and being able to make videos on this stuff is hugely profitable another thing people don't trust that The the opinions are so polarizing I Have yet I've yet to see a movie come out where it hasn't been called by someone the greatest thing ever or the worst thing ever It's so black and white. It's so binary. It's a zero or a one. There's no intricate Fours or fives anymore. It's always a zero or a ten no middle ground anymore. That's not fun That's not salacious enough. We have to we have to go crazy with everything and I brought up those grift channels I brought up the the channels that are on the other side where they're like, yeah I love this movie. You're gonna love it, too And if you don't love it, then you're probably a racist or a sexist or a homophobe or something else in between And that's the other big angle that people take If you have an opinion that's different than theirs They will kind of start the spark right away before the movie comes out. I mentioned this with the little mermaid That's no secret that these types of groups are doing this stuff When the movies on the horizon, they will already get the seed planted The racists are gonna hate this one They're not gonna like that they character swapped or they race swapped or whatever they did They use it as a crutch or an excuse To I guess throw away a large chunk of criticism people might have Like me for instance, I didn't care for the little mermaid. I don't like any of the live-action Disney remakes It has nothing to do with the race of a character. If anything, I've actually had this conversation with people I like that Ariel is black and doesn't have red hair I wish they would have gone further with everything else and made it its own film. Oh, this doesn't need to be Ariel I know it's hard to believe but this could be a completely different character one of Ariel's sisters She could have her own under the sea adventure set within the little mermaid universe That's a refreshing storyline. What's not fun or exciting to me I know it is to others, but not to me. It's just reliving the same beat-by-beat bullshit I already saw back in the 80s and 90s with the original animated films Lion King was a soulless remake Aladdin soulless remake Lady and the Tramp. I mean all of them are getting redone. They're gonna do Bambi now They're gonna do Lilo and Stitch. They're gonna do Moana. Are you kidding me with this? At what end? They're never better. They're almost never better than the original. Maybe one or two cases But in those cases, it's because they went a different direction The two that often come up are The Jungle Book, which I agree, and Cinderella Which I disagree. Cinderella's boring. It's completely lifeless to me But Cinderella was played out a lot different than that original and Jungle Book was a vastly different film I'm not talking about Mowgli or whatever that was called. That was a different one that came out I think the same year by Andy Serkis Bizarre. Bizarre that they had two versions of The Jungle Book made in live action in the same year or so These movies just play off a nostalgia bait They have nothing new or interesting to say and it's boring So when they give the race bait stuff out there and say, oh, people are gonna hate this They made this character black or this character gay or this person trans or this person whatever All you're doing is feeding a very small portion of sharks out there that really do get triggered by this And you're just insulting everyone else who doesn't give a shit about any of this I absolutely despise this whole section of the internet in the movie space Calling people names based on race or gender or whatnot or on the other side Saying someone's racist or homophobic or whatever that stuff is so bad and often times it's not even the case They're just again taking the extreme position to be noticed And it's embarrassing and sadly pathetic and I don't want any part of this crap But unfortunately I see it all the time because it comes to the surface It rises to the top because that's what the algorithm pushes out again It likes the extreme sides of things now the best advice I can give For trying to find people that are honest is to just really check out their channels Check out their social media sites and see what they are all about Are they a person that presents themselves as an honest individual? Have you watched some of their content? Have you listened to some of their stuff? Look at their fan base Do they seem toxic? Do they seem to be hating on one group of people or one company over another or are they pretty well adjusted well-rounded people? That's what I try to be but of course I you know I'm gonna say that like every other critic is gonna say it and you have to just put in a little bit of work Unfortunately to weed out some of the bullshit and there is a lot of it out there because again everyone in this space is Clying and fighting for not only attention, but for those sponsors for those brand deals To get themselves to the next level to get themselves noticed It's a it's an ugly system, but it's one that runs rampant through all of the internet It's not just secluded to movie reviews game spaces like that streamings like that It's all the same and we just have to be wary of it and know it exists and know that there's ways to avoid it The last thing I would say is There is there are reasons why I don't get early access screeners and it's because I'm not gonna be paid off that way Someone someone asked a while back in a video like Adam What if Disney offered you a million dollars would you give them glowing reviews? Absolutely, I would give them glowing reviews. There is a price to everyone And if they said here's a million dollars give these movies a great review sure And then I take that money and I turn around and I start making my own movies with them Or I start my own You know newer channel with it where I can make skits and I can express myself in different ways These are hypothetical situations that are not grounded in any sort of reality Because by the time of studio whatever offer you such an extravagant package of money You will have hit a point in your viewer count in your subscription count where you don't need it If disney or someone came and said adam you want half a million dollars to review this I can guarantee you i'm already making half a million dollars or a million dollars per year Because I have pulled in a massive audience. It's the only way you would get the attention of people like that Now if these same companies said adam would you take a few hundred dollars? I would say no and I have said no In fact, there was a company that was going to start offering me screeners of films ahead of time And I reviewed one years back and I shot all over it. It was an india movie It started kristin dunst and I can't remember who else It didn't even go to theaters, but that was the end of that conversation straight up So these things happen These these things do take place, but it's good to be honest And the other thing is if I was given a ton of money to review something and praise it There's ways to tell the audience And again, I'm speaking in a crazy hypothetical that would never happen But I just want to be honest and that's there's a price to everyone out there That's the bottom line and some people are a cheap date Some people it's not going to take much For them to amass a little bit of supporters and then they catch the ear or they catch the eyes of a certain group That has their own kind of concept of how they want to use that person And then the door is open and they step inside So yeah, things to look for things that you should definitely be wary of Wary of weary of whatever. It's all the same to me. It's all they're all just words that we made up at some point and and deemed them real All right. Well, this was real. This was real fun This is another podcast in the trenches Let me know your thoughts if you're on youtube What you think of this discussion are have you noticed it lately? The trust starting to erode From people maybe at one point that you actually respected and watched and over the years you're like, what happened to this dude? Why is he so salty on everything or why did he suddenly do a 180 and now he loves all the movies by Such director or he's in this group now and he's only interested in this type of movie made by this type of person There's a lot of that stuff going around It's very easy to fall into those pitfalls too and to start to think and talk like that individual Because you're in that space and it's being fed to you constantly that propaganda is just being fed Right into your channels into your feed So yeah, if you're on youtube and you see this video, let me know in the comments Where you're at with this whole thing Please like the video there as well and subscribe to my channel adam does movies where I post Tons of movie content each and every week Including the podcast that goes out every monday night there If you're listening on spotify or on apple music apple podcast It goes out 9 a.m. Every monday I can tell this is winding down because my words are starting to feel foreign to me It's starting to slur. I'm getting tired. Okay. Well, that's it. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching and I'll see you next monday