The Power of Reviews

posted by Michael Zoldessy on January 5, 2007 at 5:15 am

I used to be wooed by trailers, voluntarily sucked into the theater with just a glimpse of excitement. I used to give credence to word of mouth and make it over to the theater purely based on what other people said. Recently though however, specifically the last five years, I’ve thrown that all away and now base which movies I go out and see entirely on reviews.

Maybe it’s the cost of movies. As evidence by our recent CT poll and comments made on the pages, it seems like all of us are getting a little fed up with the skyrocketing price of first run films these days. I’ve learned to get over it by simply choosing films more wisely. That way, if I’m going to spend that money on the movie, the parking and possibly concessions, at least I feel like I’m guaranteed to get something in return.

It becomes obsessive though. I check sites like Rotten Tomatoes so often to see what everyone is saying that by the time the movie comes out, I’m a little sick of hearing about it. I just have to know the opinions though; the random opinions, the consensus opinion and of course the thoughts of my personal favorite journalists.

There’s more at stake too by living this kind of life. How about compromising friendships? Frequently, I’ll receive enthusiastic recommendations from a peer urging me to see a certain picture but I’ll have to turn them down because of something I read. They’ll be in shock and think I’m kidding. Eventually, they’ll just be plain insulted.

I can’t say I follow this mentality 100% of the time though. I’ll have a soft spot for a few genres and directors that will draw me to the theaters no matter what the ratings say. One example is time travel movies. I don’t know why, but any film that even remotely involves it, I’m there. We all have our guilty pleasures I guess.

How we choose which movies we go see is an integral part of our personal moviegoing experience. With so much talk in the news about box office receipts going up and down, maybe it’s time to take a closer look at how the general public makes these decisions. For me though, at least for the foreseeable future, I analyze the thoughts of others possibly a little too much, but that’s what define my choices.

(Thanks to Genista for providing the photo.)

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