The Christian Science Monitor's review are usually so off base with other critics that they are skewing the movies proper score (Lord of the Rings movies, City of God, Boogie Nights, Saving Private Ryan, Y Tu Mama Tambien, Almost Famous, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, LA Confidential, Shakespeare in Love, others...) They consistently pan truly great films for having material for grown-ups or for some God only knows reason. The periodical isnt reviewing, it's preaching. They are entitled to their [repressed] opinion, but stop giving any weight to their scores.
I hate their reviews. Almost every movie I like they give a low score. They always give a 25, 50 or 75 but 99% of the time they give a 75 to movies that have no comparisant in greatness. They do not know how to rate.
Posts: 637 | Location: California | Registered: 24 August 2004
To critique the CSM's inclusion in the metascore is the deface the metascore entirely. From what I understand, the whole point of this website is to create a conglomorate of different opinions. Just because you don't agree with the CSM, doesn't mean thier opinion isn't valid, and just because CSM doesn't agree with the popular vote, does not mean they should be discredited. I'm sure there are plenty of pretty crappy films, albums, etc. that got good scores from individual publications, but still suck.
I might be thinking of a different site, but don't they just score movies on how "family-friendly" they are, rather than the actual quality of their content?
Whether or not that is the site I'm thinking of, I wouldn't expect any website with "Christian" in its name to be a source of credible journalism. No offense intended to any Christians who may post here.
Posts: 688 | Location: Adelaide, South Australia | Registered: 01 January 2005
I think the Christian Science Moniter is one of those critic sites that need to prove their worthiness by hating every movie they see. It reminds me of that show the critic, just hate every movie and your reviews generally won't be questioned.
On that note, I must confess, I loved that teen movie that died years ago: Idle Hands, and Half Baked was hilarious.
quote:Originally posted by Nickel-Z: I think the Christian Science Moniter is one of those critic sites that need to prove their worthiness by hating every movie they see. It reminds me of that show the critic, just hate every movie and your reviews generally won't be questioned.
That's usually true, but don't they tend to gush rather undeserved praise over every G-rated, made for home-video, "fun for the whole family" movie ever released?
They only seem to scorn movies with content that they find offensive - although not necessarily content that the average person would find offensive.
Posts: 688 | Location: Adelaide, South Australia | Registered: 01 January 2005
Um, I'm not sure what you guys are talking about, but David Sterrit from the Christian Science Monitor is a legitimate film critic. I didn't go through all of his reviews, but just on the first page I noticed he gave great reviews to 21 Grams and 24 hour Party People, neither of which I'd consider G-Rated family fare.
The Christian Science Monitor isn't a religious paper, it just happens to have been started by Mary Baker Eddy who also founded The First Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston where the paper is published. It is a secular, legitmate news source, often cited on various mainstream news programs.
If anything, there's probably less bias in the CSM than with other periodicals since it's independantly owned.
----- We were wasps with new wings, now we're bugs in the jar.
Posts: 5469 | Location: Michigan | Registered: 19 June 2005
To help settle this, I put CSM through a stringent test: their review of Brokeback Mountain.
The most talked about film in years, it's based on a short story by Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Proulx, is setting box office records, getting the highest critical acclaim, and capturing many awards. Industry insiders say that it is shifting long-held premises on which films are conceived, funded, written, cast, and distributed, and will alter some of the very artistry, and the business, of filmmaking.
True-to-form, however, right-wing fundamentalists and the Catholic Church are condemning this landmark achievement in film history, not on any professional cinematic basis, but purely because it is tells a powerful story of an intense, life-long, emotional and physical relationship between two cowboys.
Brokeback Mountain got a perfect score of 100 from 17 meta-critics, including an official grade of "A" from CSM on the same day it opened in theaters. If CSM was reviewing based on religious folklore, the most likely place to see that would have been the Brokeback Mountain review, but there's not a word of prejudice there.
