The Curious Case of Critic Cole Smithey
As the saying goes, all good things must come to an end.
For approximately two weeks, Greta Gerwig's directorial debut Lady Bird (which she also wrote), a coming-of-age story starring Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalfe, held the record for the best-reviewed film ever on the site Rotten Tomatoes after 200 reviews were given and recorded. It usurped the animated film Toy Story 2 and delighted film fans who shared the appreciation and enthusiasm for Gerwig's film and delighted in the fact that this record celebrated a female centric narrative which was helmed by a woman.
However, a recent development has seen Lady Bird lose its perfect "100% Fresh" score on the website and dropped down to a (still mightily excellent) score of "99%". The reason for this? One critic gave the film a "rotten" rating. That critic was Cole Smithey (who declares himself the "Smartest Film Critic in the World"), a man who also gave a negative review of the universally acclaimed Dunkirk (dir. Christopher Nolan) and to the game-changing Wonder Woman (dir. Patty Jenkins).
via GIPHY
Fans of film, particularly the ones a part of the film community on Twitter, were outraged by this shocking development and took the social media platform to express their disappointment. Tweets collated and published onto IndieWire read:
Those outraged by the fallen 1% of the otherwise perfect Rotten Tomatoes Score conducted their own research and discovered that Smithey gave the film a grade of "B - " - a grade that would otherwise have been classified as a "fresh" rating. In fact, Smithey had indeed granted other films with the same grade and they had been recorded as "fresh". So, what's the deal with Lady Bird?
Well, Smithey has stated that whilst he enjoyed the film (hence the "B- rating"), he did not believe it to be worthy of the 100% score it had achieved on the Rotten Tomatoes website. Days after publishing his initial review, he changed its score from a "B-" to a "C+" to give himself more credibility and justification for tarnishing the film's (up until that point) perfect score. Smithey tweeted:
Ultimately, Smithey didn't have any significant problems with the film itself but took umbrage with the insinuation and implication that its perfect Rotten Tomatoes score declares it as one of the best films of all time and disagrees with the general consensus that the film is adored by many. Therefore, he used his power and manipulated the Rotten Tomatoes system to amend the score to align with his personal views: that he didn't think it deserved to be the highest rated film of all time.
Arguably, if Lady Bird had not achieved its astonishing (albeit momentary) feat and did not fleetingly sit pretty atop of the Rotten Tomatoes meter, Smithey would not have altered his score and made such an effort to derail the film's reputation.
This instance within the film criticism community not only raises issues of the abuse of power that certain critics exercise but also the misunderstanding of Rotten Tomatoes. The Next Web posits that:
"The 'Tomatometer' is not like a test score meant to indicate how well a movie did on some arbitrary scale, it's simply a measure of critical consensus on whether a movie is good or bad...The way I see it, Rotten Tomatoes is simply a good measurement of whether a movie is worth your time or not. Does it mean every movie with a 90+ is going to be a life-changing experience? No..."
This take hypothesises that Rotten Tomatoes is not a reliable indicator on what film is considered a masterpiece or one of the best films ever made of all time. It is simply a meter that gauges people's enjoyment of a piece of cinema with often no consideration as to whether it deserves to receive a higher rating than films such as Citizen Kane or The Godfather (considered to be two of the greats) or stand shoulder to shoulder with the classics.
So, yes, Cole Smithey may be right in his aggressive assertion that Lady Bird is not the greatest film of all time. But its popularity amongst critics cannot be denied and therefore makes it one of the year's best.
Another conversation has been prompted by this story in the film community/industry - the imbalance of gender in film criticism. Upcoming blog posts will explore the lack of opportunity for female film critics and critics of colour.
Bibliography
Sharf, Z (2017). 'Lady Bird' No Longer Has a Perfect 100% on Rotten Tomatoes (And No One is Happy About It). [online] Available at: http://www.indiewire.com/2017/12/lady-bird-rotten-tomatoes-record-broken-bad-review-cole-smithey-1201906394/ [20.01.2018]
Lopez, N (2017). Film critic admits he purposefully lowered a perfect Rotten Tomatoes score. [online] Available at: https://thenextweb.com/opinion/2017/12/14/film-critic-spoiled-lady-birds-perfect-rotten-tomatoes-score-basically-admits-hes-troll/ [20.01.2018]
For approximately two weeks, Greta Gerwig's directorial debut Lady Bird (which she also wrote), a coming-of-age story starring Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalfe, held the record for the best-reviewed film ever on the site Rotten Tomatoes after 200 reviews were given and recorded. It usurped the animated film Toy Story 2 and delighted film fans who shared the appreciation and enthusiasm for Gerwig's film and delighted in the fact that this record celebrated a female centric narrative which was helmed by a woman.
via GIPHY
Fans of film, particularly the ones a part of the film community on Twitter, were outraged by this shocking development and took the social media platform to express their disappointment. Tweets collated and published onto IndieWire read:
Those outraged by the fallen 1% of the otherwise perfect Rotten Tomatoes Score conducted their own research and discovered that Smithey gave the film a grade of "B - " - a grade that would otherwise have been classified as a "fresh" rating. In fact, Smithey had indeed granted other films with the same grade and they had been recorded as "fresh". So, what's the deal with Lady Bird?
Well, Smithey has stated that whilst he enjoyed the film (hence the "B- rating"), he did not believe it to be worthy of the 100% score it had achieved on the Rotten Tomatoes website. Days after publishing his initial review, he changed its score from a "B-" to a "C+" to give himself more credibility and justification for tarnishing the film's (up until that point) perfect score. Smithey tweeted:
Ultimately, Smithey didn't have any significant problems with the film itself but took umbrage with the insinuation and implication that its perfect Rotten Tomatoes score declares it as one of the best films of all time and disagrees with the general consensus that the film is adored by many. Therefore, he used his power and manipulated the Rotten Tomatoes system to amend the score to align with his personal views: that he didn't think it deserved to be the highest rated film of all time.
Arguably, if Lady Bird had not achieved its astonishing (albeit momentary) feat and did not fleetingly sit pretty atop of the Rotten Tomatoes meter, Smithey would not have altered his score and made such an effort to derail the film's reputation.
This instance within the film criticism community not only raises issues of the abuse of power that certain critics exercise but also the misunderstanding of Rotten Tomatoes. The Next Web posits that:
"The 'Tomatometer' is not like a test score meant to indicate how well a movie did on some arbitrary scale, it's simply a measure of critical consensus on whether a movie is good or bad...The way I see it, Rotten Tomatoes is simply a good measurement of whether a movie is worth your time or not. Does it mean every movie with a 90+ is going to be a life-changing experience? No..."
This take hypothesises that Rotten Tomatoes is not a reliable indicator on what film is considered a masterpiece or one of the best films ever made of all time. It is simply a meter that gauges people's enjoyment of a piece of cinema with often no consideration as to whether it deserves to receive a higher rating than films such as Citizen Kane or The Godfather (considered to be two of the greats) or stand shoulder to shoulder with the classics.
So, yes, Cole Smithey may be right in his aggressive assertion that Lady Bird is not the greatest film of all time. But its popularity amongst critics cannot be denied and therefore makes it one of the year's best.
Another conversation has been prompted by this story in the film community/industry - the imbalance of gender in film criticism. Upcoming blog posts will explore the lack of opportunity for female film critics and critics of colour.
Bibliography
Sharf, Z (2017). 'Lady Bird' No Longer Has a Perfect 100% on Rotten Tomatoes (And No One is Happy About It). [online] Available at: http://www.indiewire.com/2017/12/lady-bird-rotten-tomatoes-record-broken-bad-review-cole-smithey-1201906394/ [20.01.2018]
Lopez, N (2017). Film critic admits he purposefully lowered a perfect Rotten Tomatoes score. [online] Available at: https://thenextweb.com/opinion/2017/12/14/film-critic-spoiled-lady-birds-perfect-rotten-tomatoes-score-basically-admits-hes-troll/ [20.01.2018]
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