While the debate rages on between film geeks over whether Metacritic or Rotten Tomatoes is the superior criticism aggregator, their is now a third aggregator that has entered the mix, called Movie Review Intelligence. Movie Review Intelligence plans to separate itself from the Big Two by using an even smaller group of critics (somewhere in the neighborhood of 65) and weighting their reviews based on how much “pull” they have.
So far the site seems to have some impressive metrics working behind it, making it a bit of a thrill to read for those of us who enjoy crunching numbers. And while I’m happy to see Star Tribune critic (and friend of the site) Colin Covert being included within this select group, I’m a bit at a loss on why his compatriot across the river at the Pioneer Press, Chris Hewitt, is being left out.
The other negative that I have is that I’m not exactly happy that mediocre critics with wide ranging publications like Roger Ebert, Owen Gleiberman or ugg, Peter Travers, means that they might skew the reviews simply due to their wide readership, rather then their competency. And while the limited amount of critics does reduce the number of highly questionable critics being included, a major fault of Rotten Tomatoes, the same small sample size means that the resulting aggregation might potentially be widely skewed. It will be something to keep an eye on over the coming months, and hopefully this site proves as reliable and accurate as its lofty claims.
Tags: chris hewitt, Colin Covert, film geeks, metacritic, movie, movie review, Movie review Intelligence, owen gleiberman, peter travers, pioneer press, review, Reviews, roger ebert, rotten tomatoes, Star Tribune
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June 16th, 2009 at 12:09 am
Peter Travers is a whore.
June 16th, 2009 at 11:07 pm
Interesting – I also came across the Movie Review Query Engine last week: http://www.mrqe.com/. Looks like neither Colin or Chris got in the Pelham count on that one. Odd.
But this MRI one is pretty interesting, especially regarding the timing of reviews.
June 16th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
Interesting stuff, though the layout is a little busy for my taste. Lots of material to study, though.
I also discovered something called the Movie Review Query Engine last week. I can’t link to it because it keeps spamming my comment, but Google it and you’ll land on it. Variety is pushing that one, for whatever reason.
June 21st, 2009 at 9:12 am
Matt, Thanks for your post about MovieReviewIntellingence.com. Please bear in mind that what I am trying to do, and what is different about MRI, is that I am trying to replicate movie reviews as they exist in the real world, according to how moviegoers see and read them, in proportion to what they see and read. That is how I selected the critics that I selected — they are the most read/most seen. By covering more than 65 critics, I include substantially more than some of the other sites. I hope you will keep an eye on us — thus far this year the results appear to be consistent with the real world of moviegoing. Thanks much. David Gross, Editor & Publisher, MovieReviewIntelligence.com
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:12 pm
I’ll be sure to keep an eye on what you are doing David. I think the concept certainly shows a lot of promise, and potentially could be quite accurate.
I still think Chris Hewitt should make the cut though.