Hear that? The sound of nails being slowly dragged along a chalkboard? It’s your reviews being reviewed by a new website, Existimatum.
The site, founded by Peter Kern, “was to make a site that combined the satire of the The Onion with the usefulness of Rotten Tomatoes.” A team of 10 writers read reviews and provide critiques, and Kern edits each before it is published. “The ExistiMetric,” he says, “was a natural outgrowth of the idea once we actually got into the daily work of reviewing reviews.”
Review aggregators like Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, Critic Wire and Critic’s Round-Up all serve to give moviegoers a good idea of what they can look forward to for the week’s releases, but what Kern has in mind is something else entirely. Fueled by the negative critical reaction to the Man of Steel, Kern has decided that film reviewers shouldn’t get off so easily themselves.
“I am a huge fan of Superman and eagerly awaited the film. In reading multiple reviews, I saw so many bad reviews that the idea for the site began to grow. One review went so far as to say that the film’s ‘bloated budget could have gone a long way toward curing cancer’ as an aside. There was a lot that I wanted to say about that review, but there was no platform.”
Seeking to fill that void, Kern’s idea has grown into a mechanism that would “watch the watchmen” in regards to film criticism. Grading writers on categories such as: “Quality of Writing, Reasonableness, Spoiler Avoidance, and Presentation.”
This is all well and fine on paper, but the problem with the execution of Existimatum is that the critiques of the critics are as subjective as the material being mulled over. Is Kern so tired of reading disagreeable reviews that he would label them terrible in hopes of getting rid of all critics that don’t meet his personal standards?
Abstract concepts like right and wrong do not exist in the realm of film opinion, everyone is entitled to their own responses and feelings on a particular film and Existimatum doesn’t seem to fit into a world that respects that.
3 thoughts on “Existimatum Wants to Grade Your Reviews”
What a great idea. I think I’m going to start a site that critiques the critiques of the critics. Who’s with me! (Insert sound of crickets here.)
I’m waiting for the site that critiques Twitter movie reviewer reviews in 120 characters or less.
As a bit of harmless fun, there’s a lot to be said for a site that takes the p*ss out of cinema reviews, possibly the largest receptacle for pomposity on the planet.
However, when it states its intention to “mute(s) the opinions of unreliable critics, thereby providing you with the world’s most credible compound quantitative assessment of a film” alarm bells should start ringing. There’s not a lot of joy (or sense) in this Stalinist “mission to explain” particularly as you can’t apply one rule (or ten critics’ rules – ten for f*ck’s sake!) to reviews that range from Sight & Sound (in the UK) analysis to a quick tabloid newspaper pointer as to what’s at the cinema this week.
However, the most unpalatable aspect of the site is the lack of accountability. Some of the comments are little more than anonymous personal attacks on critics who at least had the decency to put their names to their reviews, however bad or good they were. Essentially it’s trolling, albeit it trolling justified by Latin pretensions. Looking at a smattering of the critiques offered, it seems the site’s guardians are looking for long-winded analysis (the longer the review, the better, it seems) over jokey exuberance. I for one, prefer the latter. In fact, the line that the Man of Steel’s ‘bloated budget could have gone a long way toward curing cancer’ made me laugh…and also said a lot more about the film than a hundred in-depth broadsheet opinion pieces.
PS I find it rather had to believe that the site’s guardians have actually seen all the films (many are press screenings only) that they’re upbraiding critics for, particularly in terms of “reasonableness”.