Pajiba

noun/verb agreement
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Meanwhile, noun/verb/pronoun agreement continues to go straight to hell.

"The Lincoln Lawyer" was pretty good, and required some attention-paying as well.

Me, either.

And hence, why Hollywood hasn't gotten a cent of my money this year, or last year, or the year before.

Right, did Netflixquickenschadenfruita send me that Mary Pickford movie that was on my list yet?

I can't be the only one who wouldn't think Brooklyn Decker was all that hot based on that one photo, can I? I'm thinking she loses a beach-background showdown with Bo Derek.

This is why we can't have nice things.

The Lincoln Lawyer is the only one of those that i've seen, and it was actually pretty great. Rise of the Planet of the Apes was supposed to be pretty good as well, and Rio/Cars 2 seemed to be well regarded.

The rest of this list, however, makes one weep.

I haven't seen Just Go With Madea Popper's Transformers: Never Say The Kung Fu Avenger, but thanks for the header pic; I loved The Godfather Part II.

I think the reason audiences gave films like Hanna or Drive poor Cinemascores is the difference between the trailers/commercials and the films. When they're promoted as action/thrillers, that's what audiences expect. They don't expect a film to actually take its time to get to the action like those do.

Likewise, Rango was heavily promoted as a kids flick and while it was entertaining, at its core it was an existential drama about Rango defining himself. The thing is, look at the banner image, audiences expected Brooke Dekker in a bikini and typical Adam Sandler in Just Go With It. They got that, hence being pleased enough to give it a good grade. It's like when you order a meal that looks good on the menu but doesn't taste like you expected, it's not bad but not something you liked.

What's with all the uncreative trolls of late?

(Of course: Could be only one for all I know.)

I wondered about the Cinemascore high numbers myself -- until I read your explanation of how the scores are compiled. "Cinemascore sends out employees to ask people coming out of screenings to grade the movie they just saw" --? Has no-one in Cinemascore's marketing department heard of the "socially acceptable response?" It's a concept that just about every sociology major learns, sooner or later. Basically, when surveyed face-to-face, folks will give the answer that is most likely to a.) please the querent; and/or b.) make the respondent look good, either to him/herself or to the querent. It's why polls show that the vast majority of Americans believe in God and attend church regularly, yet surveys of American congregations show shrinking attendance. People say they go to church because they perceive regular church attendance to be a social good (i.e., "socially acceptable"), but don't actually do it. The numbers are even more skewed when the querent is a member of the clergy or in some way associated with the church; respondents will offer a false positive ("Oh, yes, I attend church regularly!") because they think that's what the querent wants to hear.

Additionally, the people who respond to face-to-face queries tend to be those who are most susceptible to positive approaches, and most likely to offer a positive, socially acceptable responses in return. Soooo ... faced with some chirpy, upbeat surveyor with a clipboard, standing outside the theatre door ("Hi! Would you like to answer a couple of questions about Bucky Larson?"), the moviegoers who are willing to respond are both susceptible to the positive approach, anxious to make themselves look positive in return, and likely to offer a positive response because it makes them feel good about themselves ("I'm no grouch!") and because they think it'll make the querent feel good ("I loved your movie!").

In short: Cinemascope ratings are worth shit.

PDamian is probably right about the response bias, but to me the more damning problem for Cinemascore is that their samples are (if I'm understanding their methods correctly) massively self-selecting.

A bunch of people who decided to go see a Justin Bieber movie had a positive opinion of a Justin Bieber movie? You don't fucking say...

@Mr Stitch: You can troll to your heart's content. I don't care. Several of the regular commenters here do that themselves. But at least they are original and entertaining, and one of the reasons I come here.

You? Not so much. You should try harder.

Fuck people.

This Bo Derek:

www.leninimports.com/bo_derek_gallery.html

My guess is the nun in the whorehouse is in charge of discipline. Or perhaps the cooking. Mending the torn lingerie? Book keeping? Tything? Damn you Pookie, this is going to occupy my whole damn afternoon!

"It's not my pillow that's wet with bitter lonely tears every night."

No, your pillow is probably wet with stains infinitely more icky and personal.

I agree with PDamian and Phaedawg. Generally speaking, people don't like taking surveys or stopping to talk to strangers. I just can't give too much credence to Cinemascore.

If it's true, however, that industry execs actually put stock in the Cinemascore rankings, then we're kind of fucked.

"Rio/Cars 2 seemed to be well regarded."

I didn't see Rio. Cars 2 was rather bland though. No way is that A- material.

I agree!!! Anytime someone has a different opinion than me I know its because they are of a different intelligence level.

Average people love Fast Five more than Drive, not because they prefer a fast pace and larger than life spectacle, but becasue they're stupid!!!

Oh, no, wait. It's because no one has told them to double-check all their opinions on rt yet. They're still honest.

@PDamian
While response bias might explain why seemingly bad movies get good responses, it doesn't explain why supposedly better movies get relatively poor responses. After all, those audiences chose to see that movie as well, and after being approached by a Cinemascore employee, they'd be suspect to all the same biases as anyone else. We could assume those audiences are smarter and less susceptible to this bias, but I think that's probably a bit naive.

I think Corey's explanation is perfect however. It can be infuriating to an audience member to think they're going to see one movie and instead get another. This is just anecdotal, but take my experience with Bridesmaids for example. After hearing about it extensively here, I knew exactly what to expect from the movie, but my friend, who had mostly been exposed to the marketing campaign, was disappointed. He called it another Juno. A movie that was sold to him as a comic romp when that wasn't really what it was. He also recently told me that, beyond his initial reaction, he really liked Bridesmaids.

The problem is studios don't really know how to sell movies aside from comparing them to other movies people liked. Hence the marketing campaign called Bridesmaids a female The Hangover because they shared a lot of the same elements (a buddy comedy with racy, and sometimes gross out humor) and The Hangover was really popular, when they really aren't all that similar. If a movie doesn't fall into one of the previously established genres, the studio is going to force it into one of them to make sure there are butts in the seats. That's how we get movies like Hanna and Drive being sold as straight action flicks when they don't quite fit.

Polls like this also don't address a movie's staying power, as a light easy to watch movie might get high marks from those exiting the theaters, but not do so well when it's time for the DVD release and everyone has forgotten it even existed.