Movie Reviews? Ask the Internet

The Rotten Tomatoes Show. current.tv

I found myself watching The Rotten Tomatoes Show, a new movie review show on current.tv. Yes, it's an internet tv show based on a website. Sounds silly, I know, and I probably wouldn't have watched it if I didn't distantly know some of the people involved and if I hadn't been able to Tivo it to watch on my TV via Time Warner Cable's deal with current. But I was actually pleasantly surprised. The show got off to a slightly awkward start - it was cute and clever but the tempo was a bit off at the beginning. Host Brett Erlich at first didn't have quite the energy for a host/announcer, but by the end of the show he had picked up and I loved him. Ellen Fox was OK at the beginning and grew on me as the episode progressed. I suspect after a few episodes, their banter and comfort levels will improve and they will be rockstars.

The real advantage of this show, in addition to harnessing the web 2.0 power of community input, was the cleverness of its segments. The haiku reviews and three sentence reviews were fun with potential for awesomeness. The Top 5 list was surprisingly clever and film literate. And some of the clips of webcam reviews by viewers were great. As they build an audience, I suspect there will be some good hilarious commentary. Mostly, however, I want to request more enthusiasm for the badness of bad movies. As a bad scifi fan, I'd love to see more commentary on the insanity of B-movies and other wackiness. You'd think commentary on Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li and video game movies would be the most opportunity for clever sarcasm, but for me this first segment disappointed. I will, however, be enthusiastically Tivoing this show in the future. It feels young, clever, and entertaining.

Do I want to consider this as the future of criticism? Well, I don't think crowdsourcing is a substitute for my favorite NPR film critics (or local newspaper film and theater coverage), but I haven't watched entertainment news on TV in many years, and this has definitely gotten my attention, and I suspect it will only get better.