“The studios didn’t invent Rotten Tomatoes, and most of them don’t like it,” says director Paul Schrader. “But the system is broken. Audiences are dumber. Normal people don’t go through reviews like they used to. Rotten Tomatoes is something the studios can game. So they do.” — from Lane Brown‘s “The Decomposition of Rotten Tomatoes,” a 9.6. Vulture article.

Excerpt: “In a recent interview, Quentin Tarantino, whose next film is reportedly called The Movie Critic, admitted that he no longer reads critics’ work. ‘Today, I don’t know anyone,’ he said (in a translation of his remarks, first published in French). ‘I’m told, ‘Manohla Dargis, she’s excellent.’ But when I ask what are the three movies she loved and the three she hated in the last few years, no one can answer me. Because they don’t care!’

“This is probably because Rotten Tomatoes — with help from Yelp, Goodreads, and countless other review aggregators — has desensitized us to the opinions of individual critics.

“Once upon a time, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert turned the no-budget documentary Hoop Dreams into a phenomenon using only their thumbs. But critical power like that has been replaced by the collective voice of the masses. A third of U.S. adults say they check Rotten Tomatoes before going to the multiplex, and while movie ads used to tout the blurbage of Jeffrey Lyons and Peter Travers, now they’re more likely to boast that a film has been “Certified Fresh.”

“To filmmakers across the taste spectrum, Rotten Tomatoes is a scourge.

“Martin Scorsese says it reduces the director ‘to a content manufacturer and the viewer to an unadventurous consumer.’ Brett Ratner has called it ‘the destruction of our business.”’But insiders acknowledge that it has become a crucial arbiter. Publicists say their jobs revolve around the site. ‘In the last ten years,’ says one, ‘it’s become much more important as so many of the most trusted critics have retired without replacements.’

“An indie-distribution executive says, ‘I put in our original business plan that we should not do films that score less than 80. Rotten Tomatoes is the only public stamp of approval that says, ‘This is of immense quality, and all critics agree.’”

“But despite Rotten Tomatoes’ reputed importance, it’s worth a reminder: Its math stinks. Scores are calculated by classifying each review as either positive or negative and then dividing the number of positives by the total. That’s the whole formula. Every review carries the same weight whether it runs in a major newspaper or a Substack with a dozen subscribers.

“If a review strad’les positive and negative, too bad. ‘I read some reviews of my own films where the writer might say that he doesn’t think that I pull something off, but, boy, is it interesting in the way that I don’t pull it off,’ says Schrader, a former critic. ‘To me, that’s a good review, but it would count as negative on Rotten Tomatoes.'”

A few days ago Kino Lorber released a double-disc 4K Bluray of Sidney Pollack and Robert Redford‘s Three Days of the Condor (’75). I’m not sure I see the need. I own the old Bluray from 2009 or thereabouts, and it’s fine.

The wifi signal in Albuquerque Airport is so anemic, so astoundingly sludgy, even slower than a dial-up connection in 1997 — that I can’t even post a link to a 9.2.23 High-Def Digest review.

Condor is a perfectly assembled, deliciously cool and extremely anxious time-capsule capturing of mid ’70s paranoia.

It works as a great companion piece to Alan Pakula and Warren Beatty‘s The Parallax View.

Redford’s “Turner” is one of his career-best performances, and Max von Sydow‘s “Joubert” is so exquisite in every scene…so gentle, settled-in and unmalicious…an almost serene European man involved in a dirty business.

I just wish that Leonard Atwood‘s motive behind the idiotic murdering of seven CIA employees in a midtown Manhattan office made more sense. Atwood freaked when he read Turner’s original “book report”, sent to CIA headquarters, about a rogue CIA operation — Atwood’s — that would’ve seized Middle Eastern oil fields.

Everything about Condor fits into place except for this one ludicrous plot device.

Cliff Robertson to John Houseman: “Do you miss that kind of action, sir?” Houseman to Robertson: “No, I miss that kind of clarity.”

You have to figure that the current 85% Rotten Tomatoes score for Woody Allen‘s Coup de Chance (Metacritic hasn’t weighed in yet) would be slightly higher were it not for the fact that a significant percentage of critics are cowards and whores.

Cowards and whores, I mean, even under relatively mild circumstances, but especially so, one presumes, when it comes to a Woody Allen film.

They all understand that approving of an Allen film these days could either cast suspicion upon their values or get them into trouble with editors and readers. Especially when it comes to female critics — a positive Coup de Chance review could result in a woman critic being accused of betrayal from the #MeToo corner.

From a boilerplate standpoint, there’s not much upside to praising Coup de Chance. It’s safer to pan it. Therefore the fact that a significant majority has approved of the film (an HE commenter is claiming it’s closer to 65%) means a bit more.