This essay was originally published in Stat Significant, a weekly newsletter featuring data-centric essays about movies, music, and TV.
["Joker: Folie à Deux" ( 2024). Credit: Warner Bros]
Intro: Revenge of the Filmmaker
Typically, filmmakers lack agency when it comes to criticism of their work — with the exception of director Uwe Boll. Boll, a German filmmaker notorious for poorly reviewed films like "House of the Dead" and "Alone in the Dark," faces online animosity well beyond that of much-maligned contemporaries like Michael Bay and Zack Snyder.
Variety once described Boll's 2005 "BloodRayne" as "a vampire western without teeth," noting that "the only thing scary about BloodRayne is that it got made in the first place." Over time, reviews of the director's work became online bloodsport, with Roger Ebert giving Boll's "Alone in the Dark" one star, calling it "an inept, incomprehensible, and mind-numbing experience," and Empire magazine deeming the film "a kind of movie that makes you believe Uwe Boll is actively trying to destroy the art of cinema."
Most filmmakers would simply absorb this online vitriol, feel sad for a month or so, and then move on with their lives — but not Boll.
Frustrated by an onslaught of negative reviews, Boll invited five of his harshest critics to face him head-on in a 10-round boxing match, dubbing the event "Raging Boll." Boll described the stunt as a way to confront his detractors directly, but unbeknownst to critics, he had the upper hand as an amateur boxer in training. Ultimately, Boll emerged victorious against four participants, with many shocked by the filmmaker's boxing skill and overly-serious approach to the fights.
Despite his short-term victory, Boll's career continues to be defined by poorly-received movies, with the "Raging Boll" gambit further cementing his legacy as cinema's enfant terrible (alongside Lars von Trier).
Beyond Boll's theatrics lies an intriguing question surrounding the depravity of his filmmaking: what makes his movies so deplorable, to the point where they're worthy of multiple boxing matches? Why are certain directors and narrative tropes the repeat target of online hostility?
So today, we'll explore what makes a film hate-able, investigating the story elements and sociocultural norms that spawn overwhelming scorn or praise. We'll examine the sentiments that dominate negative reviews and how a film's legacy is cemented with time.
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What Makes a Movie Bad? And What Makes a Review of a Bad Movie?
As a guy who writes about pop culture on the internet, I've often flitered with the thought of pursuing film criticism. Surely, I am so unique, so singular in my voice and beliefs, that people want (perhaps even need) my hot takes on "Joker: Folie à Deux" and "Venom: The Last Dance." People must be clamoring for pithy, somewhat insightful internet ramblings on how "The Social Network" is the greatest movie of the 2010s or how "Madame Web" explains everything (and I mean everything).
However, after a few minutes of fantasizing about my life as a sophisticate of film culture, I typically hit a wall: at what point would I simply run out of words? Would my 50th review just be a regurgitation of everything that came before?
Is it possible to transpose the visceral effect of "Titanic" or "Alien" into words while being wholly original in your critique? In short, not really. The English language has only so many words suited to film criticism.
I ran 20,000 online reviews through a sentiment analysis algorithm and then highlighted the terms disproportionately used in positive and negative writing. My personal favorite is that "political" is heavily associated with negative reviews — you have to love anonymous user-generated content.
So what aspects of filmmaking and story construction prompt the use of words like "hate" and "unfortunately?" Examining the online keywords associated with negative reviews, we find several hallmarks of transgressive content, such as "gore" and "suicide" — elements you'd traditionally find in a horror movie or psychological thriller.
[Note: lower sentiment scores mean greater negativity]
A complex, unanswerable question surrounds how these story elements evoke animosity: does it stem from merely invoking this material or from the mishandling of these plot points (thus making them feel unearned)?
Consider the wildly controversial film "Irreversible," a movie notorious for an uncut nine-minute sequence depicting a graphic sexual assault. The reviews for this film oscillate between five-star raves and one-star rants. Ultimately, the reviewer's opinion centers on their interpretation of this one scene (understandably so). If you believe this sequence is a transgressive gut-punch, then five stars; if you think the graphic nature of this scene is unneeded and plays like the cinematic equivalent of having someone jam their finger into your eye, then one star. Personally, I have never seen this movie, nor would I recommend it to someone — given I could just as easily recommend "Toy Story 3," "Lady Bird," or "Coco."
Conversely, there are movie tropes that lend themselves to positive viewer reception. Unsurprisingly, this list features terms like "love," "sports," and "coming of age" — plot points regularly found in the prototypical "feel-good movie" like "The Sandlot," "Remember the Titans," or "The Karate Kid."
[Note: higher sentiment scores mean greater positivity]
Another takeaway from this set of terms concerns the enthusiastic reception of older movies, with keywords like "black and white," "1950s," and "1960s" disproportionately associated with positive review sentiment. This relationship prompts questions regarding time and legacy: do people favor older movies, and how does a film's reception change with age?
How Does a Movie's Legacy Change Over Time?
Consider the following movie-viewing scenarios:
- You watch a much-anticipated film on opening night, perhaps at midnight.
- You passively consume a movie on streaming a few months after its release.
- You return to an old favorite twenty years after your first viewing, or you sample a beloved 1970s classic because it ranks among IMDb's top 250 films.
Which of these situations will spawn raves, and which will qualify as a colossal waste of time, perhaps even fill you with rage?
At a high level, these scenarios encapsulate a film's viewership lifecycle, from a work's release to the cementing of its long-term legacy. Movies are shared, re-watched, forgotten, rediscovered, and inherited; through this process, a work reaches a point of cultural stasis. So how does critical appraisal change throughout these various phases, and what underlying phenomona determine a film's long-standing reputation?
To ascertain changing sentiments as a function of time, I grouped our data based on the years between a given rating and that movie's release. The results indicate a v-shaped trajectory for critical acclaim, defined by increased hype upon release, a dip in sentiment in the decade following a work's debut, and then rising acclaim from that point forward.
[Note: higher sentiment scores mean greater positivity]
This trend is the product of two mutually reinforcing phenomena:
- Self-selection and Cultural Preservation: A movie's most captive audience sits at the bookends of this v-shape, mainly those who seek out the film upon debut and those who return to a movie decades later. If someone watches "A Clockwork Orange" 53 years after its release, it's because they love this movie or have heard great things. Those who watch "Anyone But You" or "Madame Web" on Netflix a year after their theatrical release represent a critical middle ground: they actively chose not to see these films in theaters but are engaging with these works before their long-term reputations are established.
- Nostalgia and Historical Contextualization: Viewers may adjust their standards based on the historical context surrounding a movie's initial release, especially if that work is deemed “a classic." Consider "Animal House," a film featuring numerous sequences that qualify as sexual harassment, firmly placing this movie in a canon of "they don't make them like this anymore" classics. Modern audiences may view John Belushi's character spying on a sorority house as "not okay," while others may deem this behavior acceptable within the social norms of the 1970s. Those returning to "dated" films like "Animal House" or "Breakfast at Tiffany's" often overlook their apparent flaws, seeing their anachronistic qualities as "quaint" — relics of simpler times — thus leading to rosier reviews.
Final Thoughts: Cinematic Hinge Points
["Madame Web" (2024). Credit: Sony Pictures]
A few weeks ago, my sister and her boyfriend came to visit and requested we go to one of Quentin Tarantino's theaters in East LA. There weren't many movie options, so we ended up seeing "Some Like It Hot" at 11 am on a Sunday.
If you want to talk about a film with an extremely confusing legacy, look no further than Billy Wilder's 1959 classic "Some Like It Hot." This screwball comedy follows two male musicians who disguise themselves as women to escape persecution from the mob. At the time of its release, this film was wildly controversial: how in the world could TWO MEN dress up as WOMEN? The censorship board that governed Hollywood refused to endorse the movie, so Some Like It Hot was released unrated, the modern equivalent of an R or NC-17 rating —purely based on gender politics.
["Some Like it Hot" (1959). Credit: United Artists]
Present day, this film easily qualifies as "dated," given much of the humor stems from the implausibility of a man wearing women's clothing. If you're unwilling to accept this plot point and the ensuing antics, there is zero chance you'll enjoy this movie. And yet, our 11 am screening was packed with people of all ages.
In one scene, a discouraged character sinks into a bathtub and exclaims, "If I had more nerve, I'd kill myself," a comedic punchline straight from the year 1959. This joke spawned thunderous laughter, including one moviegoer who shrieked with undue excitement. This response was not an endorsement of the joke's initial premise but rather a reaction to how poorly the material had aged.
If a filmmaker tried to mine comedy from suicidal ideations in the year 2024, they would promptly be escorted out of Hollywood, perhaps forever. However, if this joke comes from a beloved 1950s classic, I guess this line is ridiculous for how cinematic humor has changed over the past six decades.
Every film has a series of hinge points, with certain elements of story and style that could make or break a viewer's appraisal. If you accept a transgressive plot point or risqué joke, you might label that film as "wonderful," "perfect," or "terrific." If you reject a tasteless joke about suicide or the use of unneeded gore, then you may label a movie "worst," "disappointing," or "ridiculous" — and then be forced to fight the filmmaker in a ten-round boxing match.
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