Rotten Tomatoes

Thursday

Alexander Larman

The Flash and the downside of hype

When The Flash opens at cinemas this week, its production company DC Studios and distributor Warner Brothers will no doubt be hoping that attention is diverted away from its troubled, pronoun-wielding star Ezra Miller and towards its multiverse qualities. To the uninitiated, this sounds simply as if the studio has rounded up every actor who ever played Batman (save Christian Bale, who has wisely moved onto other things), chucked a Supergirl into the mix and even produced a truly bizarre Nicolas Cage cameo as Superman. Even Christopher Reeve appears, from beyond the grave. But to its now-desperate makers, mindful of the massive financial success of Spider-Man: No Way Home, the film has to succeed.

the flash hype

Wednesday

Stephen L. Miller

Rotten Tomatoes and the cultural gap between critics and audiences

Comedian Dave Chappelle’s Netflix special, The Closer, has drawn praise from audiences and social media, while eliciting scorn from reviewers and professional critics over its jokes about the LGBTQ and trans communities. Members of the press have even gone so far as to label the stand-up special 'a betrayal' on Chappelle’s part. But how far does this divide extend between what appears to be mass audience approval and universal critic disapproval? Rotten Tomatoes, the film critic aggregation site that averages reviews of visual media in film, television and streaming, has become the latest tool to measure this. Rotten Tomatoes has a user review system, which it measures against the media critics.

dave