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I Am Not My Own Most Compatible Critic on Rotten Tomatoes

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by Matt Singer
March 21, 2013 1:27 PM
3 Comments
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Movie review website Rotten Tomatoes has launched a new feature called Find Your Critic, where readers rate a bunch of movies and then, through the power of mathematical formulas, they're matched up with a list of critics that are most compatible with their taste. At this point, I've had about dozen different people email me about this thing, so I figured I better try it out.

You need to log into your Facebook account on Rotten Tomatoes -- so if you don't have a Facebook account, or you don't want Rotten Tomatoes checking out your extensive library of cats-as-Yoda cosplay pictures, you are out of luck -- and you'll also need to give Rotten Tomatoes access to your Facebook account, or hit "CANCEL" in a pop-up window and after each and every movie you rate. After you grade a bunch of movies on a five-star scale -- mostly recent mega-blockbusters like "Iron Man" and the "Transformers" movies -- you'll get a list of critics with tastes similar to yours.

In my case, there's a critic out there who's more like me than me:

Yes Matt Singer is Matt Singer's second best critic match, after Rich Heldenfels of the Akron Beacon Journal. Actually, the first time I rated movies my own name didn't even crack my top ten most compatible critics. After shrugging off the existential despair that hit me after I realized that I'm somehow not even compatible with myself, I noticed the prompt at the top of the Find Your Critic page that said rating more movies will help refine your results. So I rated another batch and... I still didn't appear on my own list of critics matches! Determined, I rated a third batch -- and this time I showed up as #1. Hooray! Know thyself, suckas! 

Elated, I tried to refine further to get a really accurate list of matches for this post -- but in this fourth attempt, I dropped to #2 behind Mr. Heldenfels. Too terrified to lose anymore ground to the Akron Beacon Journal, I decided to stop tampering in God's domain.

Clearly, this is an inexact science. Still, I'd probably find the opposite results much more interesting: I know a lot of the critics who share my tastes, and read most of them already. But who do I totally disagree with (besides myself, apparently)? That's who I want to read. Or how about taking the RT test with deliberately awful taste -- like rating "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" five stars and "Toy Story 3" zero stars -- and seeing which critic lines up best with that? That'd be interesting.

See if I am your second most compatible critic on Rotten Tomatoes. 

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3 Comments

  • PollyAnna | March 21, 2013 8:18 PMReply

    I dunno, seems like an easy equation:

    Standard Art House Lauding + Slumming "Off-Kilter" Opinions + Supposed Love of Lowbrow - Investment and/or Passion - Genuine Understanding or Knowledge of Film

    Of course, that could describe 90% of blogger-cum-film critics

  • Mike R | March 21, 2013 3:12 PMReply

    What this doesn't measure--and what I think is more important than whether your "likes" align with someone elses--is whether you appreciate these critics' analytical style. Some of my favorite critics to read are not necessarily people who I assume I will always agree with.

  • M Porras | March 21, 2013 2:48 PMReply

    If you rate Transformers and Toy Story as you suggested, you'd match with Armond White.

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