https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05-02/paddington-2-citizen-kane-as-best-film-of-all-time/100109944
The much-loved 2017 sequel to Paddington has knocked Citizen Kane off its long-held perch at the top of Rotten Tomatoes Certified Fresh list, thanks to its 100 per cent rating and the emergence of a very old film review. And that, according to The Hollywood Reporter, is enough to earn it the title of the best movie ever.
- ABC News 3rd May, 2021
In news that I neither needed to know nor cared about, the movie review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes has recently had a change at the very top of the stack.
The Orson Welles' movie "Citizen Kane" has been replaced by the movie "Paddington 2". One is a critically acclaimed movie about a newspaper magnate; the other is a film which stars a small bear from Peru who is clad in a raincoat.
This would have gone completely unnoticed by me if it wasn't for the fact that I was asked what I thought about this. I except that because I am generally quite anachronistic, that this was expected to elicit some kind of concern or outrage from me but the truth is that although I could care less, I fail to see how. If you like Citizen Kane: good. If you like Paddington 2: good. Unless you like a piece of culture which is hideously offensive and is explicitly designed to destroy the dignity and humanity of people, then that's mostly your business. We still are allowed to disagree. This however has to do with maths and that is highly relevant to my interests.
Rotten Tomatoes as a movie review aggregator website, the scores which are generated are a weighted average. Just like Test Cricket averages, just one terrible score changes the numerator by some factor but changes the denominator by one. If most of the scores are roughly the same, then this is fine but there's a different dynamic going on with the scores for movie reviews.
As it is impossible to score more than 100%, then the aggregate of movie review scores do not end up being a measure of greatness but a measure of how much people don't hate something. If loads and loads of people like something but it causes a visceral reaction of hatred in someone else, then the average is going to be dented more by that one bad score than the legion of others. What this ultimately says about Paddington 2 is that although it might not necessarily be a great movie, it is sufficiently nice enough that practically nobody hates it. If nobody hates a thing, then there simply aren't the statistical downer scores which are going to drag down the average.
I know that I might not be either hip or cool (as evidenced by my use of the words 'hip' and 'cool') but I am not so ignorant of popular culture that I haven't seen Paddington 2. It is an objectively nice movie. I do not think that it is one of the top 10% movies of all time but it certainly deserves an 89/100. If my score was added to the pile, then it would sit among other scores which are broadly similar.
Citizen Kane got a one star review in a credible publication some 80 years ago by someone who really hated the movie. That single score which has been added to the aggregator is vastly different from the other reviews; because it is so low, it moved the average just enough to topple it.
I suspect that this will outrage movie buffs and purists for a bunch of reasons including that Paddington 2 is a sequel. The one inescapable fact here is that there is always going to be one movie, whatever it is, that will be at the top of the stack. The other inescapable fact, which is far less rage worthy and fair more boring is that people will like what they like, dislike what they dislike, and it ain't gonna make a lick of difference.
My suspicion is that movie reviews might be of some value if you have not seen a movie but once you have, they in principle don't matter at all. All that is left is some vague appeal to authority; which you are either going to cite as proof of the goodness of your own opinion or of the badness of everyone else's opinion. People still like what they like and dislike what they dislike.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-22/sir-don-donald-bradman-missing-four-runs-average/100078546
The discovery threatened one of Australia's iconic truths. No number (to two decimal places) is better known in Australia than 99.94: Donald Bradman's average. That's four runs shy of an average of 100.
So when historian and author Charles Davis spotted something odd about the scoring for the 1928-29 test at the MCG, he knew it had the potential to change history books.
A boundary that was given to another batsman — but that, according to bowling records, may have been Bradman's.
- ABC News, 22 Apr 2021
For a maths nerd (I have not ascended to the rank of geek or boffin), it is rare that there are two stories in the news about averages. So imagine my pique of interest when it was reported that Charles Davis, a cricket statistic nerd after reviewing hundreds of score cards, thought that he had found 4 runs which were incorrectly attributed and should rightfully belong to Sir Donald Bradman.
Batting averages in cricket are calculated by adding up the total number of runs that a player has scored and dividing it by the number of times that they have been dismissed. If a player remains not out, they are still credited with the runs that they have scored but the number of dismissals does not increase.
Donald Bradman famously was dismissed for 0 in his last Test innings at The Oval in the Fifth Test against England in 1948. That put him on 6996 runs and with 70 dismissals it gives him an average of 99.94. Had he scored just 4 more runs in his Test Cricket career, he would have had an average of 100 (7000 divided by 70 is 100). Even at 99.94 he is so many standard deviations above the mean that that makes him statistically the best sports player of all time and of all sport. When you also add his anti racist stance which included standing up to the Australian Cricket Board over the issues of brown and black players from India, and The West Indies being allowed into various places and later on making the Australian Cricket Board take action against South Africa due to Apartheid, then this also means that his character off the field was also brilliant.
However, irrespective of what this person thinks that they have found within the old scorecards, there is a distinct problem with going back and amending the record: the Law.
Law 16.10 of the Laws of Cricket states:
https://www.lords.org/mcc/the-laws-of-cricket/the-result
Once the umpires have agreed with the scorers the correctness of the scores at the conclusion of the match – see Laws 2.15 (Correctness of scores) and 3.2 (Correctness of scores) – the result cannot thereafter be changed.
- Law 16.10, The Laws of Cricket, Marylebone Cricket Club (as at 6th May 2021).
Now what that means is that even if the scorebooks are wrong, because the umpires of the day signed off on them, they are the truth. The sole arbiters of space and time and here and now and even reality itself as far as the Laws of Cricket are concerned, are the Umpires. I don't care what this person has found, even if he is right he is wrong. The result cannot thereafter be changed. Amen.
The difference between Rotten Tomatoes which is an aggregator of opinion and cricket statistics which are a matter of fact, is that opinion can always be changed whereas fact can not. If someone wants to go back and make Citizen Kane the best movie again, they can either write more reviews to elevate it or have someone else review Paddington 2 and tear it to pieces.
I don't know how you even objectively compare movies in the first place. How one might feel about a movie or indeed any piece of work might be different from one day to another. I for instance thought that "Santa Claus Versus The Martians" was a fun movie despite, in spite and possibly because it is objectively hokey. I'll go so far as to say that the only reason why I think a lot of people like Citizen Kane is because they think that because it is a work of import, that they are obliged to like it. I think that it is okay; I don't get the hype. What I do know is that what we have here is averages which have moved in an acceptable data set and that of itself, that is interesting.
Addenda I:
Not long after this was posted on Twitter, I was asked what I think is objectively the best movie of all time. Immediately I can think of one; which usually indicates that my opinion must be unconsciously solidified and then can be rationalised later. The idea of giving an objective answer to a question of subjectivity is itself internally a paradox.
It is:
"The Wizard Of Oz" (1939).
Judy Garland as Dorothy is good. Ray Bolger and Jack Haley as the Strawman and Tinman are good. Bert Lahr and Margaret Hamilton as the Cowardly Lion and the Wicked Witch Of The West, eat scenery and have played what I think are the two greatest performances in the entire history of cinema. This is where actors are deliberately so far over the top, that they spill into cultural artefacts.
I do not know if this was the first colour movie but it is famous enough that it has changed reality and owns that spot. There is also one scene where the film changes from monochrome to colour which is not only one of the most iconic set pieces in cinema but the transition shot which makes that dissolve through the front door of the house, does such an excellent job, that you don't even realise that the technical change actually happened before the shot.
The musical numbers are ridiculously cheesy but given that the film has already abandoned reality from the outset, who cares?
I think that it is just a good movie, which knows that it is a hokey movie and then never mind hanging a lamp shade upon the fact, it builds castles on top of it. There is a very good reason why an 82 year old movie is still played on television.
Addenda II:
At time of publication of this post:
1. Black Panther (2018)
24. Paddington 2 (2018)
--. Citizen Kane (1941)
--. The Wizard Of Oz (1939)
Yeah, averages shift.
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