List bias' in reviews

[snapper]

Hi,

No offence to the reviewers but I think some of them have certain bias' that may change thier review. Eg. they may prefer a particular directing style, certain themed movies ect...

I understand you can't simply remove your bias when you review since it has been built up from all your movie watching. Everyone has 'em.

All I am suggesting is that you list them in the review perhaps something like:

"I generally tend to prefer movies directed by Mr/Ms X"

This way if someone else dosn't like the directing style of Mr/Ms X they can use this information to reduce the rating of the movie themselves so they can make a more informed decision when considering renting/buying the movie.

What does everyone think about this?

thanks

[MrMacabre]

Example?

Do you mean you want reviewers to have a list of top movies so you have a fair idea of what they're into?

[snapper]

hi,

not only fav movies, but also fav genres eg. My fav types of movies in order are comedy, action, thriller, horror ect...

You might want to also state the popular movies you hate.

The director of this film is one of my fav's.

Or thier could be arbitary bias' like I really don't like movies that show alot of memory sequences or I don't like movies that jump from the past and the present and or future often. ect..

Or perhaps, I don't like to watch black and white films.

Now if you want an eg for you specifically let me know and I'll provide it. If you want it to be private please send me a PM.

I realise storing all this data in each review you create is not smart, perhaps it could all go into a post in the same section the reviews go in and a link can be provided in each review.

You may have specific bias' for the particular movie so that show be described in the review. Eg. My fav actor/actress appears in this movie so I gave it .25 extra for this.
Or lots of nudity appears in this movie so I gave it .5 extra for that. :)

thanks

[MrMacabre]

Originally posted by death
Now if you want an eg for you specifically let me know and I'll provide it. If you want it to be private please send me a PM.

Hi dude,

Nah, I'm okay. Just hit me with it. :)

Always happy to get feedback... both appraising & critical.

[snapper]

hi,

We all know you prefer horror and hacker slasher flicks. I personally don't.

You gave RoadKill 5/5 for the movie content. This movie in my opinion is only worth 3/5 tops.

Since I knew your likes I know that I should remove ~ 1.5-2/5 marks for any review you do on horror/hacker slasher movies or movies with lots of gore ect...

I havn't seen ghost ship yet, you rated it a 5 so because I know your bias' listed above I know I would only rate it 3/5 tops which is why I havn't rented it yet.
And it is why I would never buy it on a blind purchase.

So let me ask you now, before you watched RoadKill did you already know it would most likely receive a favourable review because it falls into the category of movies you like?

If you see a new movie from PT Anderson will your first reaction be slightly negitive toward it because you didn't really like some of his other work?

I don't know the bias' of watcher or orko so I can't apply the same or similar procedure to thier reviews.

thanks

[MrMacabre]

Ah, I see where you're going with this.

Granted, it may seem to the casual observer that I am more lenient towards slasher / horror films as yes, as you have also observed, I am a fan of the genre.

However, there are many a film I have also given 5/5 or close to that aren't horror [and no, I can't be bothered sifting through them all to find examples ;)].

As for Boogie Nights, I thought it was a bunch of disjointed crap with a rubber d!ck thrown in. It didn't really appeal and yes, I will go as far as saying that in future whenever I see a PT Anderson credit; I will look the other way.

However, you do realise that even yourself are showing some bias by saying these films aren't as good as I've rated them and that'd you'd only give them xx / 5. Fact is that to remove all opinion from reviews would make them pretty boring, so I reckon it's good to say what's on your mind [otherwise what's the point of reviewing?].

In my eyes, the "movie" rating is the least important of the five? Why? Because of the bias you speak. The other 4 ratings are what count as far as a DVD review goes.

They are Video Audio Extras.

Between you and me, I wouldn't care if none of my discs have extras, because as long as they're 16:9 and 5.1 I'm happy. Once again, that is a 'personal preference' that I'm sure many others would disagree with.

Back to preferred films / director's / genre's. Would you think me crazy if I told you that Bob Roberts is probably my all time favourite film [or close to it]? That's about as anti-stereotypical as I can get. A folk singing senatorial candidate? That's the wrong kind of scary ;).

Fact is, being a film fan & a DVD reviewer pretty much makes me 'non-genre specific' in regards to my collection. I started out collecting horror only and now I honestly believe that the genre now only takes about 40% of my collection. It's lost about 60% of it's ground! But then again, it still serves as the majority genre so it could be suggested that I prefer those over other films. But then again, maybe not.

Many of my horror films I keep as research as I have written a few horror movies (well, have tried to!) as well as using such films for reference purposes to show them off to squeamish / more politically correct people :p I find it much harder to part with a horror movie than any other genre DVD. In fact, I could point out about 5 or ten titles that I actually don't like or have no interest in owning... but can't come to terms with selling them.

As for my ratings of films, I like a film that has one or more of the following as a rule:
Awesome soundtrack that complements the film Decent acting Comedic Moments [not necessarily a comedy] Action A Plot Is absorbing..

When you think about it; that's a pretty broad checklist. I'm probably the only horror fan that has his Nightmare on Elm Street Box set sitting next to On The Waterfront in his collection. ;)

Overall, whilst I do see where you're coming from and your points do sound reasonable on paper, I personally believe that it would be too challenging to accomodate such requests in reviews as they have little to do with the title itself. What I do recommend is that maybe we reviewers should have a "Bio Page" or something to that effect where such information could be housed, so readers like yourselves could check up to confirm suspiscious that a certain reviewers opinions might be a little bias towards the hack and slash films instead of some 1950's musical.

Anyway, I hope this has answered some [hopefully all] of your queries as well as giving some insight into the odyssey that is Macabre. hehe :p

[snapper]

hi,

Yes of course I have bias'. The problem I have with reviewers is its hard to find ones that rate the movie the same as you would however my solution was each review to have a bias' list. This means all I need to do is find a review that has a similiar list of bias' that I do and take that reviewer more seriously then the others.

thanks

[MrMacabre]

Originally posted by death
hi,

Yes of course I have bias'. The problem I have with reviewers is its hard to find ones that rate the movie the same as you would however my solution was each review to have a bias' list. This means all I need to do is find a review that has a similiar list of bias' that I do and take that reviewer more seriously then the others.

thanks

death, this is a problem that I don't see being rectified anytime soon. It would be just too hard and I'm sure that in the eyes of many reviewers it would reduce the activity to a chore rather than a chance to express opinions freely.

Us reviewers aren't really on a winning wicket (contrary to popular belief), and all the 'urban myths' about totally free films are just that... myth. I won't go into it further, but just wanted to clarify that we review because we want to, and there is no physical gain from such.

With such information in mind, I recommend simply ignoring the 'opinion' rating [ie - "The Movie"] as this is the only real area that will be biased. The other areas are based on fact and should assist everyone when it comes to deciding whether or not to buy a certain DVD.

[Tsargrad]

death, remember they are DVD reviews. Our main focus is reviewing the DVD, ie the audio / video and the extras. To find out whether you would be into a type of movie, theres plenty of sources such as iMDB where this can help.

I doubt anyone here gives extra points for a fav actor, although I probably took some off Midnight Vendetta for excessive pointless nudity.