Believe it or not, there are 1.3 million movies out there just waiting to be watched!
A stat like this is both dizzying and wonderful to consider. And, according to the movie industry’s IMDb (the Internet Movie Data base), that’s a conservative number.
Like most people, Karen and I are busy all week writing, or just doing life. So when it comes to that cherished free evening to stream a movie, we don’t like wasting time searching for the right one. Sure, Netflix, Prime, Hulu, Apple TV, or Disney show us what they think we’d like with a “star rating,” but most flicks are dead on arrival. We kept rolling the dice, wasting time, and rejecting most of them … until we developed a system. Enter Rotten Tomatoes.
Similar to crafting the perfect Bolognese sauce, the Rotten Tomatoes website points us to movies we’re bound to enjoy. Here’s how it works.
First, agree on the genre you want. Thriller? Romance? Sci-fi? Documentary?
Then, look over the movies on your streaming channel or cable menu until one piques your interest.
Next, grab your smartphone and say, or type, “Rotten Tomatoes for such-and-such movie.” Your movie image will appear along with two evaluation percentages: the Tomatometer and the Audience Score. For us, (and this is key), both scores need to be above seventy-five percent before trying it out.
OR you can go direct to the Rotten Tomatoes site and see what movies are showing, where, and their accompanying scores.
Start the movie and apply “The Ten-Minute Rule.” Here’s why. If the first ten pages of a book tell you to read on or put it down, then ten minutes of a movie will tell you to either watch it or trash it. For example, the recent Rotten Tomatoes score for Capote—about a man whose great achievement requires the surrender of his self-respect—was 89 on the Tomatometer and 82 by the audience. Without knowing the score we would have given it a pass. But the high score told us it was a ‘go.’
It turned out to be a great flick accompanied by five quarts of popcorn.
This approach helps us find high-quality movies while broadening our scope of viewing. After all, if both critics and audience highly regard a movie, it should be worthwhile regardless of the genre. And since a screenplay essentially follows the same path as a novel or biography, watching an excellent film also helps my writing career.
And no, this post is not sponsored by Rotten Tomatoes. I simply love what they do.
I hope this helps.
Ken
To see more, go to KennethOvermanBooks.com
Ken
