Movie ratings are largely pointless. That’s the only conclusion I can make of the complete disjoint between the last two movies I watched and their ratings.

Paterson

I have my statement prepared for when my time is up:

“Now look here Death, you can fuck off for a couple of hours. Because in 2017 I got cheated out of two hours of my life watching a film called Paterson.”

This film has 96% from the critics on Rotten Tomatoes and 75% from the audience. It has some nice cinematography - and that’s it for the positives. The characters are dull and far from likeable. Absolutely nothing happens. There is no plot. We follow a couple through a week of absolute mediocrity and monotony.

The man is dull and boring, with almost no character. He writes shit poetry which he reads again and again. A tiny part of the plotline is that his girlfriend thinks he should get his poems published - but he doesn’t. He reminds me of people I know who sit slightly outside the world, observing it, missing out on everything in the hope that these observations can be compiled into a critically acclaimed book that never gets written.

And the woman also reminds me of people I know - sitting around unemployed because they’re too smart for a job, doing ridiculous little handicraft projects like selling handpainted clothes pegs (or in this case, black and white muffins.)

The irony of Paterson is that the only people I can imagine liking it are the couple portrayed in it. And since I know people like that I suppose that tells me who the audience is. But fuck it - I hated it and it has 96%.

Life

I watched Life last night. Going in I had absolutely no idea what I’d be watching since I didn’t pick it. I thought it was some sort of Sci-fi romance. But no - there’s a fucking scary alien octopus flying round a space station eating people and growing bigger. I’m not a big fan of sci-fi or horror but this was actually pretty well done. The acting was solid, the characters had a decent amount of depth.

I liked the storyline, and despite this not being my sort of genre, I came out of the cinema thinking that this must surely be acclaimed as a future classic. I enjoyed it more than Interstellar, which I can hardly even remember.

And the reviews? 66% from the critics, and 62% from the audience. Ridiculous.

Conclusion: I’ll stop even paying attention to the reviews and ratings.