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Jordanmagill
Reviews
Dear White People (2017)
Don't Believe the 3.9 (What's wrong with IMDb?)
I watched the pilot for Dear White People and loved it. It evokes the spirit of its source material (2014 film of the same name) while fleshing out its characters more thoroughly. It's clever, thoughtful and funny, and while it doesn't go out of its way to orient its narrative around its white characters, there are sympathetic, nuanced portrayals of white students (protagonist Sam's boyfriend Gabe). I'd go as far as to say the show treats its white characters more thoughtfully than many Hollywood productions treat their characters of color.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I got on this site only to find the show sporting a 3.9 rating (for reference, CBS's Kevin James vehicle "Kevin Can Wait" has a 6.0 rating). For a show with a 100% positive critical consensus on Rotten Tomatoes, this seems low. Why would IMDb users tank the show's rating? I can't imagine the reason. Probably doesn't have anything to do with the reactive #boycottNetflix twitter campaign that sparked after the show was announced. Or with the way sexist trolls flooded the site to tank the rating for last year's Ghostbusters reboot before the film's wide release. Nope, it must have be the quality of the show itself, which, again, has been hailed by critics. Huh.
Ghostbusters (2016)
Suck It, Trolls
This movie is a riot. The disparity between its critical reception and its online reputation should be noted. It's clear most of the reviews on this site were written before users watched the film, as it just premiered.
Performances are on point, stakes are appropriately emotional, and everyone is given a chance to shine. Plenty of winks to the original, for old fans, although it's by no means inaccessible to new fans.
It's not a perfect film per se, but it is as enjoyable as any I've seen this year. 10 stars might be a bit of an exaggeration, but no more so than all the 1 star reviews.
Stay for the whole credit sequence. It's treat after treat.
For future reference, before you trash a film, make sure to watch it.