Soooo.... James "AVGN" Rolfe is in the news this week..

Metalix Knightmare

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Exley97 said:
cleric of the order said:
Guy refuse to review movie for personal reasons and because he doesn't think it will be good.
This is news somehow.
Can i be news?
If you think it's totally kosher for a professional critic to render a verdict on a movie while declaring that he will never actually see that movie, then yes, it's totally not news.

Serious question: what would the reaction be here if a professional critic said he refused to review the new Doom title and said in no uncertain terms that the game looked awful and it was going to fail, all based on the trailers?

cleric of the order said:
I mean i wasn't going to watch the movie because it looks like shit and there has NEVER been a self titled reboot movie that has turned out alright.
This is just good sense.
Again, if Rolfe wants to skip it because he does't think it looks good (he doesn't) and his affinity for the original is too great (it is), then that's fine. I have no issue with that. I used to skip movies I thought would be shit ALL THE TIME when I reviewed. I wouldn't be caught dead reviewing a Transformers movie. But what I absolutely DID NOT do was get up on a soapbox and announce to the world that I would not be reviewing the next Transformers sequel because I knew for a fact the movie was going to be sh*t and it was going to be awful and bash the movie after seeing nothing but a couple trailers. If you're average movie fans wants to do that, fine. But a professional critic shouldn't be judging a movie based on the trailers if he's not going to actually sit down and watch the whole film.
James is a professional movie critic? I thought he just liked to talk about movies a lot.

Also, part of the reason James isn't seeing this is because of something most critics today seem to lack. That oh so scary word; Ethics.

See, part of being a movie critic is that when you go and see a movie, you have to be able to do so without bias. You can't go into a movie expecting it to be crap, because that will end up influencing you to some degree or another. James admitted that he wouldn't be able to stop comparing the reboot to the original, so he wouldn't be able to be as fair to it as he should be. So, rather than review something he KNOWS he's not gonna be fair to, he's recusing himself.

Expecting him to review the movie anyway would be like expecting a NASCAR fan who hates Kevin Harvick to be able to give an unbiased review of the latest races as of this posting.
 

Dreiko_v1legacy

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Exley97 said:
GrumbleGrump said:
I love this so much, it's like a fucking Onion article.

"Man decides not to watch movie, sparks controversy".
I think the headline you mean is "Movie critic slams a movie he hasn't seen and will never watch"
It can be valid to dismiss a movie without seeing it based on information learned about it. I did so with the live action dragonball movie and the reality of it proved me correct. It is all the more valid when someone with experience does it as they are more equipped than any layman to judge things correctly. It actually is quite arrogant to dismiss an expert opinion just cause you may disagree with it when you are no expert yourself. Maybe he sees something you do not. Some humility is in need here.
 

Exley97_v1legacy

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Dreiko said:
Exley97 said:
GrumbleGrump said:
I love this so much, it's like a fucking Onion article.

"Man decides not to watch movie, sparks controversy".
I think the headline you mean is "Movie critic slams a movie he hasn't seen and will never watch"
It can be valid to dismiss a movie without seeing it based on information learned about it. I did so with the live action dragonball movie and the reality of it proved me correct. It is all the more valid when someone with experience does it as they are more equipped than any layman to judge things correctly. It actually is quite arrogant to dismiss an expert opinion just cause you may disagree with it when you are no expert yourself. Maybe he sees something you do not. Some humility is in need here.
He provided an expert opinion about a movie he hadn't seen?

Also, if he wants to provide his expert opinion about why he thinks the new Ghostbusters is going to be shit, great. I agree with his points. If he wants to pass on reviewing Ghostbusters because he thinks it will be shit, that's fine too. What I object to is him doing both. I don't think it's fair for an "expert" to say he thinks a film is shit and is definitely going to be shit and then not actually review the finished product and be accountable for his views and predictions.

P.S. On the "expert"/humility slight, just FYI -- I reviewed movies as a journalist/critic for several years. You're not expected to know that, mind you, but there it is.
 

Dreiko_v1legacy

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Exley97 said:
Dreiko said:
Exley97 said:
GrumbleGrump said:
I love this so much, it's like a fucking Onion article.

"Man decides not to watch movie, sparks controversy".
I think the headline you mean is "Movie critic slams a movie he hasn't seen and will never watch"
It can be valid to dismiss a movie without seeing it based on information learned about it. I did so with the live action dragonball movie and the reality of it proved me correct. It is all the more valid when someone with experience does it as they are more equipped than any layman to judge things correctly. It actually is quite arrogant to dismiss an expert opinion just cause you may disagree with it when you are no expert yourself. Maybe he sees something you do not. Some humility is in need here.
He provided an expert opinion about a movie he hadn't seen?

Also, if he wants to provide his expert opinion about why he thinks the new Ghostbusters is going to be shit, great. I agree with his points. If he wants to pass on reviewing Ghostbusters because he thinks it will be shit, that's fine too. What I object to is him doing both. I don't think it's fair for an "expert" to say he thinks a film is shit and is definitely going to be shit and then not actually review the finished product and be accountable for his views and predictions.

P.S. On the "expert"/humility slight, just FYI -- I reviewed movies as a journalist/critic for several years. You're not expected to know that, mind you, but there it is.
Yep, you can see the signs of something shaping up to be all kinds of wrong with sufficient experience. You can see it when a franchise installment is not honoring the history behind it, when it is just an attemt to milk a beloved classic.

Oh and the humility comment was a general comment, not personally aimed at you, for all I could tell from your comment you could just be playing devils advocate. In any case, most people who didn't stop and think if maybe he sees somethin they do not aren't critics, which is the point.
 

Dizchu

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Exley97 said:
That's fine, explain how important THE ORIGINAL is to you and why you don't want to see ANY remake of it. When you say stuff like this:

"judging from the trailers, it looks awful"
"Instead of doing what everybody else is gonna do -- go see the movie and then talk about how bad it is..."
"the Ghostbusters movie nobody wanted..."
"It's not the fact that it looks bad..."
"The jokes in the trailer make your cringe"
"[the effects] looks embarrassing when you compare it to the original"
"It looks bad"

...then you're wading into judging the movie without seeing it. Which is fine, we all judge trailers. But don't judge the trailers and then turn around and declare that you won't see the movie and give it a fair shake.
The whole point of marketing is to convince people to buy the product, if it ends up being extremely off-putting that's not the fault of the audience. It's the fault of the marketing. The trailer is supposed to represent the film and if it represents the film poorly, then tough shit.

He literally said "If you already know you're going to hate it, why give them your money?" So it sounds like he made up his mind.
What's wrong with saying that? He's discouraging people from going to see a film out of spite. The Transformers films are universally panned but people still go to see them. Every person that goes to watch those movies for the sole purpose of complaining about them is contributing to their success.

He didn't want to get involved? HE MADE A 6-PLUS MINUTE VIDEO ABOUT IT. No one forced him to do it.
He's a Ghostbusters fanboy, he'd have to get involved sooner or later. By making a moderately short video about it he was able to explain why his watchers won't get this "James Rolfe slams Ghostbusters 2016 for 20 minutes" video. His intention was to nip it in the bud and move on, not get involved in this increasingly absurd controversy. Of course that didn't work out for him.

"Gimmick"? I'm pretty sure Rolfe didn't say that, and that "gimmick" is your word.
Gimmick, noun; "a trick or device intended to attract attention, publicity, or trade."

Ghostbusters 2016's entire popularity and infamy revolves around the fact that the four leads are women. Now Paul Feig has directed plenty of films with prominent female ensemble casts, a few of which have been very well-received. But that's not the same as taking a film or a franchise and remaking/rebooting it to feature a leading cast of one demographic (in this case, women) when the original featured another.

It's an inherently provocative thing to do, it'd be like My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic having a primarily male cast when the original did not. Or how about an Orange is the New Black reboot in two decades' time which is set in a male prison? Or set in a place where there are very few non-white characters? Or what if it didn't represent LGBT people?

Of course it might not even be that confrontational if the title of the film wasn't "Ghostbusters", suggesting that it is an "updated" version of the original. That's a naming trend I have never liked but I always gathered that the intention of that naming trend is to suggest a refinement of a franchise that has gone off the rails and lost track of what it was. But by replacing the fraternal tone of the original with a sororal one more commonly associated with films like Bridesmaids and shows like Orange is the New Black it is making a significant change rather than a "refinement".

That's not even going into the actual quality of the film, it might be good for all I know because Paul Feig is hardly a shoddy director or writer. But hopefully I've explained why such a change is a gimmick and why it may inspire such vitriolic reactions.

I don't know who you're arguing with by presenting this hypothetical situation, but it's not me. I stated pretty clearly I don't think Rolfe's video or his decision is sexist or mysoginistic. My beef with Rolfe is this: you can decide not to see a movie (and announce that decision) or you can bash a movie but that doing both is a bad look for a professional critic.
I'd completely agree with you if he was a professional film critic, but he is not. He does not get paid to review films, he does not regularly get advance screenings of films with other critics, his reviews do not get cited by sites like Rotten Tomatoes. His "reviews" are simply the thoughts of an enthusiast, someone who doesn't watch films because it's his job but because it's his hobby. I write music reviews as a hobbyist rather than a professional critic, just because I adhere to a more traditional format and a more formal writing style does not change this fact. The same applies for James.
 

darthdenim

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James is not a real movie critic. He's not even a real video game reviewer. He's an entertainer and film maker.

He's not an authority on movies or video games any more than the Game Grumps are an authority on video games.

James is not any more obligated to see this movie than the Game Grumps are to go back and complete all their unfinished play-throughs.

He loves to talk about movies, because that's his passion, but he's not a professional film critic.

He generally doesn't even talk about or review brand new movies, unless it's related to a franchise he really likes. Like TMNT, Creed, or Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

In this case, he doesn't like the direction they went with the Ghostbusters reboot, and he'd rather opt out of seeing it.

So the fuck what?

I opted out of seeing Batman V. Superman. I'm a big fan of Batman and Superman, but that movie looked terrible and the reviews more or less confirmed that it was indeed terrible. Maybe I'll watch it when it shows on cable a year from now. But whatever.
 

teh_Canape

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Cowabungaa said:
Are they calling him a misogynistic **** on Twitter? They're calling him a misogynistic **** on Twitter, aren't they? Fuck Twitter.
worse than that
they're for some reason bringing his wife into it and calling her a gold digger
 

Metalix Knightmare

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Dizchu said:
Gimmick, noun; "a trick or device intended to attract attention, publicity, or trade."

Ghostbusters 2016's entire popularity and infamy revolves around the fact that the four leads are women. Now Paul Feig has directed plenty of films with prominent female ensemble casts, a few of which have been very well-received. But that's not the same as taking a film or a franchise and remaking/rebooting it to feature a leading cast of one demographic (in this case, women) when the original featured another.
Like many have said before in this regard, the fact that it's a reboot rather than a sequel probably hasn't helped in this regard at all. They took the old stuff, and there was a LOT of old stuff, and basically threw it in the trash, for the sake of a gimmick that could've held up as a sequel.

"Hey Ray."
"Yeah Peter?"
"Isn't it kind of odd that the new branch we opened up in *Insert US city here* is composed entirely of women?"
"Peter, we find weirder things clogged in old lady toilets."
"True. Hey Ray.
"Yeah Peter?"
"I miss Egon."
"We all do Peter. We all do."
 

cleric of the order

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Exley97 said:
If you think it's totally kosher for a professional critic to render a verdict on a movie while declaring that he will never actually see that movie, then yes, it's totally not news.
professional critic.
Remember we are talking about the fellow who has filmed himself "shitting" on a guy in a bugs bunny costume.
As far as i know Rolfe does this shit out of his pocket, and it's well within professional standards either way to choose to not review a film, if he believes there is a conflict of interest or something that would impair his opinion.

Serious question: what would the reaction be here if a professional critic said he refused to review the new Doom title and said in no uncertain terms that the game looked awful and it was going to fail, all based on the trailers?
It's their choice if they are running their own business, why would Nudoom make a difference?
Likewise from what I've heard Nudoom is mediocre, and 70 bucks is too much for a single player mod, I'd rather just fire up some old .wads


But what I absolutely DID NOT do was get up on a soapbox
Hell it's well within his rights to announce this as a person. I'm not familiar with SPJ rules and guidelines but there doesn't seem to be in all that much a breech of ethics. At the very least he has already admitted his biases before announcing why he wouldn't do that.
Even then it looks like this is an explanation to the fans, he likely got enough questions about it to actually go through with responding about it. And given the mediums he's spread it to (I only know of it being on his channel) it shouldn't have too much more reach than his fans alone.
This isn't a column, this isn't some form of subsidized syndication, I doubt many people would have actually seen it if it was not spread by people clearly not in his fan base anymore.
Also you cast this in far to dramatic a light, having watched the video in my sub box, it was rather personal and honest an opinion.
The only problem then is he communicated this idea.
If you're average movie fans wants to do that, fine.
What would the difference between "average fan" and him be? Would a famous person be able to do that? They'd have a have larger spread than a z-list internet personae. Would an ordinary person be able to do it if given an opinion piece? Would it matter if he did it in his private accounts and the like?
How far is the spread of "average" if the concern is his spread (and as far as i can tell the only argument you've provided is that he's a professional spreading it around, to his fans).


But a professional critic shouldn't be judging a movie based on the trailers if he's not going to actually sit down and watch the whole film.
Again, why not?
I've seen quite a number of people critics and the like take jabs at things or decry something just from the trailers alone.
More importantly then vague platitudes: What is the violation, where in the SPJ (or other valid professional organization) is the infraction?
Why does it garner such levels of journalistic scrutiny?
And since when has he been beholden to those rules? i do not remember him being professional.
 

DudeistBelieve

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Exley97 said:
Dizchu said:
Exley97 said:
No, he didn't. He's a smart guy and a seasoned critic. He knew this would probably generate controversy and piss some folks off and probably get a ton of views (nearly 900,000). If he wanted to avoid controversy, he could have just not seen the movie and, if people asked, said "I don't want to see this movie, so there won't be a review." But instead, he made a big show of his "non-review" -- "Instead of doing what everybody else is gonna do -- go see the movie and then talk about how bad it is -- I'm gonna do something different. Something unheard of!"*

*Which is funny, because he's talking for six-plus minutes about how bad the movie is HAVING NOT SEEN IT.
He wanted to explain why he wouldn't be seeing it, and the current obsession with remakes and reboots that he finds exhausting. If he just responded to people asking for the curious absence of any "Ghostbusters 2016 review" it'd be ambiguous, and ironically it would encourage even more of this "reading between the lines" bullshit that happened despite his efforts.
That's fine, explain how important THE ORIGINAL is to you and why you don't want to see ANY remake of it. When you say stuff like this:

"judging from the trailers, it looks awful"
"Instead of doing what everybody else is gonna do -- go see the movie and then talk about how bad it is..."
"the Ghostbusters movie nobody wanted..."
"It's not the fact that it looks bad..."
"The jokes in the trailer make your cringe"
"[the effects] looks embarrassing when you compare it to the original"
"It looks bad"

...then you're wading into judging the movie without seeing it. Which is fine, we all judge trailers. But don't judge the trailers and then turn around and declare that you won't see the movie and give it a fair shake.

Dizchu said:
He didn't talk for six minutes about how bad the movie is, because he doesn't know that the film is bad. He even admits that he doesn't know if the film will be bad.
He literally said "If you already know you're going to hate it, why give them your money?" So it sounds like he made up his mind.

Dizchu said:
He just doesn't want to get involved, he doesn't want to be a part of the whole controversy because no matter which side you pick, you're gonna get shit on.
He didn't want to get involved? HE MADE A 6-PLUS MINUTE VIDEO ABOUT IT. No one forced him to do it.

Dizchu said:
So what did he do? He tried to be diplomatic, he only mentioned the whole "female Ghostbusters" gimmick once and that was out of necessity. And look at the response he got for doing that, "he's only avoiding talking about it so he can avoid looking sexist!" Seriously?
"Gimmick"? I'm pretty sure Rolfe didn't say that, and that "gimmick" is your word.

Dizchu said:
I honestly can't stand all of these bullshit assumptions about people, that they're horrible misogynists for not wanting to get involved. If the Wayans did a remake of or sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey and I refused to see it, would that make me a racist?
I don't know who you're arguing with by presenting this hypothetical situation, but it's not me. I stated pretty clearly I don't think Rolfe's video or his decision is sexist or mysoginistic. My beef with Rolfe is this: you can decide not to see a movie (and announce that decision) or you can bash a movie but that doing both is a bad look for a professional critic.
Rolfe isn't a profesional critic though. He makes movies.

AVGN isn't suppose to be a legit game critique, hell Board James is even less of one.
 

AzrealMaximillion

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My name is JACK said:
I blame Bill Murray
Me too. Him not wanting to do with the previous garbage scripts for a proper Ghostbusters Sequel is why the studio went with this awful "cash in on faux-feminism" reboot.

If this movie bombs they'll very likely rethink the announced "all woman's Oceans Eleven".
 

AzrealMaximillion

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LegendaryGamer0 said:
Agenda may or may not have been the right word for what I was meaning. Actually, it is the right one for the most part.
Echochamber works too. That's basically what this is, the expected reaction of what's known as the Regressive portion of the Left. The end of the Bush era had its crazies, now the Left is seeing the growth of its own version of the Tea Party now that Obama's leaving soon.
 

AzrealMaximillion

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Zontar said:
My name is JACK said:
I blame Bill Murray
Why? Bill Murray didn't want this reboot, and the only reason he's cameoing in it at all is because of threats by Sony of legal action. I don't understand how that works but that's how it went down according to the Sony email hack.
This makes me super sad to know. I gotta look this up and keep this in mind when "but Bill Murray was in it" is used as a defense for what's going to likely get lobbed with bombs of negative reviews.


Like when a bunch of film news sites legit tried to pass the idea that Zack Snyder getting mediocre reviews is due to a conspiracy.
 

Josh123914

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Nov 17, 2009
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Exley97 said:
Josh123914 said:
He did what a reviewer should really probably do in that instance (having a colored view based on past experiences)...he stepped away.
Yeah, he didn't really step away. He presented a "non-review" (his words) based on a trailer and rendered a judgment about a movie before he even saw it. If he just wanted to say "I don't want to see this movie, I'm passing" then he wouldn't have needed more than six minutes to air his greivances about this movie (many of which I agree with, BTW).
It was either that or tell fans via e-mail, individually.
Josh123914 said:
If he doesn't think he can be fair on this movie, then I don't know what more people are asking for.
I don't think that was his point. He's angry that this movie was made, and he's resentful of its existence ("The original, which we now have to call the 1984 version...") because it's a "name-make" (a term I actually don't mind). The video isn't about his bias or fairness, it's about how ill-advised this remake is, and how bad it looks.

And to be clear, I don't think his video or his decision is sexist or mysonginistic. And I think a lot of his criticism is sound. I just think Rolfe is being ridiculous by declaring he's not going to see/review a movie while in the process declaring that it looks awful. He's totally within his right as a critic to decide he doesn't want to see a particular film, and explain why. But he nor anyone else shouldn't be surprised when people slam him for casting a judgment about a film before it's even been released.
True.
It's just, well, if he's going to be this indignant about it I don't get what anybody's expecting. He's going to not like the movie, I don't get why people expect him to go see it when he's under no obligation to, and likely before now has made very clear that he's not going to like it.
And in a way I see why that would be the case. For years people were expecting Bill Murray to come back and make GB3, but this is pretty much going to be a reboot and not a sequel, and with that in mind I can see why he's not going to see it on release given all the strained expectations.
 

Naldan

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You still don't agree upon whether or not Rolfe is a critic.

Just ask yourself: Do critics have to pay for the ticket? Does Rolfe have to pay?


I could understand the arguing about him not giving the movie a fair shake if it was his job. Is it? Nope. So this point is totally invalid.

Someone with better grammar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3HEg98daik
 

fix-the-spade

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Zontar said:
On Twitter. Mostly random noise, but Pat Oswalt showed his genius comedic abilities with this piece of comedy 'gold' [https://twitter.com/pattonoswalt/status/732634606982160388]. I can only wonder how his show could have possibly been cancelled /sarcasm
Outcry on Twitter doesn't count, Twitter these days is just a giant version of an unmoderated image board, nothing but arguments and offensive content.
 

Zontar

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fix-the-spade said:
Zontar said:
On Twitter. Mostly random noise, but Pat Oswalt showed his genius comedic abilities with this piece of comedy 'gold' [https://twitter.com/pattonoswalt/status/732634606982160388]. I can only wonder how his show could have possibly been cancelled /sarcasm
Outcry on Twitter doesn't count, Twitter these days is just a giant version of an unmoderated image board, nothing but arguments and offensive content.
It doesn't count when actors who are well known start acting like asses? Plus, as others have posted, this isn't just on Twitter anymore.
 

Vigormortis

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Fappy said:
Patton Oswalt's twitter comments remind me why I never use the site. Christ almighty, people are sick.
Twitter is the very essence of antagonism, arrogance, self-importance, and cynicism, essentially some of the worst aspects of humanity, condensed down into tiny, 140-character quotes.