Rotten Tomatoes' "%"s and *K*e*n*s*

In the spirit of inquiry...

Chris' post on BUTTERFLY EFFECT brought up the concept of personal tastes at variance with the mainstream. He referenced Rotten Tomatoes ratings as a point for comparison. [BTW: the Rotten Tomatoes webstie rates movies on a percentage scale of 'fresh', with 100% fresh very good and 0% fresh as not good in any way.]

I was surprised by the rough equivalence between the Rotten Tomatoes scores and my own *K*e*n*s* star rating scores. Rotten Tomatoes is a survey of film journalists [I think...] and probably not a particularly persuasive model of 'mainstream'. I think I'd measure mainstream in terms of box office. So I'm guessing Chris is thinking 'critical mainstream' in this context.

Anyway, I noted that my paradigm examples of horrible films received Very Low freshness scores.

Van Helsing [22%] :0
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen [16%] :0

[The emoticon ":0" represents 'no stars' on the *K*e*n*s* scale.]

An interesting case is NORTHFORK, a film I have loved and praised, and foisted upon Don. Northfork has the lowest freshness rating of any film I have praised [56%], and therefore may be a case to compare with Chris' appreciation of BUTTERFLY EFFECT in contrast to the mainstream critical response.

Below I append a long, tiresome list of my recently reviewed and recommended films, with freshness and *K*e*n*s* ratings. [I will go back and add these to previous posts, and will use them in future reviews, because it has been fun... so far.]

Being Julia [77%] ***
Hotel Rwanda [89%] *****
House of Flying Daggers [88%] **** Entertainment
I Heart Huckabees [60%] ***
The Incredibles [99%] **** Entertainment
National Treasure [42%] **
Sideways [96%] **** Entertainment
Spongebob Squarepants [68%] **
Vera Drake [89%] **** Exploration
A Very Long Engagement [78%] ***
The Woodsman [85%] *****
The Return [96%] *****
The Circle [93%] **** Exploration
Spring, Summer [96%] *****
Triplets of Belleville [96%] *****
Touching the Void [93%] *****
Zus & Zo [44%] ****
Medea [80%] ****
ExplorationHero [94%] **** Entertainment
Nowhere in Africa [84%] ***
Control Room [96%] *****