Reviews that Aren't Reviews

Anyone else get cheesed about this or is it just me? People who post reviews about movies that haven't been released yet. I understand that most films are pre-screened but there are quite often reviews that say things like "I haven't seen this film yet, but the trailer looks great." or my favorite " I read the book and they'd better not screw this one up."

An example - there's a review up for Speed Racer that goes like this "I saw the trailer for this movie in the theatre when I went with some friends and saw Alvin and the Chipmunks. It looked really good. Can't wait for it to come out!"

I know there's an option to flag the review as "not a review" but seems to never work. I assume that it takes more than one person flagging to remove it, but anyone know just how many it takes to remove it?

Hey Folks, If you haven't joined the "Reviews that Aren't Reviews" group, you may want to check out what a great job Wowee is doing in getting an organized front for attacking these non-reviews.

I invite you to join the group and post your links to non-reviews in there. It's a one-stop-shop with links to all the Netflix non-reviews, plus we can see that our actions are actually helping get those non-reviews removed.

Join now!

Tags: flagging, reviews

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Robowriter on October 5, 2008 at 4:50am: cinephile only watched 10 min and rated The Golden Compass without watching it in reaction to others' opinions of the book ("I am giving this movie 5 stars for the simple reason that so many people are saying bad things about w/out even watching the film and claiming that is "anti-Christian." The books are not anti-Christian so I doubt the move is...").; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Goddess on October 5, 2008 at 12:33pm: So, what about people that put the same exact review on all seasons of a show. It is still a review but...itsn't kinda cheating?

I'm about about this and this and every page of this person's profile and so on.

So? Has this been discussed before? The same review over and over...; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Robowriter on October 6, 2008 at 7:56am: Avatar doesn't look familiar, I'll know if mentioned here previously when I flag and if I get a "previously flagged" message though.

I don't know what others do but I will allow a general if legitimate review (saying something about the show not venting about customer service etc.) for one season then flag duplicate reviews for other seasons as Not A Review -- and I'll usually notify problemreview@netflix.com of the issue too.

Members independently placing enough flags seems to be the best way to go though since Netflix doesn't have a Reviews Czar much less a Reviews Flunky to clean this stuff up from top-down.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Robowriter on October 6, 2008 at 8:24am: Here's the wording I just sent to problemreview@netflix.com:

This member has written about 80 duplicate reviews, using the same review for every season of 12-15 different TV programs (King of the Hill, Golden Girls, Punky Brewster, Allo Allo, etc.). Out of his current 107 reviews, probably no more than 25 are genuinely unique reviews (assuming the acceptance of one generic review for each series of duplicate reviews plus the member's telenovela reviews).

I have flagged all duplicate reviews after the first one for each season as Not A Review but I ask you to consider action against the member's duplicate reviews since they required no more effort than a copy/paste and say nothing specific about the successive seasons. Thank you.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Goddess on October 6, 2008 at 7:42pm: Thanks; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Robowriter on October 6, 2008 at 9:10am: I do often check out their other reviews on the notion that it's likely other nonreviews or entertaining prose might be found.

A further note: When he wrote "Why does hollywood insist on forcing this down our throats along with homosexually?"

I think he meant "Why does hollywood insist on forcing this down our throats along with homosexuality?"

but he actually wrote, in effect "Why does hollywood insist on forcing this down our throats -- homosexually?"

Again, not what he had in mind.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Tommy on October 6, 2008 at 3:10pm: a one star review of The Day The Earth Stood Still remake based on the trailer, AND a non-sequitor political rant. gold.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Robowriter on October 6, 2008 at 9:44pm: Hates almost everything and considers him/herself smarter than all other movie critics too. New words in this review of Perfect Stranger:

"It wasn't a blad film. It was murly at times and just a little hard to follow at others."

I assume s/he means "bad" and "murky" but I am imagining new synonyms for "bad" and "gnurly."

So "This film is so blad, it should be beaten to a murly pulp."; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Robowriter on October 7, 2008 at 10:43am: Re his review of The Frog: So is SPOLIER the French word for SPOILER?; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Robowriter on October 7, 2008 at 10:42am: First of three prerelease nonreviews has not yet been mentioned here.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Robowriter on October 7, 2008 at 11:00am: Two members quit watching after 15 min and 7 min while others could not hear the narration.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Robowriter on October 7, 2008 at 12:06pm: RL Loves Movies did not watch it and on the next page the last two posts didn't receive it or watch more than 15 minutes.; ▶ Reply to This