"Rotten Tomatoes" TV: Movie criticism by consensus

In a colossal screwup, I wrote a story about Rotten Tomatoes TV unbeknownst to the fact that our section editors had pulled a wire story on Rotten Tomatoes TV that ran this morning.

So that makes my version a WEB EXCLUSIVE!! .... um.

In the 35 years since Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel popularized the movie-review show genre, countless pairings and groupings of film buffs have appeared on camera, seeking an audience for their musings about what's new at the cineplex and video store.

None, however, has tried so hard to break down the wall between critic and audience as "The Rotten Tomatoes Show on Current" (9:30 p.m. Thursday, Current TV on digital cable).

For starters, the two hosts, Brett Erlich and Ellen Fox, are comics, not critics. They will weigh in on the three films featured on each week's episode, as will viewers, comedians on webcam, Twitter users and contributors to the by-now-venerable RottenTomatoes.com website.

The result is something less akin to "At the Movies" and something more like VH1's "Best Week Ever" -- a lot of clever, entertaining opinions turned into consensus stew.

"This is along the same vein as what people are really using the Internet for," said Fox. "You go onto Amazon.com and there are the reviews from the newspapers and then the 100, 200, 300 reviews written by readers."

In the case of RottenTomatoes.com, those views are aggregated into the site's official metric, the "Tomatometer." There are actually two Tomatometer readings, though the one used on the show takes the average of the ratings by the website's 158 "approved" critics, who must be accredited by a local board like the Kansas City Film Critics Circle. A second Tomatometer uses ratings left by visitors to the website.

Needless to say, such an approach has consumer friendliness baked in: Beware a Tomatometer number lower than your age! However, using a composite of 100-plus opinions means that an individual dissent will carry less weight -- perhaps even no weight. After all, any opinion expressed on the show has, at best, a few moments before being pushed aside by another voice.

Last week's debut program had the misfortune to follow one of the more dismal release dates of the calendar, which brought "Street Fighter" (Tomatometer rating: 5%), "Crossing Over" (20%) and "Echelon Conspiracy" (zero, zip, zed) to local screens.

This week should fare a little better, with last weekend's releases of "Watchmen," "The Horsemen" and "12" to work with.

After each film is reviewed, the hosts introduce a related bit. For instance, since last week's release of "Street Fighter" was the second film based on the video game of that title, the show decided to ask viewers what were their all-time favorite movies based on video games.

This week, said Erlich, "we have 'The Horsemen,' and the director of 'The Horsemen' got started as a music video directors. So we wanted to do a list of the top five directors who got their start in music videos. And I sent it out by Twitter and got answers back. It's fast, it's awesome, it's easy."

"The Rotten Tomatoes Show" is a good match with "InfoMania," the speed-of-light pop culture show that airs at 9 p.m. Thursdays and is often smarter and funnier than similar week-in-review shows on E! and VH1.

But I must admit, as a professional critic, to some unease. Despite my netroots and my sense that a pop-culture show based on crowdsourcing was inevitable, I'm not entirely comfortable with "The Rotten Tomatoes Show." It seems to me there are a lot of ways that incisive film watchers could have had their opinions included in a show like this while still respecting their distinctive points of view.

Also, it strikes me as a little weird that this show would be airing on Current, which is -- if nothing else -- a celebration of individual achievement in short-form television documentary making. Yes, a viewer- contributed piece must win over enough of the online voters to earn a place on the Current TV channel, so in that sense, Current relies on consensus all the time.

But in the Rotten Tomatoes landscape, consensus is set in large type (that Tomatometer number is huge!), while the individuals are just a long list of links.