Most people don't waste their time reading or listening to bad reviews. But perhaps they are missing something ? What about writing a bad review, don't you owe it to the world to tell them how bad a movie or book really is ? The added benefit of reading or writing a review is the truly the entertainment factor. You have the sheer pleasure of conjuring up whole new ensembles of words and phrases to make your negative points, humour takes on a whole new angle, and cruelty, cynicism and sarcasm are your best friends. And for the reader, well, there seems to be much greater prose found in negative reviews that the positive ones. You also see and hear some of this highly entertaining work with comedians, they just love to rant about people, places and situations. Perhaps we should call it "complaining for fun" and use it ourselves to vent a little without it bringing too much negativity into our lives.
A person close to me recommended The History Boys the other day. I watched it a few nights ago and although it was completely horrid and I found myself drawn more to it's negative online reviews than the typical rave reviews that all sound the same. See http://imdb.com/title/tt0464049/usercomments and then filter it by "best" or "hated it" (like this) - you be the judge - what's a more entertaining read ? BTW a good review site for all kinds of multi-media is Metacritic.
For what it's worth, my review on Facebook was "A pretty uncomfortable experience. Decent acting and soundtrack. I was lost in a lot of the dialog - maybe I should have paid more attention in English Lit". I gave it a 2.5 out of 5. Maybe I should watch some really bad ones to practice this new found art form !
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