Water Cooler: Project Hail Mary, The Last Stop in Yuma County, Ghosts, A Bigger Splash, and More

On the July 10, 2024 episode of /Film Daily, /Film editor Ben Pearson is joined by /Film editor Jacob Hall to gather around the virtual water cooler and talk about what they’ve been up to.

Jake from Ontario wrote to us on June 30: My question concerns the growing disparity between the TV Critic and audience Tomatometer scores on Rotten Tomatoes. The Boys, The Acolyte, and The Bear all received glowing critics scores and negative audience scores. In a recent episode, Jacob mentioned that although he loved the first three seasons of The Boys, he didn’t enjoy season 4 and passed the review to a colleague who liked it more. This practice caught my attention.

Could you discuss the prevalence and ethics of this practice? Wouldn’t it be good business to publish a negative review when 9.3/10 sites are praising a show? In my opinion, Jacob would have been the perfect person to review this season and represent a large contingent of the audience who isn’t just reacting to the anti-MAGA politics, as some suggest is the reason for the lower audience score. Sorry if this sounds prickly, I’m legitimately curious to hear your thoughts.

PS: Please focus on this specific practice and avoid discussing review-bombing or the binary nature of the Tomatometer, as those topics have been covered well by the podcast in the past.

In the Water Cooler:

• What we’ve been Reading:
• Jacob read Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, Dark Matter by Blake Crouch, and Challenger by Adam Higginbotham.
• What we’ve been Watching:
• Ben watched The Last Stop in Yuma County, A Bigger Splash, The Paper, and Callaway Went Thataway.
• Jacob watched The Bear season 3, Ghosts, and A Quiet Place: Day One.

All the other stuff you need to know:

• You can find more about all the stories we mentioned on today’s show at slashfilm.com, and linked inside the show notes.
• /Film Daily is published every weekday, bringing you the most exciting news from the world of movies and TV as well as deeper dives into the great features from slashfilm.com.
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