We read the review, not the star rating. Where a critic published their own rating we carry it across and say so on their line. Where they did not, a person here places the review on the scale, and the sentence they placed it on is printed beside it.
We drop a review for one of three reasons only: it came in as part of a pile-on, it is a score with no sentence under it, or the writer has a stake in the film. Not liking what a review says is not a reason.
The score is the average of what we used. No weighting by outlet, no adjustments.
We read and score by hand right now. The software that can read at scale does not exist yet. What we check will not change when it does. Only who does it.
Threads are often better than reviews on the things reviews skip: whether the subtitles are any good, whether a scene lands differently the second time, what a local audience made of it. We use that.
We link the thread and never a person in it. No usernames, no quoted comments attributed to anyone, no screenshots. Someone who wrote something sharp on a forum did not sign up to be pointed at from a film site, and a named stranger can be piled on for an opinion in a way a conversation cannot.
So the credit goes to the whole conversation, and it says what that conversation actually worked out. Specific, because a specific compliment is worth something and flattery is worth nothing. If a thread nailed the timeline, we say the thread nailed the timeline.
If you posted in one of these and want it gone, say so and it goes. No argument, no form.
None are up yet. Reddit blocks anonymous access now and wants a registered app, so this waits on a key rather than on us finding a way around the block. Going around it would make us the kind of thing this site exists to catch.
A poster shown small, beside criticism of that film, to identify it, is fair use: the purpose is commentary, the amount is a thumbnail, and a poster is promotional material a distributor wants seen. We reproduce at 320 pixels, host the bytes ourselves, and name the rights holder on every one. Where a source recorded no holder we say exactly that.
Getting the words with permission, one deal at a time, is the first thing and the slowest. Then critics willing to confirm their own filings, so calling a review bought is something we can prove. Then one public review that survives the argument. Then a distributor who pays for one. None of it has started.
When the reviews are worth something, publishers who want the clean feed and independent distributors who need to know if a pile-on was real can pay for them. Not advertising: an ad-funded score has an advertiser, and an advertiser eventually has an opinion about the score.
A studio can never pay us anything about a film we are scoring. Not for placement, not for early access, not for a report. That one is permanent.