I suppose that everyone simply takes it for granted nowadays that any new movie they try to look up on IMDB is going to have a 9.0+ rating, since they all hire web consultants and promo people to give them high ratings and gin up recognition and high volume in all the major search engines. I guess we have The Blair Witch Project to thank for that. But here’s the thing: these crappy recent movies with their over-hyped ratings intended to generate interest and business are going up against real movies in the IMDB rankings. Now is this really fair? If you try to look up what the highest-rated ghost movies or films noirs are, you’d be lucky if you didn’t find half of the ones on the list among these cheesy promo wannabes. So here’s what I propose: every time there’s a new big ranking of whatever genre, IMDB should let everyone know ahead of time, so people who love old movies like The Maltese Falcon, or The Case of the Howling Dog, etc., can have a chance to act like they are part of that phony interest-driving promotions machine that all the new product gets. And I think we can all agree that if they were made after 2000, then they should automatically get like 2 or 3 points knocked off of the rating to make up for the promo & marketing hype. Then, at least, it might have a chance of being fair… And accurate.
