Fast Company crunched the numbers on RottenTomatoes and found that despite all the breathless headlines and critical hand-wringing, the summer movies of 2016 aren’t objectively worse as a whole than those of year’s past. That’s interesting because that’s been the dominant theme in the entertainment press for the last month or so, with each new big-budget flop just adding logs to the fire of that narrative. But, FC says, so far the average RT score is on par with 2014 and actually better than 2011. So while the flops might be more notable, the best movies are rising above to stand out. That pairs nicely with a couple pieces from Film School Rejects, one recapping the summer in general and one looking at potential Oscar contenders. And Wired wonders if movies have fundamentally shifted from destinations for entertainment to something that’s just another option when there’s nothing better going on.
Chris Thilk 