Niall Beard’s Pretentious-O-Meter performs an accurate measure every movie’s pretentiousness, determined simply by subtracting viewer ratings from critic ratings. Deliciously clever!
For example, “Lost in Translation”—beloved by critics but not so much by audiences—earns a high pretentiousness score thanks to its “3.6/5” slap by the good users of Rotten Tomatoes. At the other end, viewer favorites such as “Big Momma’s House” and “Dumb and Dumber” soar on wings of clicks beyond their critical maulings.