Beginners is a 2010 American romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by Mike Mills . It tells the story of a man reflecting on the life and death of his father, while trying to forge a new romantic relationship with a woman dealing with father-issues of her own. The film is based on the coming out of Mills' own father at the age of 75, five years before his death.
46-625: After its premiere at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival , the Los Angeles Times heralded Beginners as a "heady, heartfelt film" with a cast who have "a strong sense of responsibility to their real-world counterparts". Christopher Plummer received numerous accolades for his performance in the film, including the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor . (Throughout the film, scenes of Oliver Fields' memories of his deceased parents are intercut, as flashbacks , into
92-529: A 100: Tokyo Story ; The Godfather ; Citizen Kane ; Rear Window ; Casablanca ; Boyhood ; Three Colors: Red ; Vertigo ; Fanny and Alexander ; Notorious ; Lawrence of Arabia ; Dekalog ; The Leopard ; and The Conformist . There are five TV show seasons that have received a 99, including Season 4 of Rectify , Season 4 and Season 6 of The Larry Sanders Show , Season 1 of Murder One , and Season 5 of Breaking Bad . The standalone highest-rated album of all time on
138-584: A Nation , Hardbodies , Mother's Day and United Passions . The standalone lowest-rated TV show of all time is The 1/2 Hour News Hour , with a 13. The standalone lowest-rated album of all time is Playing with Fire by Kevin Federline , with a 15. Metacritic has received mixed reviews from website critics, commentators, and columnists. Its efficacy has been analyzed, with conclusions finding it to be generally useful or unreliable and biased. The website won two annual Webby Awards for excellence in
184-437: A chart illustrating a downward trend in the average critical ratings of the company's games. He took the ratings seriously and stressed the need for the company to bounce back. Also in 2008, Microsoft used Metacritic averages to delist underperforming Xbox Live Arcade games. Scores are weighted averages . Certain publications are given more significance "because of their stature". Metacritic has said that it will not reveal
230-501: A costume party, where he meets Anna, a French actress. Although she communicates by writing messages because she has laryngitis and temporarily cannot speak, they instantly connect. They go back to Anna's hotel room, where Oliver tells her about his parents, and they kiss, but then Anna asks if they can just go to sleep, and Oliver agrees. The next day, Anna has to go to New York for an audition, but she says she wants to see Oliver when she gets back. Inspired by his father's attitude towards
276-478: A game's potential sales and, by extension, the publisher's stock price". However, a 2015 study analyzing over 88 Xbox 360 and 80 PS3 games from 2012 found that Metacritic scores did not impact actual sales. Controversially, the website has been used by game publishers as a means of determining whether a game's developer receives additional royalties. One notable example is the 2010 game Fallout: New Vegas , which received an average Metascore of 84, one short of
322-449: A game's state in the future due to post-release updates and patches as well as most press reviews of games taking place around their launch. For example, the metascore for MediEvil (2019) was mixed mainly due to performance issues that existed around the time of the game's launch. These issues were fixed in post-release patches that made the game run smoothly, which would have led to a higher metascore in its patched state. Another example
368-453: A greater investment of time and money, gamers are more informed about reviews than are fans of film or music; they want to know "whether that hotly anticipated title is going to deliver". In June 2018, Metacritic established the "Must-See" label for a movie that "achieves a Metascore of 81 or higher and has been reviewed by a minimum of 15 professional critics". In September 2018, it added the "Must-Play" certification for video games attaining
414-565: A life with someone else, and, after a short time, Oliver says living together does not feel right, and Anna decides to move back to New York City. Before long, Oliver misses Anna, but she does not answer his calls, so he drops Arthur off with Andy and flies to New York to talk to her. He calls her again from outside her apartment and she answers, and it turns out she never left Los Angeles. When Oliver gets home, Anna comes over, and, though they do not know what will happen next, they both seem optimistic about their future together. Lou Taylor Pucci ,
460-564: A number of different types: A single work will often have many premieres. For example, in film, the 2019 United States movie Aladdin held its world premiere at the Grand Rex in Paris , France, on 8 May 2019, its first regional premiere in Jordan on 13 May 2019, and its United States premiere on 24 May 2019. Likewise, in music, Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 received its world premiere in
506-543: A performance to match." Diego Costa of Slant Magazine said: "One of the most distinct pleasures of Beginners is the way it puts together fragments of someone's life — presumably the filmmaker's, although little does it matter — with humility, and without vying for some complete whole." Calvin Wilson of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch called the film "A lovably quirky comedy drama with a rhythm all its own." In 2011, Beginners won
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#1732783643654552-518: A psychiatrist for a time and they were married until her death, but they always had a fairly cool relationship, and Oliver recalls his childhood with an unfulfilled, but loving, Georgia, while Hal, a museum director, was often absent, both physically and emotionally. Not wanting to end up like his parents, Oliver never settled for a passionless relationship, which has left him with only Hal's Jack Russell Terrier , Arthur, who does not like to be left alone, for company. Oliver's work friends get him to go to
598-421: A qualitative assessment of a game. Kotaku also highlighted a practice alleged to be used by some publishers who use Metacritic scores as a way to leverage more favorable terms for the publisher or deny developers bonuses should they not reach a certain score. Doyle countered this by saying "Metacritic has absolutely nothing to do with how the industry uses our numbers... Metacritic has always been about educating
644-675: A rating to reviews, the film has an average score of 81 out of 100, based on 36 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four, writing: "It's a hopeful fable with deep optimism and a cheerful style that kids itself." Peter Debruge of Variety called it "deeply poignant and disarmingly personal". Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly wrote: "The movie darts, dreams, and sometimes seems to dance. The great Plummer, meanwhile, creates an inspiring, fully rounded man in late bloom, and McGregor responds with
690-477: A score of 90% or more, and a minimum number of 15 reviews from industry professionals. The standalone highest-rated game of all time on the site is The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time , with a 99. The three games with a 98 are Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 , Grand Theft Auto IV , and Soulcalibur . There are about two dozen 97-rated games with standouts including Red Dead Redemption 2 and Grand Theft Auto V . There are fourteen movies that have received
736-582: A work, i.e. play , film , dance , musical composition , or even a performer in that work. Raymond F. Betts attributes the introduction of the film premiere to showman Sid Grauman , who founded Grauman's Chinese Theatre . The first ever Hollywood premiere was for the 1922 film Robin Hood , starring Douglas Fairbanks , in front of the Egyptian Theatre . By the late 1920s the red carpet had become synonymous with film premieres. There are
782-609: The Gotham Award for Best Feature , which it shared with The Tree of Life . For his performance, Christopher Plummer won numerous "supporting actor" awards, including at the National Board of Review Awards , Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards , Online Film Critics Society Awards , Denver Film Critics Society Awards, Golden Globe Awards , Screen Actors Guild Awards , British Academy Film Awards , and Academy Awards . Plummer also won Best Supporting Male at
828-543: The Independent Spirit Awards , and the film was nominated for Best Feature , Best Director , and Best Screenplay at that event. In addition, Plummer was nominated for the Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor . Premiere A premiere , also spelled première , (from French : première, 1 , transl. first, 1st ) is the debut (first public presentation) of
874-785: The Theater am Kärntnertor in Vienna on 7 May 1824, and subsequently received a premiere in England at the Argyll Rooms in London on 21 March 1825. When a work originates in a country that speaks a different language from that in which it is receiving its premiere, it is possible to have two premieres for the same work, e.g., the French-language version of the play The Maids by Jean Genet received its British premiere (which
920-453: The "Guides/Ratings/Reviews" category, in 2010 and 2015. Metacritic has been criticized for converting all scoring systems into a single quantitative percentage-based scale. For example, an "A" score equates to the value of 100, an "F" the value of zero, and a "B−" the value of 67. Joe Dodson, former editor at GameRevolution , criticized Metacritic and similar sites for turning reviews into scores that he found to be too low. Doyle defended
966-434: The 85 points required by Bethesda Softworks , the game's publisher. As a result, its developer, Obsidian Entertainment , received no additional bonus. Columnists took issue with the company's use of Metacritic, with one suggesting that this makes game critics ultimately accountable for deciding the developer's profits and another pointing out that a Metascore of 84 is not significantly lower than 85. The latter also pointed out
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#17327836436541012-472: The Polish name of the 1967 Shirley MacLaine film Woman Times Seven . On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes , the film has an approval rating of 85% based on 161 reviews, with an average score of 7.5/10; the site's "critics consensus" reads: "Wearing its twee heart on its sleeve, Beginners explores the depths of modern, multi-generational romance with wit and depth." On Metacritic , which assigns
1058-487: The age of 75 until he died four years later. He got active in the local gay community, found love with a much-younger man named Andy, and became closer to Oliver than he had been previously. Oliver helped Hal during his cancer treatments, and he noted the grace, good humor, and, sometimes, seeming-denial with which Hal faced his fate. Hal and Georgia had known each other since high school, and eventually she asked him to marry her, saying she could "fix" his homosexuality. He saw
1104-644: The cancellation of a number festivals, including the Tribeca Film Festival , an International film festival called We Are One was organised where films were globally streamed, via YouTube , in an event containing 13 world premieres, 31 online premieres, and 5 international online premiers. Director Lina Soualem [ fr ] , who reluctantly kept her film Their Algeria [ fr ] in for an online premier at We Are One said "At first, your automatic feeling is, 'No, I don't want to do that, ... I felt distressed because this would be
1150-453: The coronavirus pandemic, festivals had to become either partially online, e.g. SXSW and Tribeca , or fully online, e.g. CPH:DOX , Visions du Reel . Director Alex Winter even went so far as to pull his documentary Zappa out of both SXSW and CPH:DOX rather than let the film premiere there, saying "Our main concern was sales. Being online with these festivals would be the equivalent of a streaming distribution deal." On 29 May 2020, upon
1196-504: The end of his life, Oliver decides to pursue a romance with Anna. When Anna returns, she and Oliver see a lot of each other and fall in love. Eventually, he asks her to move in with him, and she does, but Anna, who left home when she was 16 and has a strained relationship with her depressive father and, like Oliver, is the one who has ended all of her serious romantic relationships, never unpacks her suitcase, which bothers Oliver. Things become awkward between them, as neither knows how to build
1242-457: The film." Fionnuala Halligan of Screen Daily questioned the legitimacy of the festivals without physically screened premiers, saying "Is premiere status demanded by A-list festivals still valid, and if not world, then national or international, or online – how much do they matter in the time of Covid?" On the complications of incorporating online premiers during the new online reformatting of festivals, Halligan said that another burning question
1288-510: The first time I would show an audience my film, so I was upset that it (would have to) be online." but said she relented as "I was observing (the Doha Film Institute's Qumra event ) online, and it was a good experience. I spoke to many programmers and professionals, and little by little, I understood we are all in the same situation and times are so uncertain that if I decided to say 'no,' I wouldn't know what would happen next with
1334-589: The gamer. We're using product reviews as a tool to help them make the most of their time and money." Metacritic has also been criticized for how it handles banning users and their reviews, with no notice or formal process for appeal. Critics and developers have pointed out that a product can suffer from rating manipulation by users, as by garnering low ratings that purposely damage its reputation or by receiving high ratings from throwaway accounts to make it appear more popular than it actually is. Signal Studios president and creative director Douglas Albright described
1380-491: The grading system, believing that every scale should be converted directly to that of the website, with its lowest possible score being 0 and the highest 100. Further criticism was directed to the website's refusal to publicize how it aggregates scores. According to Doyle, publishers often try to persuade him to exclude reviews they feel are unfair, but he said that once a publication is included, he refuses to omit any of its reviews. A Washington Post review of Uncharted 4
1426-433: The impressive sales of five million sold units and US$ 300 million in revenue, and also noted a series of Obsidian's layoffs in 2011 and 2012. The website has also been used by columnists and commentators as a general reference for critical reception, and by publishers as a tool of improving their products. Along with other executives, in 2008, John Riccitiello , then CEO of Electronic Arts, showed Wall Street analysts
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1472-482: The international premiere status. Premiering at a film festival has been used to gain publicity for a film, even without a distributor already in place, and can even allow last minuting editing. Director Alex Winter said, of film festival premiers, "It helps me get a sense of what my work is or isn't communicating. We've often made little tweaks and changes after we've premiered it at a few film festivals." Concerns existed about online premieres, when in 2020, during
1518-429: The narrative of his developing relationship with Anna Wallace.) In Los Angeles in 2003, a few months after the death of his father, Hal, from lung cancer , 38-year-old graphic designer Oliver often thinks about his relationship with Hal near the end of his life. Hal had come out to Oliver six months after Georgia, Hal's wife of 44 years and Oliver's mother, died of cancer, and explored life as an openly gay man from
1564-402: The relative weight assigned to each reviewer. Games Editor Marc Doyle was interviewed in 2008 by Keith Stuart of The Guardian to "get a look behind the metascoring process". Stuart wrote: "The Metascore phenomenon, namely Metacritic and GameRankings , have become an enormously important element of online games journalism over the past few years". Doyle said that because video games lead to
1610-467: The respective rapid rise and fall in company values after BioShock and Spider-Man 3 were released. In an interview with The Guardian , Marc Doyle cited two major publishers that "conducted comprehensive statistical surveys through which they've been able to draw a correlation between high metascores and stronger sales" in certain genres. He claimed that an increasing number of businesses and financial analysts use Metacritic as "an early indicator of
1656-418: The sales of games and the stocks of video game publishers". He explains its influence as coming from the higher cost of buying video games than music or movie tickets. Many executives say that low scores "can hurt the long-term sales potential". Wingfield wrote that Wall Street pays attention to Metacritic and GameRankings because the sites typically post scores before sales data are publicly available, citing
1702-402: The scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average ). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc Doyle, and Julie Doyle Roberts in 1999, and was acquired by Fandom, Inc. in 2022. Metacritic turns each review into a percentage score. This can be done either by calculating the score from the rating given or by making a subjective decision based on the review's quality. Before averaging
1748-438: The scores, they are adjusted based on the critic's popularity, reputation, and the number of reviews they have written. The site also includes a summary from each review and links to the original source, using colors like green, yellow, or red to indicate the overall sentiment of the critics. Metacritic won two Webby Awards for excellence as an aggregation website. It is regarded as the foremost online review aggregation site for
1794-475: The site is Ten Freedom Summers by American trumpeter and composer Wadada Leo Smith , with a 99. The standalone lowest-rated game of all time is Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing , with an 8. There are eleven movies that have received a 1: Bio-Dome , 10 Rules for Sleeping Around , Chaos , Inappropriate Comedy , Not Cool , The Singing Forest , The Garbage Pail Kids Movie , Death of
1840-650: The site. Rotten Tomatoes was already compiling movie reviews, but Doyle, Roberts, and Dietz saw an opportunity to cover a broader range of media. Metacritic was sold to CNET in 2005. CNET and Metacritic were later acquired by the CBS Corporation . In 2020, Metacritic and other CNET titles were bought by Red Ventures . In 2022, Red Ventures sold Metacritic and other entertainment websites to Fandom, Inc. Metacritic has been used by businesses to predict future sales. In 2007, Nick Wingfield of The Wall Street Journal wrote that Metacritic "influence[s]
1886-465: The star of Mike Mills' previous film Thumbsucker (2005), has a cameo appearance in the film as the man dressed as a magician at the costume party. Much of the film is based on director Mike Mills ' experiences after his own father came out of the closet following his mother's death. It was shot using the Red One digital camera. In Oliver's dining room, there is a poster for Siedem Razy Kobieta ,
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1932-501: The video game industry. Criticism of the site has focused on the assessment system, the assignment of scores to reviews that do not include ratings, third-party attempts to influence the scores, and the reported lack of staff oversight for user reviews. Metacritic was launched in January 2001 by Marc Doyle, his sister Julie Doyle Roberts, and his University of Southern California law classmate Jason Dietz, after two years of developing
1978-440: The website as having no standards. In July 2020, Metacritic added a 36-hour waiting period for user reviews to be posted for video games at launch in an effort to reduce user score review-bombing during that period by users that have not played or barely played the game during a period when most players will not have finished the game. Some have noted that Metacritic scores for modern video games may not be accurately reflective of
2024-423: Was "Would a geo-locked online premiere at a smaller festival jeopardise a filmmaker's chances for showing their "international premiere" at another, perhaps larger, more covetable event (for which the selection hasn't yet been announced)?" Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films , television shows , music albums , video games , and formerly books . For each product,
2070-645: Was also its world premiere) in 1952, and subsequently its English-language premiere in Britain in 1956. The type of premiers that a work receives will impact on how the work is treated by festivals, including the categorization of the work in screening sessions, e.g. Fantastic Fest , and even as the basis of its submission requirements, e.g. Sundance Film Festival eligibility rules require that United States feature films, both narrative and documentary, have retained their world premier status, whilst international feature films, both narrative and documentary, have retained
2116-522: Was assigned with a rating of 40/100 by Metacritic; this was the only negative review of the game. Readers who disapproved of the review petitioned Metacritic to remove the Post as a trusted source. As a result of its perceived negative influence on the industry, several reviewing sites, including Kotaku and Eurogamer , have dropped numerical reviews that would appear in Metacritic, instead favoring
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