Sidewalk Stories is a 1989 American low-budget, nearly silent movie directed by and starring Charles Lane . The black-and-white film tells the story of a young African American man raising a small child after her father is murdered. The film is somewhat reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin's 1921 feature The Kid . The film was televised by PBS as well as saw limited exposure on VHS and cable television in the 1990s.
102-488: In October 2014, Sidewalk Stories was released on DVD and Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber. An impecunious and homeless young black sidewalk artist in the Manhattan slums finds himself in charge of a three-year-old girl who has been orphaned. Though with severely limited prospects for being able to care for the precious and vulnerable child, the artist manages through pluck and luck to protect, shelter and feed her through
204-486: A 20-page concept pitch for an online gaming network to Nintendo for the Nintendo 64 console, but a deal was never reached. Marc Andreessen explains, "If they had shipped a year earlier, we probably would have done that instead of Netscape." The company's first product was the web browser, called Mosaic Netscape 0.9, released on October 13, 1994. Within four months of its release, it had already taken three-quarters of
306-488: A bad score, as this only reflects a poor reception among film critics. As one independent film distributor marketing executive noted, "To me, it's a ridiculous argument that Rotten Tomatoes is the problem ... make a good movie!". ComScore 's Paul Dergarabedian had similar comments, saying: "The best way for studios to combat the 'Rotten Tomatoes Effect' is to make better movies, plain and simple". Some studios have suggested embargoing or cancelling early critic screenings in
408-611: A completely different user experience based on which site they were on. Examples are handling of right-to-left or bi-directional text, user interface widgets, bugs and web standards violations in Trident, etc. On top of this, Netscape Browser 8 even broke Internet Explorer's ability to open XML files by damaging a Windows Registry key, and would do so every time it was opened, even if the user fixed it manually. AOL's acquisition of Netscape Communications in November 1998 made it less of
510-477: A compressed format to increase effective speeds up to 1300 kbit/s (average 500 kbit/s). The Internet service provider was later run by Verizon under the Netscape brand. The low-cost ISP was officially launched on January 8, 2004. Netscape drove much traffic from various links included in the browser menus to its web properties. Some say it was very late to leverage this traffic for what would become
612-456: A consumer web portal named Netcenter. Netscape's browser development continued until December 2007, when AOL announced that the company would stop supporting it by early 2008. As of 2024, AOL continues to use the Netscape brand to market a discount Internet service provider, which itself continues to provide a Chromium -based web browser called Netscape, developed by UK security firm SentryBay. Netscape Communications wants you to forget all
714-612: A cutoff date at which new reviews are not counted toward the Golden Tomato awards is initiated each year, usually the first of the new year. Reviews without ratings are not counted toward the results of the Golden Tomato Awards. Each movie features a "user average", which calculates the percentage of registered users who have rated the film positively on a 5-star scale, similar to calculation of recognized critics' reviews. On May 24, 2019, Rotten Tomatoes introduced
816-474: A dedicated team who monitors our platforms regularly and thoroughly investigates and resolves any suspicious activity." WIRED published an article in February 2024 written by Christopher Null, a former film critic, that argued such methods are standard activities performed by all PR agencies. In particular, Null points out that sponsoring legitimate, honest reviews has a long history in other industries and
918-402: A full-time basis. They officially launched it on April 1, 2000. In June 2004, IGN Entertainment acquired Rotten Tomatoes for an undisclosed sum. In September 2005, IGN was bought by News Corp 's Fox Interactive Media . In January 2010, IGN sold the website to Flixster . The combined reach of both companies is 30 million unique visitors a month across all different platforms, according to
1020-472: A higher priority on adding new features than on making their products work properly. Netscape experienced its first bad quarter at the end of 1997 and underwent a large round of layoffs in January 1998. Former Netscape executives Mike Homer and Peter Currie have described this period as "hectic and crazy" and that the company was undone by factors both internal and external. In January 1998, Netscape started
1122-457: A last-minute decision doubled the initial offering to US$ 28 per share. The stock's value soared to US$ 75 during the first day of trading, nearly a record for first-day gain. The stock closed at US$ 58.25, which gave Netscape a market value of US$ 2.9 billion. While it was somewhat unusual for a company to go public prior to becoming profitable, Netscape's revenues had, in fact, doubled every quarter in 1995. The success of this IPO subsequently inspired
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#17327731254471224-583: A legal challenge from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (makers of NCSA Mosaic ), which many of Netscape's founders used to develop, led to the name Netscape Navigator. The company's name also changed from Mosaic Communications Corporation to Netscape Communications Corporation. The browser was easily the most advanced available and so was an instant success, becoming a market leader while still in beta. Netscape's feature-count and market share continued to grow rapidly after version 1.0
1326-482: A message that there exists among the downtrodden an admirable nobility of spirit. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a rating of 79% from 42 reviews. The consensus summarizes: " Sidewalk Stories ' sweetness is somewhat undermined by the movie's broad approach, but it remains a comedy with heart -- and something to say." This 1980s drama film–related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article related to an American film of
1428-463: A minority stake in the merged entities, including Fandango. The site is influential among moviegoers, a third of whom say they consult it before going to the cinema in the U.S. It has been criticized for oversimplifying reviews by flattening them into a fresh vs. rotten dichotomy. It has also been criticized for being easy for studios to manipulate by limiting early screenings to critics inclined to be favorable, among other tactics. Rotten Tomatoes
1530-416: A new "Audience Says" blurbs within it, to give users an at-a-glance summary of the general sentiments of a film as experienced by critics and audiences. Prior to February 2021, only the "Critics Consensus" blurb was posted for each entry, after enough certified critics had submitted reviews. When the "Audience Says" blurbs were added, Rotten Tomatoes initially included them only for newer films and those with
1632-546: A number of country-specific Netscape portals, including Netscape Canada among others. The portal of Netscape Germany was shut down in June 2008. The Netscape Blog was written by Netscape employees discussing the latest on Netscape products and services. Netscape NewsQuake (formerly Netscape Reports ) is Netscape's news and opinion blog, including video clips and discussions. As of January 2012 , no new posts have been made on either of these blogs since August 2008. Netscape created
1734-678: A part of the Windows 95 Plus Pack add-on. According to former Spyglass developer Eric Sink, Internet Explorer was based not on NCSA Mosaic as commonly believed, but on a version of Mosaic developed at Spyglass (which itself was based upon NCSA Mosaic). This period of time would become known as the browser wars . Netscape Navigator was not free to the general public until January 1998, while Internet Explorer and Internet Information Server have always been free or came bundled with an operating system and/or other applications. Meanwhile, Netscape faced increasing criticism for " featuritis " – putting
1836-522: A response to poor reviews prior to a film's release affecting pre-sales and opening weekend numbers. In July 2017, Sony embargoed critic reviews for The Emoji Movie until mid-day the Thursday before its release. The film ended up with a 9% rating (including 0% after the first 25 reviews), but still opened to $ 24 million, on par with projections. Josh Greenstein, Sony Pictures President of Worldwide Marketing and Distribution, said, " The Emoji Movie
1938-518: A section devoted to scripted television series, called TV Zone, was created as a subsection of the website. In February 2016, Rotten Tomatoes and its parent site Flixster were sold to Comcast's Fandango Media. Warner Bros retained a minority stake in the merged entities, including Fandango. In December 2016, Fandango and all its various websites moved to Fox Interactive Media's former headquarters in Beverly Hills, California . In July 2017,
2040-525: A series of adverse events and adventures during which he displays a striking ingenuity and himself attracts a lover. The bond between him and the child grows in the course of these events until the artist sees a picture of the child on a milk carton in an ad by the child's widowed mother, to whom he returns the child, refusing the money she offers him. The film ends in a night scene at a street trash fire around which an assortment of bums and derelicts warm themselves in winter while panhandling passersby, conveying
2142-401: A significant audience rating, but suggested that they may later add them for older films as well. Each movie features a brief blurb summary of the critics' reviews, called the "Critical Consensus", used in that entry's Tomatometer aggregate score. These are written by Jeff Giles, a longtime author for the site. In February 2021, Rotten Tomatoes added an "Audience Says" section; similar to
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#17327731254472244-412: A sub-listing that calculates their reviews separately. Their opinions are also included in the general rating. When there are sufficient reviews, the staff creates and posts a consensus statement to express the general reasons for the collective opinion of the film. This rating is indicated by an equivalent icon at the film listing, to give the reader a one-glance look at the general critical opinion about
2346-625: A substitute for assessment". Landon Palmer, a film and media historian and an assistant professor in the Department of Journalism and Creative Media director in the College of Communication and Information Sciences at the University of Alabama agreed with White, stating that "[Rotten Tomatoes applies a] problematic algorithm to pretty much all avenues of modern media art and entertainment". Director and producer Brett Ratner has criticized
2448-537: A surprise when the company laid off the Netscape team and outsourced development to Mercurial Communications. Netscape Browser 8.1.3 was released on April 2, 2007, and included general bug fixes identified in versions 8.0–8.1.2 Netscape Navigator 9 's features were said to include newsfeed support and become more integrated with the Propeller Internet portal, alongside more enhanced methods of discussion, submission and voting on web pages. It also sees
2550-500: A traditional news portal, and rebranded the social news portal as "Propeller", moving the site to the domain "propeller.com." AOL shut down the Propeller website on October 1, 2010. Netscape operated a search engine, Netscape Search, which now redirects to AOL Search (which itself now merely serves Bing (formerly Google ) search results). Another version of Netscape Search was incorporated into Propeller. Netscape also operated
2652-429: A verified rating system that would replace the earlier system where users were merely required to register to submit a rating. So, in addition to creating an account, users will have to verify their ticket purchase through ticketing company Fandango Media, parent company of Rotten Tomatoes. While users can still leave reviews without verifying, those reviews will not account for the average audience score displayed next to
2754-619: A version of Netscape FastTrack Server was made available for Windows 95/98. Today, most of Netscape's server offerings live on as the Sun Java System , formerly under the Sun ONE branding. Although Netscape Browser 8 was Windows only, multi-platform support exists in the Netscape Navigator 9 series of browsers. Netscape ISP was a dial-up Internet service once offered at US$ 9.95 per month. The company served web pages in
2856-580: A web browser. Other controversial decisions include the browser only being released for Microsoft Windows and featuring both the Gecko rendering engine of previous releases and the Trident engine used in Internet Explorer, and switching between them based on a "compatibility list" that came with the browser. This effectively exposed users to the security vulnerabilities in both and resulted in
2958-725: Is a "common tactic employed by indie titles to get visibility." American director Martin Scorsese wrote a column in The Hollywood Reporter criticizing both Rotten Tomatoes and CinemaScore for promoting the idea that films like Mother! had to be "instantly liked" to be successful. Scorsese, in a dedication for the Roger Ebert Center for Film Studies at the University of Illinois later continued his criticism, voicing that Rotten Tomatoes and other review services "devalue cinema on streaming platforms to
3060-402: Is considered wide release. There are also two categories purely for British and Australian films. The "User"-category represents the highest rated film among users, and the "Mouldy"-award represents the worst-reviewed films of the year. A movie must have 40 (originally 20) or more rated reviews to be considered for domestic categories. It must have 500 or more user ratings to be considered for
3162-790: Is intended for use in the US only; permission is required for use elsewhere. As of 2022, API access is restricted to approved developers that must go through an application process. Major Hollywood studios have come to see Rotten Tomatoes as a potential threat to their marketing . In 2017, several blockbuster films like Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales , Baywatch and The Mummy were projected to open with gross receipts of $ 90 million, $ 50 million and $ 45 million, respectively, but ended up debuting with $ 62.6 million, $ 23.1 million and $ 31.6 million. Rotten Tomatoes, which scored
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3264-416: Is significantly belated. Internet security site Security Watch stated that a trend of infrequent security updates for AOL's Netscape caused the browser to become a "security liability", specifically the 2005–2007 versions, Netscape Browser 8 . Asa Dotzler, one of Firefox's original bug testers, greeted the news with "good riddance" in his blog post, but praised the various members of the Netscape team over
3366-472: Is to include other services in the future for users who do not use Fandango. Upon its creation, the "Verified Hot" badge was installed retroactively on over 200 films which achieved a verified audience score of 90% or higher since the launch of Rotten Tomatoes' verified audience ratings in May 2019. In February 2021, a new "What to Know" section was created for each film entry, combining the "Critics Consensus" and
3468-469: Is unlikely to change". Other studios have commissioned a number of studies on the subject, with them finding that 7/10 people said they would be less interested in seeing a film if the Rotten Tomatoes score was below 25%, and that the site has the most influence on people 25 and younger. The scores have reached a level of online ubiquity which film companies have found threatening. For instance,
3570-572: The 2020 Webby People's Voice Award for Entertainment in the Web category. In February 2021, the Rotten Tomatoes staff made an entry on their Product Blog, announcing several design changes to the site: Each film's 'Score Box' at the top of the page would now also include its release year, genre, and runtimes, with an MPAA rating to be soon added; the number of ratings would be shown in groupings – from 50+ up to 250,000+ ratings, for easier visualization. Links to critics and viewers are included underneath
3672-615: The JavaScript programming language, the most widely used language for client-side scripting of web pages. A founding engineer of Netscape, Lou Montulli , created HTTP cookies . The company also developed SSL which was used for securing online communications before its successor TLS took over. Netscape stock traded from 1995 until 1999 when the company was acquired by AOL in a pooling-of-interests transaction ultimately worth US$ 10 billion. In February 1998, approximately one year prior to its acquisition by AOL, Netscape released
3774-449: The JavaScript web page scripting language. It also pioneered the development of push technology , which effectively allowed websites to send regular updates of information (weather, stock updates, package tracking, etc.) directly to a user's desktop (aka "webtop"); Netscape's implementation of this was named Netcaster. However, businesses quickly recognized the use of push technology to deliver ads to users, which annoyed them, so Netcaster
3876-591: The Mozilla Foundation in July 2003 to ensure its continued independence with financial and other assistance from AOL. The Gecko engine is used to power the Mozilla Foundation's Firefox browser. In addition to browsers, Netscape developed a suite of award-winning server software, known as SuiteSpot, to power enterprise Internet and Intranet websites, forums, and email; e-commerce software; and
3978-568: The Mozilla Organization was formed and largely funded by Netscape (the vast majority of programmers working on the code were paid by Netscape) to coordinate the development of Netscape 5 (codenamed "Gromit"), which would be based on the Communicator source code. However, the aging Communicator code proved difficult to work with and the decision was taken to scrap Netscape 5 and re-write the source code. The re-written source code
4080-675: The Propeller web portal , which was a popular social-news site, similar to Digg , which was given a new look in June 2006. AOL marketed a discount ISP service under the Netscape brand name. A new version of the Netscape browser, Netscape Navigator 9 , based on Firefox 2, was released in October 2007. It featured a green and grey interface. In November 2007, IE had 77.4% of the browser market, Firefox 16.0%, and Netscape 0.6%, according to Net Applications, an Internet metrics firm. On December 28, 2007, AOL announced that it would drop support for
4182-458: The dot-com bubble . It is alleged that several Microsoft executives visited the Netscape campus in June 1995 to propose dividing the market (an allegation denied by Microsoft and, if true, would have breached antitrust laws), which would have allowed Microsoft to produce web browser software for Windows while leaving all other operating systems to Netscape. Netscape refused the proposition. Microsoft released version 1.0 of Internet Explorer as
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4284-567: The open source Mozilla project. Netscape publicly released the source code of Netscape Communicator 5.0 under the Netscape Public License , which was similar to the GNU General Public License but allowed Netscape to continue to publish proprietary work containing the publicly released code. The United States Department of Justice filed an antitrust case against Microsoft in May 1998. Netscape
4386-469: The "Certified Fresh" seal. When a film or TV show reaches the requirements for the "Certified Fresh", it is not automatically granted the seal; "the Tomatometer score must be consistent and unlikely to deviate significantly" before it is thus marked. Once certified, if a film's score drops and remains consistently below 70%, it loses its Certified Fresh designation. In 2000, Rotten Tomatoes announced
4488-406: The "Critics Consensus", it summarizes the reviews noted by registered users into a concise blurb. The Rotten Tomatoes staff noted that for any given film, if there were any external factors such as controversies or issues affecting the sentiments of a film, they may address it in the "Audience Says" section to give users the most relevant info regarding their viewing choices. Localized versions of
4590-467: The "User"-category. Films are further classified based on film genre . Each movie is eligible in only one genre, aside from non-English-language films, which can be included in both their genre and the respective "Foreign" category. Once a film is considered eligible, its "votes" are counted. Each critic from the website's list gets one vote (as determined by their review), all weighted equally. Because reviews are continually added, manually and otherwise,
4692-454: The 1980s is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Rotten Tomatoes This is an accepted version of this page Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley : Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang. Although
4794-633: The Mac platform until version 4.5. Despite this, Apple entered into an agreement with Microsoft to make IE the default browser on new Mac OS installations, a further blow to Netscape's prestige. The Communicator suite was made up of Netscape Navigator, Netscape Mail & Newsgroups , Netscape Address Book and Netscape Composer (an HTML editor). On January 22, 1998, Netscape Communications Corporation announced that all future versions of its software would be available free of charge and developed by an open source community, Mozilla. Netscape Communicator 5.0
4896-408: The Netscape 7 series of suites being fully supported and updated by Netscape's in-house development team. Between 2005 and 2007, Netscape's releases became known as Netscape Browser . AOL chose to base Netscape Browser on the relatively successful Mozilla Firefox , a re-written version of Mozilla produced by the Mozilla Foundation. This release is not a full Internet suite as before, but is solely
4998-538: The Netscape web browser and would no longer develop new releases on February 1, 2008. The date was later extended to March 1 to allow a major security update and to add a tool to assist users in migrating to other browsers. These additional features were included in the final version of Netscape Navigator 9 (version 9.0.0.6), released on February 20, 2008. Netscape Navigator was Netscape's web browser from versions 1.0–4.8. The first beta versions were released in 1994 and were called Mosaic and later Mosaic Netscape. Then,
5100-649: The RT Awards honoring the best-reviewed films of the year according to the website's rating system. The awards were later renamed the Golden Tomato Awards. The nominees and winners are announced on the website, although there is no actual awards ceremony. The films are divided into wide release and limited release categories. Limited releases are defined as opening in 599 or fewer theaters at initial release. Platform releases, movies initially released under 600 theaters but later receiving wider distribution, fall under this definition. Any film opening in more than 600 theaters
5202-475: The Tomatometer. On August 21, 2024, Rotten Tomatoes rebranded its audience score as the Popcornmeter and introduced a new "Verified Hot" badge. The designation is only given to films which have reached an audience score of 90 percent or higher among users whom Rotten Tomatoes has verified as having purchased a ticket to the film through Fandango. A representative for Rotten Tomatoes stated that their goal
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#17327731254475304-478: The alliance was ended, "iPlanet became a division of Sun... Sun retained the intellectual property rights for all products and the engineering" On July 15, 2003, Time Warner (formerly AOL Time Warner) disbanded Netscape. Most of the programmers were laid-off, and the Netscape logo was removed from the building. However, the Netscape 7.2 web browser (developed in-house rather than with Netscape staff, with some work outsourced to Sun's Beijing development center )
5406-452: The brainchild of Jim Clark who had recruited Marc Andreessen as co-founder and Kleiner Perkins as investors. The first meeting between Clark and Andreessen was never truly about a software or service like Netscape, but more about a product that was similar to Nintendo. Clark recruited other early team members from SGI and NCSA Mosaic . Jim Barksdale came on board as CEO in January 1995. Jim Clark and Marc Andreessen originally created
5508-416: The browser market. It became the main browser for Internet users in such a short time due to its superiority over other competition, like Mosaic. This browser was subsequently renamed Netscape Navigator , and the company took the "Netscape" name (coined by employee Greg Sands, although it was also a trademark of Cisco Systems ) on November 14, 1994, to avoid trademark ownership problems with NCSA , where
5610-423: The browser return to multi-platform support across Windows , Linux and Mac OS X . Like Netscape version 8.x, the new release was based upon the popular Mozilla Firefox (version 2.0), and supposedly had full support of all Firefox add-ons and plugins , some of which Netscape was already providing. A beta of the program was first released on June 5, 2007. The final version was released on October 15, 2007. It
5712-439: The community. AOL reversed the decision and allowed Netscape to reinstate the popup-blocker for Netscape 7.01. Netscape also introduced a new AOL-free-version (without the usual AOL add-ons) of the browser suite. Netscape 7.1 (codenamed "Buffy" and based on Mozilla 1.4) was released in June 2003. In 2003, AOL closed down its Netscape division and laid-off or reassigned all of Netscape's employees. Mozilla.org continued, however, as
5814-438: The companies. In 2011, Warner Bros. acquired Rotten Tomatoes. In early 2009, Current Television launched The Rotten Tomatoes Show , a televised version of the web review site. It was hosted by Brett Erlich and Ellen Fox and written by Mark Ganek. The show aired Thursdays at 10:30 EST until September 16, 2010. It returned as a much shorter segment of InfoMania , a satirical news show that ended in 2011. By late 2009,
5916-495: The creation of the website was Rush Hour (1998), Chan's first major Hollywood crossover, which was originally planned to release in August 1998. Duong coded the website in two weeks and the site went live the same month, but the release of Rush Hour was delayed until September 1998. Besides Jackie Chan films , he began including other films on Rotten Tomatoes, extending it beyond Chan's fandom . The first non-Chan Hollywood movie whose reviews were featured on Rotten Tomatoes
6018-491: The ease at which large companies are able to manipulate reviewer ratings. The article cited publicity company Bunker 15 as an example of how scores can be boosted by recruiting obscure, often self-published reviewers, using the example of 2018's Ophelia . Rotten Tomatoes responded by delisting several Bunker 15 films, including Ophelia . It told Vulture in a statement, "We take the integrity of our scores seriously and do not tolerate any attempts to manipulate them. We have
6120-563: The existing site in September 2007. Netscape.com now redirects to AOL's website, with no Netscape branding at all. Meanwhile, Netscape.co.uk now redirects to AOL Search, also with no Netscape branding at all. DMOZ (from d irectory. moz illa.org, its original domain name , also known as the Open Directory Project or ODP ), was a multilingual open content directory of World Wide Web links owned by Netscape that
6222-433: The films at 30%, 19% and 16%, respectively, was blamed for undermining them. That same summer, films like Wonder Woman and Spider-Man: Homecoming (both 92%) received high scores and opened at or exceeded expectations with their $ 100+ million trackings. As a result of this concern, 20th Century Fox commissioned a 2015 study, titled "Rotten Tomatoes and Box Office", that stated the website combined with social media
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#17327731254476324-412: The form of Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0. But Netscape remained the most popular browser at that time. Netscape also released a Gold version of Navigator 3.0 that incorporated WYSIWYG editing with drag and drop between web editor and email components. Netscape 4 addressed the problem of Netscape Navigator being used as both the name of the suite and the browser contained within it by renaming
6426-514: The highway metaphors you've ever heard about the Internet. Instead, think about an encyclopedia—one with unlimited, graphically rich pages, connections to E-mail and files, and access to Internet newsgroups and online shopping. — Netscape Navigator , Macworld (May 1995) Netscape was the first company to attempt to capitalize on the emerging World Wide Web . It was founded under the name Mosaic Communications Corporation on April 4, 1994,
6528-479: The independent Mozilla Foundation , taking on many of Netscape's ex-employees. AOL continued to develop Netscape in-house (with help from Sun's Beijing development center ), but, due to there being no staff committed to it, improvements were minimal. One year later, in August 2004, the last version based on Mozilla was released: Netscape 7.2, based on Mozilla 1.7.2. After an official poll posted on Netscape's community support board in late 2006, speculation arose of
6630-503: The initial Netscape employees had previously created the NCSA Mosaic web browser. The Mosaic Netscape web browser did not use any NCSA Mosaic code. The internal codename for the company's browser was Mozilla , which stood for "Mosaic killer", as the company's goal was to displace NCSA Mosaic as the world's number one web browser . A cartoon Godzilla -like lizard mascot was drawn by artist-employee Dave Titus, which went well with
6732-445: The level of content". In 2015, while promoting the film Suffragette (which has a 73% approval rating) actress Meryl Streep accused Rotten Tomatoes of disproportionately representing the opinions of male film critics, resulting in a skewed ratio that adversely affected the commercial performances of female-driven films. "I submit to you that men and women are not the same, they like different things," she said. "Sometimes they like
6834-401: The movie page on the website, and need to mark their review "fresh" if it is generally favorable or "rotten" otherwise. It is necessary for the critic to do so as some reviews are qualitative and do not grant a numeric score, making it impossible for the system to be automatic. The website keeps track of all the reviews counted for each film and calculates the percentage of positive reviews. If
6936-528: The name "Rotten Tomatoes" connects to the practice of audiences throwing rotten tomatoes in disapproval of a poor stage performance , the direct inspiration for the name from Duong, Lee, and Wang came from an equivalent scene in the 1992 Canadian film Léolo . Since January 2010, Rotten Tomatoes has been owned by Flixster , which was in turn acquired by Warner Bros. in 2011. In February 2016, Rotten Tomatoes and its parent site Flixster were sold to Comcast 's Fandango ticketing company. Warner Bros. retained
7038-525: The occasion of the 75th anniversary of the New York Film Critics Circle , its chairman Armond White cited Rotten Tomatoes in particular and film review aggregators in general as examples of how "the Internet takes revenge on individual expression". He said they work by "dumping reviewers onto one website and assigning spurious percentage-enthusiasm points to the discrete reviews". According to White, such websites "offer consensus as
7140-568: The positive reviews make up 60% or more, the film is considered "fresh". If the positive reviews are less than 60%, the film is considered "rotten". An average score on a 0 to 10 scale is also calculated. With each review, a short excerpt of the review is quoted that also serves a hyperlink to the complete review essay for anyone interested to read the critic's full thoughts on the subject. "Top Critics", such as Roger Ebert , Desson Thomson , Stephen Hunter , Owen Gleiberman , Lisa Schwarzbaum , Peter Travers and Michael Phillips are identified in
7242-553: The ratings. By clicking on either the Tomatometer Score or the Audience Score, the users can access "Score Details" information, such as the number of Fresh and Rotten reviews, average rating, and Top Critics' score. The team also added a new "What to Know" section for each film entry page, which could combine the "Critics Consensus" blurb with a new "Audience Says" blurb, so users can see an at-a-glance summary of
7344-465: The same thing, but sometimes their tastes diverge. If the Tomatometer is slighted so completely to one set of tastes that drives box office in the United States, absolutely". Critics took issue with the sentiment that someone's gender or ethnic background would dictate their response to art. Netscape Netscape Communications Corporation (originally Mosaic Communications Corporation )
7446-550: The scores are regularly posted in Google search results for films so reviewed. Furthermore, the scores are prominently featured in Fandango's popular ticket purchasing website, on its mobile app, on popular streaming services like Peacock , and on Flixster, which led to complaints that "rotten" scores damaged films' performances. Others have argued that filmmakers and studios have only themselves to blame if Rotten Tomatoes produces
7548-451: The sentiments of both certified critics and verified audience members. Rotten Tomatoes staff first collect online reviews from writers who are certified members of various writing guilds or film critic-associations. To be accepted as a critic on the website, a critic's original reviews must garner a specific number of "likes" from users. Those classified as "Top Critics" generally write for major newspapers. The critics upload their reviews to
7650-516: The site announced that user reviews would no longer be accepted until a film is publicly released. The site also announced plans to introduce a system for "verified" reviews, and that the "Want to See" statistic would now be expressed as a number so that it would not be confused with the audience score. Despite arguments on how Rotten Tomatoes scores impact the box office, academic researchers so far have not found evidence that Rotten Tomatoes ratings affect box office performance. In January 2010, on
7752-474: The site available in the United Kingdom, India, and Australia were discontinued following the acquisition of Rotten Tomatoes by Fandango. The Mexican version of the site, Tomatazos [ es ] , remains active. The Rotten Tomatoes API provides limited access to critic and audience ratings and reviews, allowing developers to incorporate Rotten Tomatoes data on other websites. The free service
7854-478: The source code for its browser and created the Mozilla Organization to coordinate future development of its product. The Mozilla Organization rewrote the entire browser's source code based on the Gecko rendering engine , and all future Netscape releases were based on this rewritten code. When AOL scaled back its involvement with Mozilla Organization in the early 2000s, the Organization proceeded to establish
7956-558: The start of the major online portal wars. Netscape's exclusive features, such as the Netscape Blog, Netscape NewsQuake, Netscape Navigator, My Netscape and Netscape Community pages, are less accessible from the AOL Netscape designed portal and in some countries not accessible at all without providing a full URL or completing an Internet search . The new AOL Netscape site was originally previewed in August 2007 before moving
8058-413: The suite to Netscape Communicator. After five preview releases in 1996–1997, Netscape released the final version of Netscape Communicator in June 1997. This version, more or less based on Netscape Navigator 3 Code, updated and added new features. The new suite was successful, despite increasing competition from Internet Explorer (IE) 4.0 and problems with the outdated browser core. IE was slow and unstable on
8160-425: The theme of crushing the competition. The Mozilla mascot featured prominently on Netscape's website in the company's early years. However, the need to project a more "professional" image (especially towards corporate clients) led to this being removed. On August 9, 1995, Netscape made an extremely successful IPO , only sixteen months after the company was formed. The stock was set to be offered at US$ 14 per share, but
8262-478: The use of the term "Netscape moment" to describe a high-visibility IPO that signals the dawn of a new industry. During this period, Netscape also pursued a publicity strategy (crafted by Rosanne Siino , then head of public relations) packaging Andreessen as the company's "rock star." The events of this period ultimately landed Andreessen, barefoot, on the cover of Time magazine. The IPO also helped kickstart widespread investment in internet companies that created
8364-669: The vocal disgust of influential critics such as Roger Ebert, who was prone to derisively condemn such moves, with gestures such as "The Wagging Finger of Shame", on At the Movies . Furthermore, the very nature of withholding reviews can draw early conclusions from the public that the film is of poor quality because of that marketing tactic. On February 26, 2019, in response to issues surrounding coordinated " bombing " of user reviews for several films, most notably Captain Marvel and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker , prior to their release,
8466-545: The website for "reducing hundreds of reviews culled from print and online sources into a popularized aggregate score", while expressing respect for traditional film critics. Writer Max Landis , following his film Victor Frankenstein receiving an approval rating of 24% on the site, wrote that the site "breaks down entire reviews into just the word 'yes' or 'no', making criticism binary in a destructive arbitrary way". Vulture ran an article in September 2023 that raised several criticisms of Rotten Tomatoes's system, including
8568-537: The website was designed to enable Rotten Tomatoes users to create and join groups to discuss various aspects of film. One group, "The Golden Oyster Awards", accepted votes of members for various awards, spoofing the better-known Academy Awards or Golden Globes . When Flixster bought the company, they disbanded the groups. As of February 2011, new community features have been added and others removed. For example, users can no longer sort films by Fresh Ratings from Rotten Ratings, and vice versa. On September 17, 2013,
8670-479: The website's editor-in-chief since 2007, Matt Atchity, left to join The Young Turks YouTube channel. On November 1, 2017, the site launched a new web series on Facebook, See It/Skip It , hosted by Jacqueline Coley and Segun Oduolowu. In March 2018, the site announced its new design, icons and logo for the first time in 19 years at South by Southwest . On May 19, 2020, Rotten Tomatoes won
8772-416: The work. The "Certified Fresh" seal is reserved for movies that satisfy two criteria: a "Tomatometer" of 75% or better and at least 80 reviews (40 for limited release movies) from "Tomatometer" critics (including 5 Top Critics). Films earning this status will keep it unless the positive critical percentage drops below 70%. Films with 100% positive ratings that lack the required number of reviews may not receive
8874-412: The years for enabling the creation of Mozilla in 1998. Others protested and petitioned AOL to continue providing vital security fixes to unknowing or loyal users of its software, as well as protection of a well-known brand. On June 11, 2007, Netscape announced Netscape Mercury, a standalone email and news client that was to accompany Navigator 9. Mercury was based on Mozilla Thunderbird . The product
8976-520: Was Your Friends & Neighbors (1998). The website was an immediate success, receiving mentions by Netscape , Yahoo! , and USA Today within the first week of its launch; it attracted "600–1,000 daily unique visitors" as a result. Duong teamed up with University of California , Berkeley classmates Patrick Y. Lee and Stephen Wang, his former partners at the Berkeley, California -based web design firm Design Reactor, to pursue Rotten Tomatoes on
9078-483: Was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California , and then Dulles, Virginia . Its Netscape web browser was once dominant but lost to Internet Explorer and other competitors in the first browser war , with its market share falling from more than 90 percent in the mid-1990s to less than one percent in 2006. An early Netscape employee, Brendan Eich , created
9180-417: Was announced (codenamed "Gromit"). However, its release was greatly delayed, and meanwhile, there were newer versions of Internet Explorer, starting with version 4 . These had more features than the old Netscape version, including better support of HTML 4, CSS , DOM , and ECMAScript ; eventually, the more advanced Internet Explorer 5.0 became the market leader. In October 1998, Netscape Communicator 4.5
9282-466: Was built for people under 18 ... so we wanted to give the movie its best chance. What other wide release with a score under 8 percent has opened north of $ 20 million? I don't think there is one". Conversely, Warner Bros. also did not do critic pre-screenings for The House , which held a score of 16% until the day of its release, and opened to just $ 8.7 million; the lowest of star Will Ferrell 's career. That marketing tactic can backfire, and drew
9384-413: Was going to be an increasingly serious complication for the film business: "The power of Rotten Tomatoes and fast-breaking word of mouth will only get stronger. Many Millennials and even Gen X-ers now vet every purchase through the Internet, whether it's restaurants, video games, make-up, consumer electronics or movies. As they get older and comprise an even larger share of total moviegoers, this behavior
9486-552: Was in the form of the Mozilla web browser, on which, with a few additions, Netscape 6 was based. Netscape 7.0 (based on Mozilla 1.0.1) was released in August 2002 as a direct continuation of Netscape 6 with very similar components. It picked up a few users, but was still very much a minority browser. It did, however, come with the popular Radio@Netscape Internet radio client. AOL had decided to deactivate Mozilla's popup-blocker functionality in Netscape 7.0, which created an outrage in
9588-538: Was later renamed Netscape Messenger 9, and an alpha version was released. In December 2007, AOL announced it was canceling Netscape's development of Messenger 9 as well as Navigator 9. Netscape's initial product line consisted of: Netscape's later products included: Between June 2006 and September 2007, AOL operated Netscape's website as social news website similar to Digg . The format did not do well as traffic dropped 55.1 percent between November 2006 and August 2007. In September 2007, AOL reverted Netscape's website to
9690-423: Was launched on August 12, 1998, as a spare-time project by Senh Duong. His objective in creating Rotten Tomatoes was "to create a site where people can get access to reviews from a variety of critics in the U.S ". As a fan of Jackie Chan , Duong was inspired to create the website after collecting all the reviews of Chan's Hong Kong action movies as they were being released in the United States. The catalyst for
9792-440: Was not a plaintiff in the case, though its executives were subpoenaed and it contributed much material to the case, including the entire contents of the 'Bad Attitude' internal discussion forum. On November 24, 1998, America Online (AOL) announced it would acquire Netscape Communications in a tax-free stock-swap valued at US$ 4.2 billion. By the time the deal closed on March 17, 1999, it was valued at US$ 10 billion. This merger
9894-461: Was released by AOL on August 18, 2004. After the Sun acquisition by Oracle in January 2010, Oracle continued to sell iPlanet branded applications, which originated from Netscape. The Netscape brand name continued to be used extensively. The company once again had its own programming staff devoted to the development and support for the series of web browsers . Additionally, Netscape also maintained
9996-493: Was released. It featured various functionality improvements, especially in the Mail and Newsgroups component, but did not update the browser core, whose functionality was essentially identical to that of version 4.08. One month later, Netscape Communications Corporation was bought by AOL . In November, work on Netscape 5.0 was canceled in favor of developing a completely new program from scratch . In 1998, an informal group called
10098-428: Was released. Version 2.0 added a full email reader called Netscape Mail, thus transforming Netscape from a single-purpose web browser to an Internet suite . The email client's main distinguishing feature was its ability to display HTML email . During this period, the entire suite was called Netscape Navigator. Version 3.0 of Netscape (the first beta was codenamed "Atlas") was the first to face any serious competition in
10200-689: Was ridiculed by many who believed that the two corporate cultures could not possibly mesh; one of its most prominent critics was longtime Netscape developer Jamie Zawinski . During Netscape's acquisition by AOL, joint development and marketing of Netscape software products would occur through the Sun-Netscape Alliance. In the newly branded iPlanet, the software included "messaging and calendar, collaboration, web, application, directory, and certificate servers", as well as "production-ready applications for e-commerce, including commerce exchange, procurement, selling, and billing." In March 2002, when
10302-430: Was short-lived. Netscape was notable for its cross-platform efforts. Its client software continued to be made available for Windows ( 3.1 , 95 , 98 , NT ), Macintosh, Linux, OS/2 , BeOS , and many versions of Unix including DEC , Sun Solaris , BSDI , IRIX , IBM AIX , and HP-UX . Its server software generally was only available for Unix and Windows NT, though some of its servers were made available on Linux, and
10404-481: Was the first time the browser was produced in-house with its own programming staff since 2004. AOL officially announced that support for Netscape Navigator would end on March 1, 2008, and recommended that its users download either the Flock or Firefox browsers, both of which were based on the same technology. The decision met mixed reactions from communities, with many arguing that the termination of product support
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