On watching talent shows

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I was watching America's Got Talent, and a few times this happened to me: Contestants who I thought was good were booed/eliminated, and viceversa. Has anyone here experienced the same thing?

Yes. I think this is because everyone has different tastes and the idea of what is true talent is really subjective. Something I find absolutely amazing you may find ridiculous and pathetic. On several of those shows I have hoped for people that were not the favourite because I preferred them. This is also the reason, for example, why I do not put much stock in movie reviews: just because someone else doesn`t like it doesn`t mean I won`t-and vice versa.

Those shows are not only about talent. They also evaluate how good on stage the contestants are. Singing is not about having a good voice anymore. A lot of "singers" today are mostly good PR machines: good looks, with a strong/charming personality to draw a large audience. The contestants that cannot achieve that (and pump up the ratings) are dismissed.

If a movie gets bad reviews across the board and it's not something I am interested in anyway, I don't watch it. If a movie I am interested in gets at least one good review, I will watch it.

I ALWAYS check the trailer and the reviews before watching a movie. There are just so much movies nowadays and so little time to watch them all, that you need some help deciding what to watch. But I do not check all the reviews. I have some reviewers I trust: Peter Travers (Rolling Stones), Peter Bradshaw (The Guardian), A. O. Scott (The New York Times), Roger Ebert (Chicago Suntimes - you can trust him except when he is reviewing a movie with Angelina Jolie - he loves her and will always give good reviews to any crap she makes). I also check the rating in Rotten Tomatoes.

Wow, that's a really detailed analysis. I live in Singapore, so I am usually reading reviews from a different group of journalists.

The recent Harry Potter movie was something I heard about on Facebook a few months - when the trailer was released quite a few of my friends were enthusiastically posting the video. I have read all the books so will be going to watch it over the weekend.

Well, I really like movies, and in my country it is really hard to watch good cinema. i live in Republic of Panama, Central America, and distributors will only exhibit blockbusters here. If I want to watch good cinema I have to use another resources. Thats why I research so much, to see what its worth it out there. I keep a list of movies I want to see, to get them when possible. I do not like the HP movies. I watched the 1, 2, 3, 5 (actually did not finish that one because I got bored), 7 (the first part), and I am not planning on watching the 2nd part. Its just too repetitive. Its like watching the same movie over and over again. I hope you enjoy it, though. It got good reviews.

Thanks. Based on my understanding of the story, this last movie will move a lot faster than the 1st part because it's when the good people battle it out with the evil guys.

I enjoy watching Japanese movies, but sometimes there are interesting ones which don't get shown in our cinemas. I usually discover those by word of mouth from other interested friends, or when I pass a DVD store and look at the Japanese section.

I like good cinema, and I do not really care where it comes from. I have seen a couple of good Japanese movies lately (old ones I just watched): "Battle Royale" (2000) and "Confessions" (2010). I also watched the Korean "71: Into the Fire" (2010) and "Bedevilled" (2010). Pretty good -and dark- movies all of them.