It was so popular last year that we decided to do it again! Join us this holiday season as we introduce you to twelve of our favourite podcasts in the 12 Days of Podmas.
There’s an ongoing battle within the world of opinion and criticism when it comes to subjective and objective opinion. What makes something objectively bad, and who is making that judgment? The changing nature of the internet means that everyone can have a platform to create an opinion. With IMDB, user reviews and scores mean anyone can rate and review.
The lowest scored movies on IMDB are taken from user reviews, with the movie having to have at least 10,000 scores. In a world where people can review-bomb films on other sites, the idea of collectively voting down movies feels subjective. The podcast W-Rated sees hosts Claire and Daisy (with the occasional guest) go through the films on the bottom 100 list at random to see if they deserve to be there.
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From the first episode, W-Rated doesn’t aim to go for the style of podcasting that means people rip things to pieces without any attempt to play devil’s advocate. Daisy and Claire take their time to try and find merit in the films they watch. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they really, really, really try and question their sanity in why they are looking.
There are a few levels of fun to be had with W-Rated depending on the levels you’re willing to commit. There are undoubtedly some audience members who have either already watched the films and are nodding along, or some that haven’t and get an idea of the film from the conversation. For the most part, this reviewer has only seen a few of the films on the list, but the mental image conjured through the conversation – the imagination may be better than the finished product. It gives W-Rated a wide scope for its audience.
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But it comes back to the objectivity-verses-subjectivity debate. There are people who will find enjoyment in the films being discussed that other people have found “objectively” bad. There are guests that come on to talk about why they love a film being discussed and will defend it based on what they like about it. The closing parts of the podcast lead to chats on favourite films based on themes from the main episode, again leading to opinion and enjoyment of films.
W-Rated is worth your time; an entertaining and likeable podcast doing strong work assessing which of the world’s worst movies are worth watching.
W-Rated is available on various podcast platforms.