What happened to the film reviews section from the Media Browser days?

[ebr 16169]

15 hours ago, ng4ever said:

 

Why do they want so much money though for the data ?

Because providing data is their business.

[GrimReaper 4739]

Bumping this up for visibility.

On 9/4/2022 at 5:29 PM, Luke said:

I think movie db also has reviews now.

They do, both for movies and TV shows:

https://developers.themoviedb.org/3/movies/get-movie-reviews

https://developers.themoviedb.org/3/tv/get-tv-reviews

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"rating":7.0
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"content":"M3GAN achieved its goal perfectly by delivering a hilarious dark comedy that was incredibly aware at how ridiculous the premise is. It had me laughing my a** off and had some pretty decent kills for a PG-13 film, although I think it could have been even better with a hard R rating.\r\n\r\nBut this film is not just a dark horror comedy, it dives deeper than its surface appeal. Deep down there is intimate social commentary on parents using technology as a crutch. Whenever M3GAN is in the room, Gemma finds it easier to neglect her niece and let's M3GAN take control of the parenting. This makes it much harder for her to get a genuine connection with her to fulfill motherly needs. I found this surprisingly compelling and really does have a genuine impact in today's society, obviously not with life size android dolls but with tablets and phones. Really enjoyed this aspect of the film.\r\n\r\nAllison Williams delivered a pretty decent performance; it was nice to see her in another prominent horror role since Get Out. Violet McGraw once again was great as an inspiring child actress; her filmography is beginning to be stacked for her being such a young age. All other performances were quite lackluster, but that is expected in a film of this nature.\r\n\r\nOverall, there is not really much more to say. This film is funny, weird, and wildly fun. It's never going to be a standout competitor for award season but there is something to say about the pure entertainment it was able to deliver.\r\n\r\nScore: 66%\r\nVerdict: Good\r\nTheater Verdict: See It",
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"content":"I was excited, but didn't have much expectations for a PG-13 horror movie. But this was a surprisingly good horror flick. Though the majority of the film's slasher moments are near the end, the story's introduction and setup were surprisingly engaging. Watching the creation of M3GAN and the development of her relationship with the characters in the story was a great way of anticipating the moment she would take matters into her own hands. \r\nMy only problem is that I wanted to see more. Overall, surprisingly solid for a PG-13 horror movie. 9/10.",
"created_at":"2023-01-12T00:37:14.726Z",
"id":"63bf563a8efe73007d8e5303",
"updated_at":"2023-01-17T15:12:01.142Z",
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"content":"FULL SPOILER-FREE REVIEW @ https://www.msbreviews.com/movie-reviews/m3gan-review\r\n\r\n\"M3GAN doesn't reinvent the respective subgenre of killer robots or AI that turns against humans, but it kept me entertainingly invested throughout its entire runtime.\r\n\r\nAkela Cooper's premise is pushed to its limits - and even beyond - being elevated by excellent performances, a clever satirical narrative, eyebrow-raising killings, and meaningful messages about parenting and technology's role in a child's upbringing. It doesn't take itself too seriously or tries to be more than what it truly is.\r\n\r\nFar from being a masterpiece, but if only all January horror flicks were like this one...\"\r\n\r\nRating: B",
"created_at":"2023-01-15T20:52:13.669Z",
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"content":"**M3GAN knows what its target audience wants and delivers the exact fun horror comedy to thrill and delight.**\r\n\r\nI was conflicted before seeing the movie. On the one hand, the trailer looked ridiculous. On the other, I knew that Blumhouse and James Wan partnered for this. After seeing the reviews, I finally accepted that I had to see this movie, and I’m glad I did. Was it ridiculous? Absolutely. M3GAN knew what it was. It knew it was cheesy but had fun with it while also cranking up the tension and suspense. So many cliche “stop standing there and do something” moments that surprisingly added to the stress and horror. I wouldn’t say the movie was ever scary, but it was an excellent thriller. It’s a fun Blumhouse film that was self-aware and goofy while creepy and tense. One of my favorite parts was the short scene with one of the worst detectives of all time that had me laughing out loud in the theater. M3GAN is not a movie for everyone, but people who like other Blumhouse films and dark comedies would find themselves at home with this movie.",
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On 9/4/2022 at 5:44 PM, Happy2Play said:

Yes they do, so the question is would this meet the needs of this topic?  Then where would they go?

We have a popup for Overview>More, might as well have one for Reviews, that would require absolute minimum space in the UI.

On 9/4/2022 at 6:06 PM, Luke said:

It's just that these are not professional reviews.

For the better, as those are way more honest and down to earth compared to mainstream media critics. I'm positive majority of users would prefer RT Audience Ratings/Reviews compared to RT Critics ones, given the chance. In lack of thereof, go for the next best thing available.

On 9/4/2022 at 6:06 PM, Luke said:

And also are they moderated for profanity, that could be an issue.

I wouldn't mind unmoderated as a lot of content nowdays deserved to be mocked and ridiculed at to no end, and swearing is a (big) part of it; however, simple profanity filter would take care of majority of that.

Edit: Yep, reviews are moderated:

Approval time for reviews - Talk — The Movie Database (TMDB) (themoviedb.org)

 

Edited January 24, 2023 by GrimReaper
Link

[Cheesegeezer 3104]

yeah i used to have a "Reviews" button in my WMC Themes on the Details page to show critic reviews.

I quite liked them back then.  But now i don't believe any reviews that are on imdb or RT, i also don't believe the scores anymore.  Before a movie is released it has a score of 9.5 on imdb.. i mean WTFlipping heck is all that about.

the only ones i listen to are right here on this forum in our little TV and Movie Club!  

 

[GrimReaper 4739]

Was this ever given any more thought? 

[Luke 42077]

13 hours ago, GrimReaper said:

Was this ever given any more thought? 

H, yes it's an idea that we're interested in. Thanks.

[analgesic 6]

On 07/11/2023 at 15:42, Luke said:

H, yes it's an idea that we're interested in. Thanks.

IMHO Criticker would be perfect to work with. 

 

The reviews are community-based, however they have a really powerful engine to predict what you'll like based upon your own ratings. 

 

They're small, so they wouldn't have exorbitant pricing. And there's likely a lot of synergy between the user bases, so working together would drive growth for both of you. 

 

The only big roadblock might be the state of their API. I know they were looking to revamp it, but I'm not sure what the current status is. Definitely worth reaching out to them, however.

[GrimReaper 4739]

For reference, while we debate about reviews source viability and how professional the reviews are, Plex is expanding on their feature set (in addition to already available professional critic reviews - aside of how relevant those are). Something should certainly be better than nothing that we currently have? 

 

[Luke 42077]

Yea I think ultimately it is a question of what is the best data to use. Or maybe it just becomes something that happens internally within each Emby Server amongst the users on it.

[Jdiesel 1431]

Letterboxd integration would be amazing 

 

https://letterboxd.com/api-beta/

[sh0rty 714]

On 8/23/2024 at 5:50 PM, GrimReaper said:

For reference, while we debate about reviews source viability and how professional the reviews are, Plex is expanding on their feature set (in addition to already available professional critic reviews - aside of how relevant those are). Something should certainly be better than nothing that we currently have? 

 

 

Elsewhere Plugin for jellyfin also scrapes the TMDB review which is pretty nice imo...

 

 

[GrimReaper 4739]

That's a nice implementation.

4 hours ago, sh0rty said:

Plugin for jellyfin also scrapes the TMDB review

What's funny is that Emby also queries TMDB for reviews by default - it just does nothing with them.

Edit: Maybe an idea for another proof-of-concept, akin to what you did with Spotlight? 

Edited January 21 by GrimReaper
Append

[sh0rty 714]

5 hours ago, GrimReaper said:

That's a nice implementation.

What's funny is that Emby also queries TMDB for reviews by default - it just does nothing with them.

Edit: Maybe an idea for another proof-of-concept, akin to what you did with Spotlight? 

Honestly and sad to say, but I guess I'm officially done with contributions for a simple reason:
The competitor got mature since 10.11.X, the CSS theming options are uncomparable and are usable in lots of clients including visual plugins like a Spotlight banner, in terms of visual appeal Emby is a nono nowadays. It's not forbidden that a software can work awesome while looking visually appealing/stunning out of the box. I found so cool plugins for it like "Elsewhere" for availability infos and reviews, a Spotlight banner playing an item trailer on homescreen in fullscreen like netflix, Plugins for showing item direct links to my Arr instances, Direct Play and Transcoding works near as stable as Emby in meantime, I found stable and reliable Clients for all our OSes. Currently run it on my RTX powered backup machine, but I'm one inch away from making the switch in the next months after some more bulletproof testing to my main QSVmini server. I'm done with threads open for years with the same answer: "This option is certainly possible for future updates. Thanks."

I loved to fiddle around with Emby when I came from Plex, the love for this software grew over 10 years ago when I began to contribute to the old Samsung Orsay app. But I feel Emby lost it somehow on the timeline in terms of keeping up with the market in this sector against a multi-million dollar company and a really huge open-source crowd. I will just keep it for @rbjtechs MediaInfo plugin.

Edited January 21 by sh0rty

[sh0rty 714]

@GrimReaperWIP

 

[GrimReaper 4739]

Looking good.

[brothom 177]

3 hours ago, sh0rty said:

@GrimReaperWIP

Pretty good.

Might it be an idea to also include the review's source logo (for now only TMDB logo but I can imagine other providers will be added later like the Google, Rotten Tomatoes, etc).

Maybe show less content initially, 3 or 4 lines are fine if they're behind a "toggle more", especially in this view where the emphasis should be on the media itself.

Maybe use a higher backdrop filter blur and more solid color to make the content more readable for people that are (slighty) visually impaired.

Edited February 3 by brothom

[sh0rty 714]

1 hour ago, brothom said:

Pretty good.

Might it be an idea to also include the review's source logo (for now only TMDB logo but I can imagine other providers will be added later like the Google, Rotten Tomatoes, etc).

Maybe show less content initially, 3 or 4 lines are fine if they're behind a "toggle more", especially in this view where the emphasis should be on the media itself.

Maybe use a higher backdrop filter blur and more solid color to make the content more readable for people that are (slighty) visually impaired.

This was just on plain dark Emby theme. The amount of characters to show + an option to have the Reviews opened or closed when entering detail screens will also be included. Since it's a simple JS file with a bit CSS, it will be configurable by every user who likes to fiddle.

Edit: Adding other review sites than TMDB is unlikely since RT API access is at 60k/year or involves things like python, and let's not talk about IMDb. They even pull down the existing CORS proxies. I hope there will be an official solution available in all apps. This JS snippet just shows that data is already there, it just needs to be used.

Edited February 3 by sh0rty

[sh0rty 714]

 

[brothom 177]

On 03/02/2026 at 14:07, sh0rty said:

This was just on plain dark Emby theme. The amount of characters to show + an option to have the Reviews opened or closed when entering detail screens will also be included. Since it's a simple JS file with a bit CSS, it will be configurable by every user who likes to fiddle.

Yep I know. Just giving my two-cents UX-wise, considering that's basically my day job.
Regardless of that well done so far though. I like some of the stylised choices like the left border separating content into the reading direction and the "golden" rating label.

On 03/02/2026 at 14:07, sh0rty said:

Edit: Adding other review sites than TMDB is unlikely since RT API access is at 60k/year or involves things like python, and let's not talk about IMDb. They even pull down the existing CORS proxies. I hope there will be an official solution available in all apps. This JS snippet just shows that data is already there, it just needs to be used.

Oh absoutely, but they're just examples. RT and IMDB are currently also flooded with bots/AI generated reviews making them highly unreliable. I've notified the staff there a couple of items already but it's also like... I'd better not say.

I'm just thinking slightly longer term than just one review provider and there's a BUNCH next to the bigger ones like Letterboxd, Metacritic, Moviemeter, etc etc. Implementing a system that'd support multiple review providers would make it easier later to add a new provider since the UI/UX are already built and just await data.

Edited February 4 by brothom