As I write this (July 26, 2017), there are 14 user reviews on this documentary by the following people:
"Justin Anderson", "Shane Flint", "janepeterse", "David Trotter", "Isaac Landry", "Sean Rivera", "kaylifsutl", "Elisabeth James", "Christopher Ortezo", "jsscmrgndvs", "Mandy Ford", "Amanda Nasc", "Monica Summer", "mabarry-69560"
I placed their names in quotations because I'm convinced they're all non-existent entities. ALL of these "users" have submitted "reviews" for some combination of a VERY small batch of independent films and documentaries and nothing more: Good Fortune, Danger Close, Chief Zabu, Imperfections, Urban Hymn, Founders, Granny of the Dead, Attack of the Lederhosen Zombies, 1 Night and Walk of Fame. End of list. MOST of their reviews are approximately the same length, because the smaller number of real people writing them -- much as with ALL fake reviews all across the web -- are paid by the word. The writing style employed on several of them are so similar as to be the work of one person.
All of these "authors" give these film 9- or 10-star IMDb ratings, which in turn prompts readers who smell a scam to place retaliatory reviews, much like this one, to try and "balance" the deceptively high scores given to the films in question. While I actively encourage that practice, I DON'T encourage throwing up disingenuous 1-star ratings because that's just as detrimental to the casual IMDb surfer as the gushing 10-star reviews. I rated Good Fortune a 6, because I HONESTLY believe that's what it deserves; it's a well-made hagiography, cut and dried, and since it's theatrical run was limited largely to festival dates, the producers or the studio that eventually acquired it rather obviously sought out resources to boost it's profile on IMDb and parent company Amazon (where many of these exact same "users" deposited the exact same reviews while having no other product reviews to their names), as well as other sites I'm sure. Obviously, SOME viewers would indeed rate this particular film much higher than I did, others will honestly rate it much lower, but the fact that ALL the reviews on the film so far have toed virtually the exact same line, in addition to the staggeringly obvious clues to their manufactured nature as noted above not only does a disservice to the film and its makers — even if they WERE privy to the scheme — but also to IMDb's already shaky trustworthiness in this regard.
Surely if the IMDb can shutter the forums that helped make them the global community experience they always wanted to be because of inappropriate behavioour, they can likewise start filtering out fake, misleading and oftentimes paid-for reviews.
Until then, this particular movie remains worth seeing, but in no way worthy of such high praise.
"Justin Anderson", "Shane Flint", "janepeterse", "David Trotter", "Isaac Landry", "Sean Rivera", "kaylifsutl", "Elisabeth James", "Christopher Ortezo", "jsscmrgndvs", "Mandy Ford", "Amanda Nasc", "Monica Summer", "mabarry-69560"
I placed their names in quotations because I'm convinced they're all non-existent entities. ALL of these "users" have submitted "reviews" for some combination of a VERY small batch of independent films and documentaries and nothing more: Good Fortune, Danger Close, Chief Zabu, Imperfections, Urban Hymn, Founders, Granny of the Dead, Attack of the Lederhosen Zombies, 1 Night and Walk of Fame. End of list. MOST of their reviews are approximately the same length, because the smaller number of real people writing them -- much as with ALL fake reviews all across the web -- are paid by the word. The writing style employed on several of them are so similar as to be the work of one person.
All of these "authors" give these film 9- or 10-star IMDb ratings, which in turn prompts readers who smell a scam to place retaliatory reviews, much like this one, to try and "balance" the deceptively high scores given to the films in question. While I actively encourage that practice, I DON'T encourage throwing up disingenuous 1-star ratings because that's just as detrimental to the casual IMDb surfer as the gushing 10-star reviews. I rated Good Fortune a 6, because I HONESTLY believe that's what it deserves; it's a well-made hagiography, cut and dried, and since it's theatrical run was limited largely to festival dates, the producers or the studio that eventually acquired it rather obviously sought out resources to boost it's profile on IMDb and parent company Amazon (where many of these exact same "users" deposited the exact same reviews while having no other product reviews to their names), as well as other sites I'm sure. Obviously, SOME viewers would indeed rate this particular film much higher than I did, others will honestly rate it much lower, but the fact that ALL the reviews on the film so far have toed virtually the exact same line, in addition to the staggeringly obvious clues to their manufactured nature as noted above not only does a disservice to the film and its makers — even if they WERE privy to the scheme — but also to IMDb's already shaky trustworthiness in this regard.
Surely if the IMDb can shutter the forums that helped make them the global community experience they always wanted to be because of inappropriate behavioour, they can likewise start filtering out fake, misleading and oftentimes paid-for reviews.
Until then, this particular movie remains worth seeing, but in no way worthy of such high praise.