100% ROTTEN TOMATOES FILMS AND SERIES: Part 1

Before I get into the topic of today, got to report that this morning's Star Advertiser headline showed:

New infection record reached

Hawaii confirmed 2205 new COVID-19 cases...but zero new deaths.  

• Also, our hospitalization peak of 448 is only at 84 today.  A bit worrisome is that 32 of them were fully vaccinated.  
• This will get worse because of the holiday season, but maybe not significantly so as the Omicron variant gains in taking over from Delta.
• We also now have 12,777 active cases, another record, as the pervious high was 11,500.
• Our seven-day average positivity is 11%, creeping up, but nowhere close to the really badly hit states in this union.
• DC  109%
• Kansas 53%
• Vermont 52%
• New cases per million;
• Hawaii  1575
• Puerto Rico  1947
• Denmark  2448
• New York  1869
• Ireland  2081
• UK  1571
• Japan  2.5

Congressman Kai Kahele, who was vaccinated and boosted, reported that he tested positive.  However, he said that he only had mild flu-like symptoms, and urged those who haven't, to get inoculated as soon as possible, for the relative benign nature of his illness is because he was protected.

Finally, three members of the Korean boy pop group contracted this virus.  They had just returned from their JINGLE BALL tour of the USA.  They were all fully vaccinated.  

You getting this message?  Got vaccinated, still DON'T travel.

As I thought about what I might do for the rest of my life, global journeys, epicurean meals, and the like came first.  Then I dealt with the reality.  I'm getting old and there are too many 100% rated films and series just on Netflix and Prime that I'll never get close to watching them all.  So I reacted by watching Another Life on Netflix.  Why?  I stumbled across this series with two seasons and 20 total episodes, and noticed that Rotten Tomatoes reviewers gave it a 6% rating, while audiences bestowed 70%.  I sometimes do this when there is this wide gap on topics of my interest, and usually side with the audience.  This one was about searching for extraterrestrial aliens, I watched the first two episodes, and wonder why reviewers hated it.  

I recall several years ago seeing 4%/24% for Movie 43.  That was a Green Band trailer.  Here is a restricted trailer.    It was actually quite entertaining if prurience is among your desired interests.   Plus a cast of Kristen Bell, Halle Berry, Gerard Butler, Richard Gere, Hugh Jackman, Johnny Knoxville and a whole lot more.  This one had a variety of shock clips.  For instance, you just got to see this one of Kate Winslet and Hugh Jackman.

Read this review, calling it the worst film of the 2010's.  That  above short with Jackman/Winslet was filmed first, drawing-in the all-star cast, each paid $800 to appear.  Movie won three Golden Raspberries, but earned more than five times what it cost to make.

Where was I?  Oh, yes, 100% Rotten Tomatoes shows.  You would think all the top 100 movies of all time would get 100% scores.  Nope, only 10 of them.  In fact the highest rated 100% is The 1940 Philadelphia Story at #22.  #1 is the 1934 It Happened One Night (99%), #2 the 1936 Modern Times (98%) and #3 the 1939 The Wizard of Oz (98%).

So without further ado, here is the list of 100% rated films from Rotten Tomatoes.   There are almost 400 of them. You can read that article yourself, so I'll just highlight some items:

• Leave No Trace is a 2018 American drama film based on a novel about what really happened.  I list it first because it hold's Rotten Tomatoes record of a 100% rating with 247 positive reviews, the highest ever.  While it has generally been recognized as a good film, it has won no significant awards.
• Lady Bird once had a 100% rating, but in came four negative reviews, against 394 positive ones, so it was dropped to 99%.  I had my personal review in 2017 and said this film left me totally dissatisfied.  Well, not totally, for I sort of agreed with the RT Audience ranking of 79%.

Rotten Tomatoes can also be cruel.  Here are their ZERO-rated films.  One in particular caught my attention:  Jaws:  The Revenge, starring Michael Caine and Mario Van Pebbles.  I have recorded all four Jaws movies, and was planning to binge on the foursome some day soon.

I can go on an on but will now send you to another list: the best, by polls, genres and country.

• For example, Best Christmas:

• It's a Wonderful Life (1946) was voted the greatest Christmas film by an audience poll conducted by Axios and SurveyMonkey in 2018.^[46]
• Die Hard (1988) was voted the greatest Christmas movie by British film magazine Empirereaders in 2015.^[47]

• Best of China:

• Spring in a Small Town (小城之春; 1948) was ranked number 1 on the Hong Kong Film AwardsAssociation's Best 100 Chinese Motion Pictures list in 2005.^[106] It was also voted the best Chinese film of all time with 25 votes in a 2010 poll of 37 critics organized by the Hong Kong Film Critics Society.^[107]
• Farewell My Concubine (霸王别姬; 1993) was voted the best Mainland Chinese film of all time by 88 international film experts in a poll conducted by Time Out Shanghai and Time Out Beijing.^[108]

Last month Rotten Tomatoes listed a whole bunch of series at 100% Certified Fresh.  There are 145 seasons mentioned.  Over the next two parts I will focus on them, and will begin by dabbling on these three:

• 1971:  The Year That Music Changed Everything:  Season 1 appeared only a few months ago, which means there will be subsequent seasons.
• Babylon Berlin, Season 1:  I started watching this series last year and have not yet gone through the year one and two more series are now available.  Excellent, actually, but hard to find time to continue.
• Breaking Bad, Seasons 3 and 4:  There were 5 seasons and I never watched one episode.  The entire series averaged 96%/97%.  It did spawn off Better Call Saul, which I do view, which also has 5 seasons and an overall rating of 98%/96%.  A point to be made is that even the U.S. can produced worthwhile films and series.

I've focused on Netflix and Amazon Prime series because they have recently dominated.  These two will be featured in Parts 2 and 3.

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