Hi Vegas fans,
Before you think this blog post is a movie review, I want you to just hang with me here for a minute. Ok - so I went to see Bridesmaids with my wife. She picked this one. I picked the last movie - Everything Must Go starring Will Ferrell.
Rotten Tomatoes gave Bridesmaids an 89% fresh rating, and it has been billed as "the next Hangover." It had its moments, and a few raunchy scenes, but for me it really didn't live up to the expectations. And it's not because it wasn't set in Vegas or because my wife picked it. We tend to like the same movies, and I really trust her judgement.
But we tend to disagree on one aspect of movies: ratings. She follows Rotten Tomatoes pretty closely, and that's why she picked this movie. I do not follow the tomatometer. Here's why. They gave Secretariat only a 64% fresh rating. Worse, they gave Sense and Sensibility with Hugh Grant a 98% fresh rating. I liked Secretariat and thought it was a heart-warming but not over-the-top movie and gave me more than what I expected from a Disney flick - much better than a 64% rating. On the other hand, I'd rather stick my head in a vat of boiling grease and bob for day-old onion rings rather than see Sense and Sensibility. I have two very simple but strict rules about movies:
1. A movie shall not have Hugh Grant in it.
2. A move shall not be adopted by anything written by Jane Austin.
Those are my requirements. I don't need a fresh or rotten meter to tell me how great or how lousy a movie is. I just need to see a few coming attractions and read what the movie is about in order to determine whether or not I want to see it. Most of the time, I'm not disappointed. I'm sure you have your requirements, too, and I bet they have nothing to do with critics.
Ask yourself this question: how many times have you been to a movie that the critics loved but you hated? How about the opposite: how many times have you been to a movie that the critics didn't treat kindly but you liked?
But I digress. What does all of this have to do with Vegas? After all, I promised this was not going to be about movies. Well, here you go: don't trust ratings. You'll read lots of critics who review Vegas shows, restaurants, and so on. They all have opinions. Some of them will like stuff you hate, and others will hate stuff you like. You need to know what your Hugh Grants and Secretariats are. Then make up your mind.
Think about it this way - if the critics aren't always right, and you blow $35 or more on a movie (you're taking a date and buying popcorn), you're gonna be mildly tiffed that you spent hard-earned dollars on someone else's opinions. How are you gonna feel if you do the same thing on a much more expensive vacation to Las Vegas?
That's why my travel guide offers you something different. It has categories of information and provides you with a lot of context for what you need to decide about how you can have an awesome time in Vegas. And I've got a lot of work to do to update it for 2012. But that's for another blog post...
Viva,
Mike
No comments:
Post a Comment