This is what I use for the most part to convey what a film is all about if I'm not quite sure what to make of it based on the trailer and synopsis. I follow certain users who have similar film taste as myself and trust their opinions.

This mostly echoes my views. And add the social media world where people's prime motivation is to get clicks and views, and I'm very skeptical that I'm getting anyone's honest opinion on something. Ebert was the gold standard here. You know even if he never made a single penny reviewing movies, he would have still been doing it for free. And his ability to articulate what he saw and share his insights, what he liked/disliked, all the good and bad was like no other. Even if you disagreed with his view on the movie, you were still going to learn something after watching a movie and reading his review.

There isn't one critic that I can rely on so since my tastes really don't align with mainstream audiences, I like to look at the total scores on RT and Metacritic. Although definitely not a perfect system, my tastes align more with those scores than some of the unoriginal, cliched, hits the average audience laps up.

I rely heavily on what critics say and I never read the full reviews until after I’ve seen a film.

If 85 or 90 percent of them like a movie, with high scores, chances are it’s going to be good.

They see a lot of hot garbage so that we the public don’t have to. I appreciate that.

Yeah, Letterboxd has gotten to be my go-to. Less for new releases, and you still have a lot of uninformed dreck and desperate-for-attention hot takes to skim past, but for a guaranteed quick pulse about even the most obscure movies from people who are really into whatever specific sub-sub-subgenre, Letterboxd is tough to top. Not a whole lot of mainstream (or even not-mainstream) outlets have written about, say, Superior 8 Ultra Brothers or Purana Mandir.

I do keep the Letterboxd app on my phone as well, but as noted I prefer an app that provides more general information that I can cross-reference along with links to established critics and not just user reviews – and IMDb's app fits that need just a wee bit better for me. Plus, its been around longer so I've been adding to my 'watched' list since forever, something I don't care to do twice! Of course, if both services/sites offered only user reviews, Letterboxd would win hands down for the various reasons others have cited.

You and I can have some fairly similar tastes, I've noticed, as well.

I would love to read your reviews on Letterboxd, Brian, as we share a same interest on HK films. Would love to know your username through PM, if you are okay with it?

I don't read reviews for movies generally. I will see what interests me based off trailers and ads. I don't care what some stuffy critic has to say about the technical appeal of a film.

Ebert was my go to critic, and still is when choosing a movie he reviewed before dying. Since then, I enjoy Ann Hornaday of the Washington Post.

I don't have a real presence on Letterboxd. Maybe some day. I could probably port over several hundred capsule-style HK reviews that have been residing on my computer for ages awaiting my return to that corner of the hobby (gawd knows I've never stopped buying them!). I posted a few at HKMDB back when I was an 'editor' there, whatever that meant, but they're hard to find now.

Okay. If you ever decide to repost or post to Letterboxd, please let me know.