A friend told me that "The Soloist," which I obviously liked, got a mediocre, low 60s rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and I checked it out. Worse than he thought: 56%. At the same time I noticed that "State of Play," which I obviously didn't like, did much better:

"The Soloist": 56%
"State of Play": 85%

These are the ratings for "T-Meter critics" (all critics), which is the default setting on Rotten Tomatoes. Click on the tab for "Top Critics" (or critics from top newspapers) and the fortunes of the two movies reverse:

"The Soloist": 71%
"State of Play": 63%

Meanwhile over at metacritic, which some movieogers supposedly favor, but which feels less crisp than RT, "The Soloist" gets a 61 to "State of Play"'s 64. 

All of which reminds us there are still a few bugs in the quantitative (and possibly qualitative) critical system. It also makes me worry over the state of movie criticism when those top critics at those top newspapers disappear, and we're left with the Wallys from wallysworld.com.