My husband John and I and our friend Jeff came up with the perfect movie rating system on a four star scale a few years ago. My esteemed husband has decided to abandon this scale and has started reviewing movies based on a five star scale. I feel this is grade inflation. Here is my star rating system to help you better assess my movie reviews.
**** - The movie is a classic or destined to become a classic, i.e. Wall-E or The Dark Knight.
***1/2 - I loved this movie. It might not reach classic status, but you should get your butt out to a movie theater immediately to view this film, i.e. Iron Man or In Bruges.
*** - This was a solid film. See it, certainly, but you may do so at your leisure, i.e. The Visitor or Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
**1/2 - On the whole, I liked this film, but I had reservations, i.e. Pineapple Express.
** - This movie was completely forgettable, neither good nor horribly awful. You will forget this movie as soon as you leave the theater, i.e. I can't remember.
*1/2 - This movie was not my cup of tea, but others may like it due to a niche subject matter and/or critics being bamboozled by fancy directors, stars, or ideas, i.e. Cloverfield.
* - This movie was absolutely worthless, i.e. Harold and Kumar Escape from GitMo and Fool's Gold.
1/2 star - This movie was so bad it's actually funny and entertaining, i.e. nothing that was released this year.
0 stars - This movie was so bad, I had to leave the theater, i.e. shockingly nothing this year, but in the past House of Wax, Battlefield Earth, and Cheaper By the Dozen.
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5 comments:
First off, dear sweet wife o' mine, the four-star rating system has outgrown its usefulness. Far from inflating the grades, the five-star system gives a more accurate assessment of movies on their own merits, and avoids the lumping in of all movies in the 2-2.5 star range on the four-star scale. I would ask that everyone check out www.hammervision.typepad.com for a full breakdown of how the five-star rating scale works and I'm sure you'll agree. If not, well I found it too limiting to try to categorize a film in the 2-3.5 scale range on the four-star scale. Plus the advent of rating movies on Netflix and Facebook has made the five-star scale the one to use.
Second, 1.5 stars for Cloverfield? Crazy. 2 maybe. 2.5 better. But 1.5? Whoa. How dare you betray Mssr. Abrams.
Third, good call on top marks for Dark Knight and Wall-E. I doubt we'll see anything better the rest of the year.
Strong words from Hammer-Hammer, Esq! Juan, clearly you fail to recognize the invaluable nature of the 1/2 star rating. Until your newfangled 5-star rating system sees fit to incorporate the subtle nuance offered by Mr. 1/2-star, I'm sticking with the old tried n' true.
I'm not sure what is really the difference between these two systems. Also I get a little bothered by the half star idea. Why don't you just double it and make it a ten star scale with half stars only for heavy punctuation. This would allow for further nuances such as the extremely low half star movie, or the nine and a half that just didn't have the proper opening credit font.
But regardless of these petty quibbles, I am still continuing with my pioneering fourteen star scale. Anything under five is not watchable (at least without being ironically enjoyable), while anything over five is better than it is bad. Anything above seven is worthy of multiple viewings or recommendation. Now a ten and above rating is where it gets good. I mean who wouldn't know by common sense that any thing rated ten or stronger is worthy of seeing. With this scale we get instant awareness that a movie lying on this section of the scale is very good, but the genius thing is that we movie lovers get to have our own four star scale (ten to fourteen) to uniquely rate our favorites. Forget the debates trying to argue the laurels of one three and a half star movie over another, now you can say that "Star Wars" is a true fourteen while "The Matrix" is a strong thirteen.
I hope I can shine a light on the future, or at least make you two get along again by showing that while I am out in the wasteland of experimental criticism you two are safe and sound in your four and five star world.
Clark Kent, you have opened quite a can of worms. John will be working out the logistics of a 14 star rating scale for the rest of the week.
The more I think about it, the more I believe that we should just frak it all and use Victoria Jackson's movie ratings for blondes.
My BIGGEST complaint with Netflix is that I can't use the 1/2 star. The 1/2 star, more often than not, is the most important aspect of the rating. It's like punctuation. It sets the tone of the rating.
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