Introduction
As a reviewer, the most difficult thing for me to do has been to rate movies. I mentioned this at the beginning of my top ten list because some of the movies that I rated 4.5 or 5 were lower on the list than others I had rated higher. I am trying to refine my rating system because I am the type of guy who either really likes a movie, kind of likes a movie or doesn't like a movie at all. With this kind of mindset, I have been trying to be as fair as I can to movies, and I know I have rated some too high and others too low in the process.
I have been giving some thought into not using the five star system and doing something way different. I was actually thinking of doing a color system in which I assign certain meaning to some colors. However, even that comes down to the five star rating system. Everything I can think of ultimately converts to it.
What I would like to do is have a smaller amount of wiggle room within the five stars. There are so many times where I rate it as a three meaning that it is good, but then I think "But three seems kind of harsh, maybe I should give it an extra .5." Maybe it's because I am naturally a pretty nice guy who does not like to be harsh or unfair.
The bottom line is this: I overcomplicate things, and I have decided to define my rating criteria for you so that it is less of a complication for me:
1 Star: Avoid this movie! If you see this rating from me, it means I do not think this movie is worth seeing even when it comes on television. A movie will have this score if I could tell little to no effort was clearly placed. There may be some exceptions to this. For example, I might give a movie this score if I find it very offensive.
2 Stars: Wait for it to come on television. I would not go out of my way to watch this movie again, but if it is on television one day, it might be worth at least watching. There was some effort put into this movie, and it is often entertaining at moments. It is just not worth going out of your way to see.
3 Stars: Watch it on Netflix or Redbox it. It was a decent flick that had me entertained. I would probably see it again, and it is something I would recommend. However, do not worry about seeing this one in theatres. It is good, not great.
4 Stars: See it in theatres at matinee price. This is a very good movie. Go ahead and go see this one in theatres. However, the quality of the movie is not good enough to where I would recommend it at full price.
5 Stars: See this movie at full price. This movie is just an all around great film. By all means go see it. I would never advise someone to skip the matinee price because I believe in saving money. However, if you can only make it to a nightly showing, go ahead and see it. You will not feel like you have been cheated.
I will see how the ratings go according to this criteria I have set. I may one day actually combine the 4 and 5 stars just because there really is not a huge difference between seeing it at matinee and full price. However, I like keeping it at five stars because it gives you enough detail about how I thought the quality of the movie was.
What about family values, violence, topics? The current rating system is askew.
ReplyDeleteRating a movie is kind of a subjective thing. It is about how I feel the overall quality of the movie is. It will be kind of askew no matter what I do.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first started reviewing movies, I tried taking a scientific approach in which I developed categories, assigned a certain amount of stars, and averaged them together. One of those categories was appropriateness of content as in "Should I take a child or my parents to see this?" The main problem that resulted from this is there are some genuinely great films that I feel should get a higher amount of stars, but they either have a lot of violence or a few too many sexual innuendos.
Because of this, I have not been concentrating on specific topics, but on the movie as a whole. However, if a movie has a lot of degrading stuff in it, it will sometimes be a factor. If you look at my review of "Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues," which you can find in the December 2013 tab of this website, you will see that part of why I rated it so low was I did not enjoy the racial humor. I felt it was in bad taste. That one also had a lot of sexual humor I felt was in bad taste, and while I did not say that in my review, that was probably one reason I also rated it super low.
If you look at my reviews, you will also see that I have a section in all of them that discusses what kind of content you will find in the movie. I am a little more descriptive about it than the MPAA but a little less descriptive than IMDB's parents guide, which goes into so much detail that the movie often looks worse than it is. I use my own subjective values on it to list everything that I think would be offensive to parents wanting to see this movie with their children.
I hope that answers your question, K. I really put this up as a way for myself to define what the ratings mean. My ratings are intended to give you an idea about how I felt the overall quality of the film is. Having specific categories kind of stifles my freedom to so, and I justify myself by having a content section and putting in my reasoning for how I feel in the review itself.
Another example of using that stuff as criteria for my rating is in the movie, "Carrie." I rated that film a half a star less than it otherwise would have been because it had some anti-Christian content that I found very offensive. However, besides that I enjoyed a lot of aspects of the film.
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