Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.PCS 1/10/84; site ahuta.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!mhuxj!houxm!ahuta!ecl From: ecl@ahuta.UUCP (e.leeper) Newsgroups: net.movies Subject: Re: How I Rate Films Message-ID: <234@ahuta.UUCP> Date: Mon, 17-Dec-84 15:36:13 EST Article-I.D.: ahuta.234 Posted: Mon Dec 17 15:36:13 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 20-Dec-84 02:41:39 EST References: <141@ahuta.UUCP>, <6500036@hp-pcd.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Information Systems Labs, Holmdel NJ Lines: 101 REFERENCES: <141@ahuta.UUCP>, <6500036@hp-pcd.UUCP> >I don't know about other people, but I tend to get tired of >reading overly critical Do you mean here critical in the sense "discussed in bad terms" or merely pertaining to film criticism, positive or negative? >and analytical movie reviews written by apparently >self-proclaimed movie "critics". I wrote the article you are complaining about, so I suppose you are referring to me, though I do not consider myself a critic. I would say that a bona fide critic should have much more background in the history of cinema and in film style. I consider myself a film fan who is informally writing about films for a company club science fiction notice. Since it is easy to do, we are also posting those reviews to the net. I guess as a result of the posting I also am writing for the people who read the net.movies net, if they are interested. When I do get people disagreeing with my reviews, they run pretty close to 50-50 that I am too positive or too negative. >Personally, when I go to see a movie I usually go for enjoyment, Enjoyment is certainly the bottom line. >not just to be able to say I saw it and proceed to fling around >an opinionated critique along with my own biased "rating" >system. I never go to a film to be able to say I saw it. I don't use it as a status symbol, I genuinely like film, bad and good. And I like to talk about film to decide for myself why I thought a film was good or why it was bad. I never claimed that rating a film was any more than a measure of how much I liked a film. I also like to quantify things. It is a shorthand for a lot of words, placing a film into a spectrum of films I liked more or less. If I rate of film a +2 that means something to me. I guess that it is better than LAST STARFIGHTER (a +1) but not as good as THE NATURAL (a +3) in my opinion. >Personally, I liked "Terminator". The person I saw >it with liked it. The last three people I talked to who >had seen it also liked it. Even the local newspaper's movie >"critic" had nothing bad to say about it. There, you said in print that you liked the film. Is it so much worse me to say I was sort of neutral and list some of the things I did and did not like? Then for those who want a nice succinct summary, I attach a number to my feelings about the film. I am not telling you what to think about the film any more than you are telling me. >I guess you have to take most of the reviews and rating >systems you see on the net with a grain of salt. Not at all, you have to stop misinterpretting what a rating is. I thought that TERMINATOR was better than SUPERMAN II (I thought that was a -1 film) but not as good as SUPERMAN I (a +1). You can take that with a grain of salt if you like, but that really and truly is my opinion. Why would I lie about how I felt about the films? >They best way to determine whether or not you'll like a >movie is to go see it, not just take someone else's >(opinionated) word for it that the movie is a "dog"; don't >believe everything you read. Ideally that is true. But by the same token, the best way to find out if a coffee maker is good is to buy it and find out for oneself. That doesn't mean that I am never again going to read Consumer Reports. Before I make a purchase, I like to know what other opinionated people who have dealt with this particular model have thought of it. I like to see how this group of people rated it. Consumer Reports doesn't use numbers, but they use a rating system with symbols that might as well be numerical. I generally find my opinions of a product vary somewhat from theirs, but not enough to negate their value. If I have one Saturday afternoon but two films that I have some interest in, I generally want to know what some opinionated person thought of the film. > >A few years back I saw "Monty Python Meets Beyond The >Fringe", I never saw it. I was curious to see it, but it got really bad reviews. >a film which *in my opinion* would, on a scale of 0 >to 10, need a periscope to see -100. Less than 20 minutes >into the movie about two-thirds of the audience had walked >out. I suppose here most people would call that movie a >dog; but then, there WERE a few people who sat through the >whole thing and seemed to like it. Don't equate sitting though a film with thinking the film is good. >If one of them had been a "critic" and proceeded to tell >everybody that it was a truly great film, would you believe them? I would believe that that was truly their opinion. You have just given a good argument why we need a lot of people around giving their opinions of films. We need a good mix of opinions. I promise to continue to do my part. How about you printing your opinions more often? (Evelyn C. Leeper for) Mark R. Leeper ...ihnp4!lznv!mrl