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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
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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