The philosophy behind my rating system
From Summa Bergania
by David Bergan
March 11, 2007
Worth seeing? yes; but not worth going to see.
—Samuel Johnson
Movie ratings are subjective... even subjective to oneself. There are some days when a particular movie might strike you as being very good and artistic, and other days where the same movie seems bland and cliche. When I decided to start rating every movie I saw, I felt it necessary to give my stars discreet values, and real-life interpretations. I don't want any half-stars, so I concocted a scale based on mutually exclusive actions... how I would physically carry out my like or dislike of the movie. Given all the movies that exist, how do the merits or demerits of this particular film actually cause me to behave?
Thus the following algorithm can be used to reach a rating:
- Would I want to ever spend time seeing this movie again? If not, it gets 1 star. If so, move on to question 2.
- Would I want to ever spend the time, effort, and money to rent this movie again? If not, it gets 2 stars. If so, move on to question 3.
- Is this a great movie that I highly recommend to all my friends, and would consider buying for myself? If not, it gets 3 stars. If so, move on to question 4.
- Is this great movie a masterpiece... virtually flawless in every scene... a movie that I could watch every week and never tire of it? If a moral film, is it grounded in a moral that not only entertains, but inspires my life? If a comedy, its humor never dulls, but actually you find yourself anticipating the jokes or slapstick or expressions to see them time and time again? If a drama, does the movie submerge you in the dilemmas of its characters... where you feel Hamlet's madness because you understand his uncertainty? If not, it gets 4 stars. If so, it gets 5.
The only adjustment I made to this scale was the addition of a special Hell for movies I despise with all my existence. These are movies that are either a moral abyss, or shameless political propaganda made to engineer a particular response rather than educate the audience about the issue. The first entry was Capote.
This process results in the following scale:
| 0 Stars | Movies I Hate, Hate, Hate—picket protest this movie. |
| 1 Star | Movies that would make me walk out of the room and find something better to do with my time—don't give this movie your hard earned money. |
| 2 Stars | Movies I wouldn't put in myself, but would probably watch if I walked into a room and it was on—this movie won't hurt you. |
| 3 Stars | A good movie that I would get again sometime in the future—you should see this movie. |
| 4 Stars | Great movies that I would watch over and over—you have got to see this movie. |
| 5 Stars | Absolute masterpieces... virtually flawless—I will buy you this movie. |
Contents |
Distribution
Sir, there is no settling the point of precedency between a louse and a flea.
—Samuel Johnson, when asked by Maurice Morgann whom he considered to be the better poet: Smart or Derrick
My scale has been criticized for not being very 'balanced'. I think most people assume that for each 2-star movie I should have a 5-star movie... and that my scale is askew because the results are bottom-heavy. A better scale would provide more subtlety so as to differentiate one I consider a total failure like The River King from what I consider merely an artistic failure like Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind. To these opinions, I apply Johnson's quote.
The scale, like life, was never intended to have a balanced distribution. It is more important to me to separate the precious stones from the semi-precious than to waste time distinguishing between two pieces of gravel. My scale is not balanced, but perhaps logarithmic... like the Richter or decibel scale. Unless the movie is truly earth-shattering, it's not worthy of my highest honor. Instead of 10 movies in each level, I presume that there should be about three 4-star movies for each 5-star. Nine 3-star movies for each 5-star. Twenty-seven 2-star movies and eighty-one 1-star movies for each 5-star. 0-star movies are something like an anti-masterpiece, and so the quantity of that category is going to parallel the 5-stars.
The actual statistics of my ratings don't show eighty-one 1-star movies for each 5-star, which can be attributed to two things: 1) My generosity. 2) The fact that I don't actively pursue bad movies. I'm not going to rent Gigli or Glitter, and therefore I'm not going to rate them. If Melita and I were viewing movies randomly selected, my rating statistics would probably be more true to my logarithmic distribution... but actually we're going through the so-called top 250 movies of all time, which should produce an upward bias.
Dated classics
Another criticism has been that old movies are rated strictly as I view them, not taking into account the technological constraints of their time period. It's a fair point, but not a very important one. If a senior citizen wants to rate the original King Kong as a masterpiece because of the impression it left him as a child, I won't stop him. But when I watched it, I got drowsy. There are plenty of books and website to find information about how movies like that impacted their culture. My rating serves more as a statement of how it impacts ours.
And for the most part, this criticism is limited to only a very few movies. It seems that by the 40s you could make whatever movie you wanted with serviceable special effects... and there are lots of quality movies beforehand didn't even need special effects.
Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down
If I were listed in the Rotten Tomatoes critic database, I would tell them that any movie that I give 3 or more stars is 'certified fresh' or a 'thumbs up'.
Other Media
The principles are the same no matter what is being rated. A masterpiece is going to be rare, and anything earning 3-stars has "passed". The following scale is how this applies to music.
| 0 Stars | My ears are bleeding |
| 1 Star | Don't ever want to hear it again |
| 2 Stars | Don't mind it, but don't want to own/download it |
| 3 Stars | Good (worthy of owning/downloading) |
| 4 Stars | Great (I perk up when I hear this song) |
| 5 Stars | Masterpiece (a song I have never grown tired of) |
Books, especially reference books, are harder to rate. I really liked my college Statistics and Probability book, and I refer to it whenever I need to... but it's not the Sermon on the Mount. I'll try to save 5-stars for only those books that ought to change your life.
| 0 Stars | Toilet paper... not even going to sell it back because no one should read this |
| 1 Star | Either I didn't finish it because it wasn't worth it, or I had to read it out of obligation |
| 2 Stars | A fine read, but I won't be going back to it (for reference books, it's clunky but usable) |
| 3 Stars | Good, glad I own it (a reference book that serves its purpose well) |
| 4 Stars | Great, I will re-read it soon (top-notch reference book) |
| 5 Stars | Masterpiece, a book that positively, significantly, impacted my life or worldview |
