Ratings

[Barry]

With all our discussions on movies that we like, I’d like to tell you how I invented my rating system. And there’s a secret at the end.!

Once upon a time, before they were endangered species, people used newspaper reviews all the time. My father was in charge of the home delivery of the New York Daily News and that was 2.2 million people a day.. the daily news rated movies using up to four stars and that’s how people spoke. They would say the movie was a two star, three star movie or something.

As time went by, that’s not how we discussed movies and I noticed I had kinda had a system which I use here.


I rate movies as:

Great
Very good
Good
Sit throughable 
Bad
 Very Bad.

But I had trouble with the great. That is, was ET one of the greatest movies should or I give that a very good. I kept a lot of movies unnecessarily off my “great” rating. Until….

I decided to create a “ secret” seventh rating, that I have kept only to myself. And I put in what I feel are the greatest movies in that. So a movie that goes into the great category, he doesn’t have to be in the greatest.

It’s only Four films:

Fantasia
This was the first movie I had ever seen, and I still love it. Because of it, I fell in love with movies, animation, and music. It’s never been duplicated.

2001: A Space Odyssey
This is the movie I have seen the most. It is just beautiful and incredible and in some ways undescribable.

Citizen Kane
Simply, the best movie ever made and more about this movie later.

There these movies were on my list for a few decades. The last one is probably the most important of the bunch. I knew it was three hours long so I had a late lunch so I wouldn’t have to go to use the men’s room and I promised myself I wouldn’t tear up.

Schindler‘s List
A powerful and compelling movie about one of  the worst events in human history. And I was pretty good till the last 10 minutes. Everyone here, especially Steven Spielberg, were  at their best. Even the music by John Williams grabbed your heart.

So when you see me, give a “Great” rating it means the movie is terrific. But these four remain the best.

As for very bad, the worst movie I have seen in the last few years on disc was “The Spirit.” it was based on the comic strip created by one of Comics greatest innovators Will Eisner.

I am not joking: in the audio commentary they kept comparing this movie to Citizen Kane. And their lead actress to Bette Davis.

[SRW1000]

Good write up, Barry.

My ratings kind of follow along with yours, although I've settled on the old school grade ratings system that reflects a bell curve, so my C rating would match up with your Sit Throughable, with B- and B in the Good category, B and B+ in Very Good, while A- and A are in Great.

Agreed on The Spriit as well.  Super disappointing considering how well Frank Miller translated his Sin City work to the big screen. I expected the same results with given his professed love of Eisner's creation, but it was a disaster.