Brazil

Data
Title: Brazil
Year: 1985
Length: 142 minutes
Director: Terry Gilliam
Writers: Terry Gilliam, Tom Stoppard & Charles McKeown
Starring: Jonathan Pryce, Robert De Niro, Katherine Helmond, Ian Holm, Bob Hoskins, Michael Palin, Ian Richardson, Peter Vaughan, Kim Greist
Music: Michael Kamen
Distinctions: currently #240 on IMDb’s Top 250

My reaction
Synopsis: a man in a bureaucratic dystopia obsesses over a woman from his dreams
How I saw it: on video several times (used to have on DVD), most recently (rented from Netflix) yesterday
Concept: Good.
Story: Bad.
Characters: Good.
Dialog: Great.
Pacing: Bad.
Cinematography: Great.
Special effects/design: Great.
Acting: Good.
Music: Great.
Subjective Rating: 6/10 (Okay). I used to think this movie was great, but I can’t figure out why. Maybe it was just because I loved other Gilliam movies, so I thought I should love it. Or maybe it’s the same reason that every young person who hasn’t read too many books thinks 1984 is the best thing ever. In any case, I was pretty bored watching this yesterday. The visuals are great, but they rarely actually contribute to the storytelling. There are some great scenes, mostly when it’s being silly, and some great acting from Holm and Palin (meanwhile, De Niro is pretty bad), but the story just doesn’t make a lot of sense if you think about it too much.
Objective Rating: 7/10 (Pretty good).

Doctor Who #50: The War Games

Data
Title: Doctor Who: “The War Games“
Year: 1969
Network: BBC
Episodes: 10, at 25 minutes; the last story (of 7) from season 6
Creators: Sydney Newman, C.E. Webber, Donald Wilson
Director: David Maloney
Writer: Terrance Dicks & Malcolm Hulke
Starring: Patrick Troughton, Frazer Hines, Wendy Padbury
Music: Ron Grainer (theme), Dudley Simpson

My reaction
Synopsis: abducted, brainwashed humans believe they’re fighting various historical wars on Earth
How I saw it: on video (rented from Netflix), over the past few days
Concept: Great. Like Dark City, except the people are sent to kill each other instead of just hanging out in a weird city.
Story: Good.
Characters: Good.
Dialog: Indifferent.
Pacing: Great. Ten episodes on a single story, and it never stalled. Kind of amazing.
Cinematography: Bad.
Special effects/design: Indifferent.  There’s some set-wobbling, but the design is pretty cool.
Acting: Terrible.
Music: Indifferent.
Subjective Rating: 8/10 (Great). One of the best classic Doctor Who stories I’ve seen yet. Things often get bad, but in a kitschy, entertaining sort of way (for instance, the villains are remarkably similar to The Monarch from Venture Bros., but they’re supposed to be taken seriously).
Objective Rating: 6/10 (Okay).

World’s Greatest Dad

Data
Title: World’s Greatest Dad
Year: 2009
Length: 99 minutes
Director: Bobcat Goldthwait
Writer: Bobcat Goldthwait
Starring: Robin Williams, Alexie Gilmore, Daryl Sabara
Music: Gerald Brunskill (and non-original music)

My reaction
Synopsis: a failed writer exploits his douchebag son’s death
How I saw it: in the theater, yesterday
Concept: Indifferent.
Story: Terrible. It’s the old web-of-lies formula from bad sitcoms. There’s darkness and satire layered on top of it, so the movie has a chance, but it’s still the mother of all horrible plot formulas.
Characters: Good. Thanks entirely to the acting. Williams somehow manages to take Goldthwait’s bad script and pull a sympathetic and real character out of it.
Dialog: Great.
Pacing: Bad. Felt like at least two hours.
Cinematography: Good.
Special effects/design: Good.
Acting: Great. Good enough to make this movie worth watching.
Music: Great.
Subjective Rating: 6/10 (Okay). Entertaining. If there’s nothing else good playing, it’s better than not seeing a movie, and you might like it if you like dark satire. It has got to be one of the worst-promoted movies ever, though – a dark indie drama with some black humor, advertised as a zany father-and-son comedy with a lesson to be learned. The poster and trailer are specially designed to ward off anyone who might like it. Half the people in the theater left within the first twenty minutes; I wonder if they thought they were going to see that thing with John Travolta in it.
Objective Rating: 7/10 (Pretty good).

The Sting

Data
Title: The Sting
Year: 1973
Length: 129 minutes
Director: George Roy Hill
Writer: David S. Ward
Starring: Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Robert Shaw, Charles Durning
Music: Scott Joplin, adapted by Marvin Hamlisch
Distinctions: Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Story and Screenplay Based on Factual Material, Best Song Score and/or Adaptation, Best Art Direction/Set Decoration, Best Costume Design, and Best Editing; currently #98 on IMDb’s Top 250

My reaction
Synopsis: con men vs. the mob
How I saw it: on video (rented from Netflix), yesterday
Concept: Great.
Story: Good. Enough twists to keep the movie from being tedious. Although, the whole con-man story type doesn’t really work well when it’s an army of professionals with seemingly unlimited resources against more or less one guy.
Characters: Bad. I don’t feel I know anything about the personalities of either of the leads.
Dialog: Good.
Pacing: Bad. I can’t believe this was only two hours long. It felt more like a mini series than a movie.
Cinematography: Indifferent.
Special effects/design: Indifferent. If this is supposed to be the 1930’s, then why do all of these 1930’s buildings look 50 years old?
Acting: Good. Redford and Newman are both kind of dull, especially Redford, but the supporting cast is nice.
Music: Good. I don’t understand why they used distinctly period music for a film set in a different period, but it sets a tone and it’s good music.
Subjective Rating: 6/10 (Okay). It made me restless, and it’s very flawed, but it’s not a bad movie. It has its moments.
Objective Rating: 6/10 (Okay).

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Halloween movie night, part 2 of 2

Data
Title: The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Year: 1975
Length: 100 minutes
Director: Jim Sharman
Writer: Jim Sharman & Richard O’Brien, based on O’Brien’s musical
Starring: Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick, Richard O’Brien, Patricia Quinn, Nell Campbell
Music: Richard O’Brien (songs); Richard Hartley (incidental music)

My reaction
Synopsis: a glam-rock musical satire of B horror movies
How I saw it: on video many times (have on DVD), most recently yesterday
Concept: Good? I guess? Maybe?
Story: Bad. But it has to be.
Characters: Bad. But they have to be.
Dialog: Good. Enough of it’s great to make up for all the bad (which is deliberately bad).
Pacing: Great.
Cinematography: Good. Actually, genuinely good. What the hey?
Special effects/design: Terrible. But it has to be.
Acting: Bad. A mixed bag here, but when it’s terrible, it’s iconic.
Music: Great.
Subjective Rating: 9/10 (One of my favorites).
Objective Rating: 6/10 (Okay).

Monsters, Inc.

Halloween movie night, part 1 of 2

Data
Title: Monsters, Inc.
Year: 2001
Length: 92 minutes
Directors: Pete Docter, David Silverman & Lee Unkrich
Writers: Andrew Stanton & Daniel Gerson, with Robert L. Baird, Rhett Reese & Jonathan Roberts, story by Pete Docter, Jill Culton, Jeff Pidgeon & Ralph Eggleston
Starring: John Goodman, Billy Crystal, Mary Gibbs, Steve Buscemi, James Coburn
Music: Randy Newman
Distinctions: Oscar for Best Song (“If I Didn’t Have You”); currently #242 on IMDb’s Top 250

My reaction
Synopsis: a human toddler sneaks through her closet into the monster world
How I saw it: in the theater, 2001; on video many times (have on DVD), most recently yesterday
Concept: Indifferent.
Story: Great.
Characters: Great.
Dialog: Great.
Pacing: Great.
Cinematography: Great.
Special effects/design: Great.
Acting: Good. Okay from the voices, great from the animators.
Music: Good.
Subjective Rating: 9/10 (One of my favorites). It’s remarkable how re-watchable this remains after all these years.
Objective Rating: 9/10 (Very good).

awesome people part 2

Here are a few random people who happen to be awesome. I’m just saying.

Stanley Kubrick
Evidence:
- Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, 1964 (director/co-writer)
- 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968 (director/co-writer)
- A Clockwork Orange, 1971 (director/writer)

John Ratzenberger
Evidence:
- Cheers, 1982-1993 (Cliff Claven)
- Every single Pixar feature, 1995-? (Hamm/P.T. Flea/The Abominable Snow Man/Fish School/Underminer/Mack/Mustafa/John/Construction Foreman Tom)

James Stewart
Evidence:
- It’s a Wonderful Life, 1946 (George Bailey)
- Harvey, 1950 (Elwood P. Dowd)
- Anatomy of a Murder, 1959 (Paul Biegler)

Tim Curry
Evidence:
- The Rocky Horror Picture Show, 1975 (Dr. Frank-N-Furter)
- Legend, 1985 (Darkness)
- Clue, 1985 (Wadsworth)
- Muppets Treasure Island, 1996 (Long John Silver)

Truman Capote
Evidence:
- Breakfast at Tiffany’s, 1961 (original novel)
- In Cold Blood, 1967 (original novel)

The Great Escape

#100!

Data
Title: The Great Escape
Year: 1963
Length: 172 minutes
Director: John Sturges
Writers: James Clavell & W.R. Burnett, based on the book by Paul Brickhill
Starring: Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, James Donald, Charles Bronson, Donald Pleasence, James Coburn, Hannes Messemer
Music: Elmer Bernstein
Distinctions: currently #100 on IMDb’s Top 250

My reaction
Synopsis: WWII POWs plot a massive escape attempt to distract German resources
How I saw it: on video (rented from Netflix), yesterday
Concept: Great.
Story: Good. The plot is great, but the details start to seriously fall apart at the end.  I had to look it up online to even see if the plan worked.
Characters: Indifferent. I had no investment in any of these people. Also, after looking online, it seems that the people on which the characters are based were actually pretty interesting. But in the movie we get “I like to ride bikes.”
Dialog: Good.
Pacing: Bad.
Cinematography: Indifferent.
Special effects/design: Great.
Acting: Good. Attenborough is great. Most of the other leads are just okay.
Music: Bad. “…this land belongs to you and me!” So. Very. Obnoxious.
Subjective Rating: 5/10 (Indifferent). Lots of potential, but a pretty boring movie.
Objective Rating: 6/10 (Okay).

Fraggle Rock: Season Two

 

Data
Title: Fraggle Rock: Season Two
Year: 1984
Network: CBC, HBO & ITV
Episodes: 24, at 25 minutes
Creator: Jim Henson
Directors: George Bloomfield, Norman Campbell, Perry Rosemond, Eric Till, Jim Henson
Writers: Laura Phillips, B.P. Nichol, Jerry Juhl, Susan Juhl, Jocelyn Stevenson, Sugith Varughese, John Pattison, David Young, Robert Sandler
Starring: Dave Goelz, Jerry Nelson, Steve Whitmire, Kathryn Mullen, Karen Prell, Richard Hunt, Gerard Parkes
Music: Philip Balsam & Dennis Lee

My reaction
Synopsis: fun-loving, cave-dwelling creatures don’t understand their neighboring species
How I saw it: on video several times (have on DVD), most recently over the past few weeks
Concept: Great.
Story: Good.
Characters: Great.
Dialog: Good.
Pacing: Great.
Cinematography: Bad.
Special effects/design: Good.
Acting: Good.
Music: Great.
Subjective Rating: 9/10 (One of my favorites). Not as good as season one. There are a few bad episodes (the ones that focus on Doozers instead of Fraggles), and not as many that stand out as exceptional.  And there’s very little progress made toward the over-arching plot of Everyone Learning to Get Along.  But it’s still Fraggle Rock, and Fraggles are the sh**.
Objective Rating: 8/10 (Good).

awesome people part 1

We’ve been moving to a new apartment, which is why there haven’t been a lot of posts lately. All our movies out from Netflix are long, epic things that we’re too busy to watch. But here’s a post anyway:

People Who Are Awesome.

Here are a few random people who happen to be awesome. I’m just saying.

Henry Fonda
Evidence:
- The Grapes of Wrath, 1940 (Tom Joad)
- The Ox-Bow Incident, 1943 (Gil Carter)
- Once Upon a Time in the West, 1968 (Frank)

Frank Oz
Evidence:
- Sesame Street, 1969-? (Bert/Grover/Cookie Monster)
- The Muppet Show, 1976-1980 (creative consultant/Fozzie/Ms. Piggy/Animal/Sam the Eagle)
- The Muppet Movie, 1979 (Fozzie etc.)
- The Dark Crystal, 1982 (co-director/Aughra/Chamberlain)
- The Muppets Take Manhattan, 1984 (director/co-writer/Fozzie etc.)

Quentin Tarantino
Evidence:
- Pulp Fiction, 1994 (director/writer)
- Kill Bill, 2003-2004 (director/writer)
- Inglorious Basterds, 2009 (director/writer)

Don Hertzfeldt
Evidence:
- “Billy’s Balloon,” 1998 (director/writer)
- “Rejected,” 2000 (director/writer/voices)
- “The Meaning of Life,” 2005 (director/writer/voices)
- “Everything Will Be Ok,” 2006 (director/writer/Narrator)
- “I Am So Proud of You,” 2008 (director/writer/Narrator)

Buster Keaton
Evidence:
- Sherlock Jr., 1924 (director/Sherlock Jr.)
- The General, 1927 (co-director/co-writer/Johnny Gray)

Where the Wild Things Are

Data
Title: Where the Wild Things Are
Year: 2009
Length: 101 minutes
Director: Spike Jonze
Writers: Spike Jonze & Dave Eggers, based on the book by Maurice Sendak
Starring: Max Records, James Gandolfini, Paul Dano, Catherine O’Hara, Forest Whitaker, Chris Cooper, Lauren Ambrose
Music: Karen O., Carter Burwell

My reaction
Synopsis: a boy goes to an island of emotional monsters
How I saw it: in the theater, today
Concept: Great.
Story: Good. I hesitate to take points off here. The story is exactly what it should be. The movie’s about characters, not about What’s Going to Happen Next, and it does what it does perfectly.  It’s interesting that, apparently, the younger you are, the more you’ll like it.  Old people turned off by the idea a children’s movie that you need to engage with?
Characters: Great.
Dialog: Great.
Pacing: Great. I keep reading that it’s slow, even from people who like it. I don’t know what movie they were watching.
Cinematography: Great.
Special effects/design: Great.
Acting: Great. Records gives one of the best performances I’ve seen in a long time.
Music: Great. Perfect fit for the movie, but the soundtrack also happens to be a future indie rock classic.
Subjective Rating: 10/10 (Favorite of my favorites). Beautiful and intense. Really f***ing intense.
Objective Rating: 10/10 (Great).

The Hangover

Data
Title: The Hangover
Year: 2009
Length: 99 minutes
Director: Todd Phillips
Writers: Jon Lucas & Scott Moore
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis
Music: Christophe Beck (mostly non-original music)
Distinctions: formerly on IMDb’s Top 250

My reaction
Synopsis: three guys can’t remember last night, and their best friend is missing
How I saw it: in the theater, yesterday
Concept: Good. It was already a good concept in Dude Where’s My Car?, and it’s pushed farther here.
Story: Indifferent. It’s not a romantic comedy, but they still manage to rely heavily on romantic comedy cliches.
Characters: Good.
Dialog: Great.
Pacing: Great.
Cinematography: Indifferent.
Special effects/design: Good.
Acting: Indifferent. With the exception of Galifianakis’ character and “Mr. Chow,” it’s never the performance that makes things funny.
Music: Bad.
Subjective Rating: 7/10 (Good). Very funny. I don’t think it would be so good a second time. Most of the humor comes from a series of really strange and unexpected things, which might not be funny anymore after you’re expecting them and have an explanation for them.
Objective Rating: 7/10 (Pretty good).

Good Will Hunting

Data
Title: Good Will Hunting
Year: 1997
Length: 126 minutes
Director: Gus Van Sant
Writers: Matt Damon & Ben Affleck
Starring: Robin Williams, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Stellan Skarsgård, Minnie Driver
Music: Danny Elfman (mostly non-original music)
Distinctions: Oscars for Best Screenplay (original) and Best Supporting Actor (Williams); currently #226 on IMDb’s Top 250

My reaction
Synopsis: a math genius doesn’t want to do anything
How I saw it: on video a couple times, most recently (rented from Netflix) yesterday
Concept: Indifferent.
Story: Indifferent. This script really is over-rated, isn’t it? It’s the Wait Those Guys Wrote A Movie That Doesn’t Suck effect.
Characters: Indifferent.
Dialog: Great. Some very funny bits, and the dramatic stuff isn’t too bad either.
Pacing: Indifferent.
Cinematography: Indifferent.
Special effects/design: Indifferent.
Acting: Good.
Music: Indifferent.
Subjective Rating: 6/10 (Okay). I guess I just don’t care. There are a couple very good scenes, but much of the rest (and even some of the good bits) is hackneyed.
Objective Rating: 6/10 (Okay).

Let the Right One In

Data
Title: Låt den rätte komma in
Year: 2008
Length: 115 minutes
Director: Tomas Alfredson
Writer: John Ajvide Lindqvist, based on his novel
Starring: Kåre Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson
Music: Johan Söderqvist (and non-original music)
Distinctions: currently #220 on IMDb’s Top 250

My reaction
Synopsis: a 12-year-old boy’s new friend is a vampire
How I saw it: on video (rented from Netflix), yesterday
Concept: Indifferent. I can imagine the pitch for this film sounding like a Saturday morning spin-off of Twilight.
Story: Good.
Characters: Great.
Dialog: Great. And I watched the infamous Bad Subtitles version…
Pacing: Indifferent. Kind of slow. Not quite boring, but long.
Cinematography: Indifferent. Most shots are out-of-focus close ups, which I guess creates a deliberate effect, but whatever.
Special effects/design: Great.
Acting: Great. Not “great for a movie staring a couple of adolescents,” just great.
Music: Indifferent. Although, the sound effects are so good, you don’t need good music.
Subjective Rating:7/10 (Good). Immediately after watching it, I thought I’d give it 6/10. But it’s the kind of movie that sinks into your brain and won’t leave you alone, and I find myself deciding between a 7 or an 8.
Objective Rating: 8/10 (Good).

Zombieland

Data
Title: Zombieland
Year: 2009
Length: 80 minutes
Director: Ruben Fleischer
Writers: Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin
Music: David Sardy (but mostly non-original music)
Distinctions: currently #143 on IMDb’s Top 250

My reaction
Synopsis: everyone’s a zombie: stay alive
How I saw it: in the theater, today
Concept: Indifferent. If it weren’t for the good reviews, it never would have occurred to me that this might be something to deliberately watch.
Story: Indifferent. Yeah, story really is not the point.
Characters: Good. Almost an exercise in how to develop characters for an ADD audience.
Dialog: Great.
Pacing: Great.
Cinematography: Indifferent.
Special effects/design: Great. Bonus points for the paintings in “BM”’s mansion.
Acting: Good. Harrelson is actually really great, which is pretty impressive considering how easy it would be for an actor to just phone in a movie like this.
Music: Good.
Subjective Rating: 8/10 (Great). Non-stop fun, pretty funny, and if you want to see zombie-killin’, I doubt you could do any better.  There’s something to be said for a comedy with a stunt crew almost seven times larger than the credited cast.
Objective Rating: 8/10 (Good).

Changeling

Data
Title: Changeling
Year: 2008
Length: 141 minutes
Director: Clint Eastwood
Writer: J. Michael Straczynski
Starring: Angelina Jolie, John Malkovich, Jeffrey Donovan
Music: Clint Eastwood
Distinctions: currently #232 on IMDb’s Top 250

My reaction
Synopsis: the LAPD gives the mother of a missing child the wrong kid and insist it’s the right one
How I saw it: on video (rented from Netflix), yesterday
Concept: Great. The one time I’m not against “based on a true story” stories: when it’s so bizarre and unbelievable that you would never buy it as fiction.
Story: Good. Great plot, but only so-so writing.
Characters: Bad.
Dialog: Indifferent. According to the IMDb’s trivia, a number of lines are recycled from Babylon 5 (which was written by the same guy). That sounds about right.
Pacing: Terrible. Easily twice as long as it should be.
Cinematography: Indifferent. Looks nice, but unmemorable.
Special effects/design: Great.
Acting: Good.
Music: Bad. Not bad music (and let’s give some credit to Eastwood – writing a mediocre film score is no small task), but bad for the movie.
Subjective Rating: 6/10 (Okay). Interesting story, and more emotionally resonant than most Eastwood-directed movies, but I wouldn’t recommend it.
Objective Rating: 6/10 (Okay).

My Man Godfrey

Data
Title: My Man Godfrey
Year: 1936
Length: 94 minutes
Director: Gregory La Cava
Writers: Morrie Ryskind & Eric Hatch, based on Hatch’s novel
Starring: William Powell, Carole Lombard
Music: Charles Previn, Rudy Schrager
Distinctions: formerly on IMDb’s Top 250

My reaction
Synopsis: a homeless man becomes the butler for an eccentric family
How I saw it: on video (rented from Netflix), yesterday
Concept: Good.
Story: Indifferent. It’s everything it needs to be, and there’s a bit of nice social commentary, but we’re not exactly dealing with compelling drama.
Characters: Good.
Dialog: Great.
Pacing: Great.
Cinematography: Bad.
Special effects/design: Bad. The creative work is fine, but the film and sound quality is terrible even by 1930’s standards.
Acting: Good. Most everyone is funny, and Powell is pretty cool. Better acting than I’ve seen from more famous actors of the period.
Music: Indifferent.
Subjective Rating: 7/10 (Good). Amusing.
Objective Rating: 7/10 (Pretty good).

The Red Shoes

Before going on to the top 100 of IMDb’s Top 250, I’m jumping back down on The List to pick up a few titles that snuck on to the bottom after I’d passed it.

Data
Title: The Red Shoes
Year: 1948
Length: 133 minutes
Directors: Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger
Writer: Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, with Keith Winter, based on the fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen
Starring: Marius Goring, Anton Walbrook, Moira Shearer
Music: Brian Easdale
Distinctions: Oscars for Best Score (dramatic or comedy) and Best Art Direction/Set Decoration (color); formerly on the IMDb’s Top 250

My reaction
Synopsis: a young dancer and a young composer get their break together with a touring ballet company
How I saw it: on video (rented from Netflix), yesterday
Concept: Good. A movie about the ballet, with the fairy tale tone of a ballet.  The sort of straight-forward, romantic melodrama I expect from a movie inspired by (“based on” seems too strong) Hans Christian Andersen.
Story: Good.
Characters: Good. They’re simple and one-dimensional, but in a way that works perfectly for what the movie’s doing.
Dialog: Good.
Pacing: Good. It probably doesn’t need to be so long; the real plot doesn’t get going until an hour and a half into the movie. But I was never bored.  And you’ve got to give them some credit for having the balls to put an entire performance of a ballet smack in the middle of a long movie. Risky move, but it works. Strangely, it reminds me of Rififi.
Cinematography: Good.
Special effects/design: Good. They put all of their efforts with the visuals into a handful of key scenes, which are amazingly good. But other scenes are just okay. For instance, at one point a cloud of dry ice is supposed to represent a train passing by.
Acting: Great. I’m stretching this category to “performances” with this movie.
Music: Great.
Subjective Rating: 8/10 (Great). I didn’t love it, but I have to wonder what’s wrong with the world that I’d never even heard of it until a few days ago.
Objective Rating: 9/10 (Very good).

housekeeping post: objective ratings

As you probably know if you’re reading this, I give every movie I see two scores, a “subjective rating” and an “objective rating.” I’ve never been happy with my system for calculating my “objective ratings,” so I’m changing it. This is detailed, and is probably just going to confuse people, but it’s what works for me. If you don’t care about the details, you can skip to the summary at the end or this post.

The old system was one possible point for each of the following which is particularly good:
(1) concept
(2) story
(3) characters
(4) dialog
(5) pacing
(6) cinematography
(7) special effects/design
(8) acting
(9) music
(10) subjective rating
It was purely binary (either point or no point). This meant that I was giving terrible scores to mediocre movies (because if they were mediocre across all aspects, they got no points), and mediocre scores to some terrible movies (if they had a few token good points, but were terrible in most regards). And it didn’t end up meaning much to me.

Now, for the last couple weeks, I’ve changed my posting format, and have been looking at each of these points a little closer and giving them a sort of rating, from a truncated version of my “subjective rating” scale. The subjective scale is as follows:
10/10 = favorite of my favorites
9/10 = one of my favorites
8/10 = great
7/10 = good
6/10 = okay
5/10 = indifferent
4/10 = eh
3/10 = bad
2/10 = terrible
1/10 = eew get it away!
The “favorites” bits at the top didn’t make sense when talking about some specific technical aspect of a film, so I ignored the ends of the scale and just used 2 through 8. Which is just as well, because a ten-point scale seems too fiddly for this purpose, but seven is manageable. In fact, I think I may cut out “eh” and “okay” in future posts, and just have five options: Great, Good, Indifferent, Bad and Terrible. Less fiddly yet, but still plenty of wiggling room.

I figure, as long as I’m giving these aspects individual scores, why not use that to create better objective ratings?

My new system: Each of the ten aspects listed above gets a score on the five-point scale, which is averaged to get the objective rating. But the objective rating is out of 10, and I want to keep it that way (ratings out of ten are just nicer…). So the five-point scale is assigned corresponding numbers on a ten-point scale:
10 = Great
8 = Good
5 = Indifferent
2 = Bad
0 = Terrible
The ten scores are averaged, and rounded to the nearest whole number. Notice that this means a movie with, say, a 7/10 subjective rating (“Good”) will be assigned an 8 (“Good”) in the “subjective rating” aspect for purposes of calculating the objective rating. Confused yet?

To sum up, The Short Version:

My “Subjective Rating” system is unchanged. It’s just how much I enjoyed the movie, using the following scale:
10/10 = Favorite of my favorites
9/10 = One of my favorites
8/10 = Great
7/10 = Good
6/10 = Okay
5/10 = Indifferent
4/10 = Eh
3/10 = Bad
2/10 = Terrible
1/10 = Eew get it away!

Objective ratings are now calculated by averaging a score for the each of the following aspects:
- concept
- story
- characters
- dialog
- pacing
- cinematography
- special effects/design
- acting
- music
- subjective rating
resulting in a rating out of ten on the following scale:
10/10 = Great
9/10 = Very good
8/10 = Good
7/10 = Pretty good
6/10 = Okay
5/10 = Indifferent
4/10 = Eh
3/10 = Pretty bad
2/10 = Bad
1/10 = Very bad
0/10 = Terrible

Touch of Evil

Data
Title: Touch of Evil
Year: 1958
Length: 112 minutes [1998 "director's" cut]
Director: Orson Welles
Writer: Orson Welles, based on a novel by Whit Masterson
Starring: Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Orson Welles
Music: Henry Mancini
Distinctions: currently #101 on IMDb’s Top 250

My reaction
Synopsis: a Mexican cop stalked by a crime family gets involved in a US border town’s investigation of a car bombing
How I saw it: on video (rented from Netflix), yesterday
Concept: Good.
Story: Good. I don’t care for the plot, personally, although it’s well written and engaging.
Characters: Great.
Dialog: Great.
Pacing: Good.
Cinematography: Great.
Special effects/design: Good.
Acting: Good.
Music: Great.
Subjective Rating: 7/10 (Good). Very well made. As classic noir crime thrillers go, it’s certainly one of the best.
Objective Rating: 9/10 (Very good).

I’m trying something new with my “objective rating,” a sort of averaging. An explanatory post will follow.