How to judge the intrinsic quality of a film...

NOTE: this excellent and thorough post on judging film quality was actually written and originally posted by Ben, but somehow the formatting got screwed up, so I am reposting it. Enjoy.

There are countless metrics amateur and professional movie critics use to assess the quality of a film.

· Acting

· Cinematography

· Musical score

· Set design

· Costume design

· Substantive blood/gore vrs. exploitative blood/gore

· Beshirted Matthew McConaughey minutes vrs. shirtless McConaughey minutes

· Number of laughs per minute

· Gut busting, rolling in the aisles laughter vrs. guffawing and chuckling laughter

· Number of explosions per minute

You get the idea.

Yet for the countless list of criteria used by individual critics, of course each individual prioritizes their criterion when judging a film's overall quality, and more than likely the order of criterion on these lists changes depending upon the genre of film being judged.

So with that in mind, what rating system is most accurate when it comes to the objective judgment of films and their overall quality?

What doesn't work

· Stars - The rating system of "stars," i.e. rating a film with full stars and half stars out of a possible total of four or five stars in flawed. First of all, using stars gives a reader of a given review the indication that the film being reviewed has some sort of glitz and sheen to it in the first place. Kindergarteners receive stars for doing something well, and thus human beings develop a sense of self-esteem based upon the praise they receive and based upon the negative scolding and beatings they receive. If a film is a red-headed step child who still isn't even close to being potty trained, do you really think giving it 2 out of 5 stars is sending the film makers and the readers of the review an accurate foundation upon which further judgments will be made? Secondly, giving a below average film 3 out of 5 stars is also misleading. 3 out of 5 stars has become synonymous with "average" films. And, if you again consider that stars are bright and shiny, when an average potential audience member sees 3 out of 5 stars for a review, it appears as though the film has more bright and shiny aspects than non-bright and shiny aspects, giving the false impression that the film itself must therefore be average or above average. By the way, who's the bastard who came up with the idea of half-stars? If you're using five stars as the gold standard, then who allowed some hair-brained reviewer to distort an already screwed up ratings system with half-stars? Make up your damn mind between a 2 and a 3 and do your reader some small bit of courtesy, since you're doing them a disservice already by subscribing to the star rating system. Finally, mathematically, the star rating system is inaccurate. 1/5 should equal 20%, an "F", really an "F-" !!! But, 1/5 stars is simply today ubiquitous for a "bad" film. 2/5 is a bad, perhaps boring film with some humor and perhaps some entertaining action, but largely lacking overall. But 2 bright shiny things... On the scale of bright shiny things, I know 3 of 5 stars are still white and blank, but 2 is tempting.... You see? The star rating system is a rating system designed to keep the proletariat coming to the box office every weekend by appealing to their visual instincts and their inability to do basic conversions from fractions to percentages. And I haven't even BEGUN to analyze the way in which a flawed rating system such as the stars mislead even the critics who are tasked with using and thus maintaining this archaic, deceptive system. What's even worse is that Google allows users to rate films by the star system, and then when you go to look at movie times, they display the average star rating. Well, guess what? Most raters pick 2,3, or 4 stars, so nearly EVERY movie on Google's movie times pages are all listed as 3-star films! Google is perpetuating this evil, and while Google is usually above reproach, the star rating system is a place where we must put our feet down and declare "No more!"

· Thumbs - Siskel and Ebert were smart movie critics and both were decent judges. Two thumbs up was a reliable test for 2/3 of most movies and two thumbs down was a reliable test for 9/10 movies. But because each man was intelligent in his own right, when they disagreed and a film received 1 thumb up and 1 thumb down, there was NO way of knowing what to expect from a film. And unfortunately for their viewers, Siskel and Ebert disagreed much more often than they agreed. One has to appreciate the simplicity and popularity this rating system achieved in pop culture history and the power these men yielded with their opposable evolutionary appendages, but ultimately the simplicity of this rating system is its downfall.

· Blurbs - Everyone has seen "blurbs" in movie trailers and newspaper ads for films.

"The best thing since crotchless panties!" - Jeffry Lyons

"I nearly shat myself I ate so much!" - Peter Travers

"Sure to become a classic with 14 years olds!" - Al Roker

"I can't remember a more entertaining film, because I can't remember anything that's not written on my cue cards!" - Jimmy Fallon

These blurbs are an awful way of marketing the value and quality of a film. The film's marketing uses one positive blurb from a well-known critic, and the rest of them come from no-name hacks from local ABC affiliates in Buffalo and Boise, or 3rd-rate magazines like "Blender." The blurbs are broad and general and often times, a film's marketing with include the star rating a film received from "Playboy" or "Reader's Digest." Other times, instead of a quote, the space normally received for reviewers' blurbs is filled with mention of awards a film has received. The problem again lies in the credibility and the awards-givers. While I'm sure if I did something and received an award from the "Bolivian Premiere Board of Roman Studies in Film," I'd be honored, but foreign reviewers tend not to be the best judge of American films. American films make bank at overseas box offices because there is no machine like the Hollywood machine anywhere else in the world. No other country spends $250 million on a single film. So when foreign critics and audiences flock to a $250 million American blockbuster, they give it positive reviews for its design and special effects, overlooking the fact that it starred Keanu Reeves and Drew Barrymore and that the plot was full of more holes that a hooker's fishnet stockings.

What works

· Giving films numerical scores/grades scored using some multiple of 10- A movie with a score of 9/10 is a movie in the "A" range. And I don't need a 9.2 or a 9.5 to understand that this particular reviewer found a film to be excellent, but just short of perfection. A=great, above average B=above average, C=average, D=below average, and F=failure (and then I can see to what degree it was a failure, 1/10, 2/10 ect. though it a movie is a true failure, then since I'll never see it, I don't even care how bad it is). This is the kind of system the star system WANTS to be, but the star system doesn't work according to standard math or according to the grades we teach our students.

· And honorable mention goes to RottenTomatoes for judging movies out of 100. While I don't know the algorithms they use to calculate their averages, at least the ultimate product is graded correctly.