Flipside Movie Emporium

[beltmann]

I'm continually amazed that so many online personal film sites have adopted the 100-point rating scale. I have yet to encounter a reasonable defense of the system, although most seem to come down to an obsessive need on the part of the reviewer to slam an art form into a mathematical formula, quantifying every aspect of a film--as if that were remotely possible.

These D'Angeloes (formerly the D'Angelo Disciples) all seem suckered by their leader's insistence that what's important about film criticism is carefully ranking works into objective lists. I can't fathom why this is supposed to matter. Have they all gone mad? I suppose I would go crazy, too, if I had to find ways to justify such minute divisions. Art just doesn't work that way for me--there are so many variables (literally hundreds of thousands) involved with reacting to a work that it is impossible to arrive at a number that is thoroughly accurate. It is essentially arbitrary and meaningless.

I, for one, have no interest in debating with myself precisely how much I liked Capturing the Friedmans more than Winged Migration. Why does it matter that one is an 88 and the other an 86 (and how could I explain the difference)? How does that help me or a reader? Where's the value in methodically measuring that gray area, which is constantly shifting? What's wrong with allowing ties, even if that means awarding one "B-" after another? The grade isn't what matters anyway.

The vast majority of valuable national critics refuse to award any score at all, and the rest seem unconcerned about the grade. Rosenbaum, for example, uses a 4-star scale but never awards halves--he limits himself to a true 4-slot division. Why do the best writers reject or limit the grading? Because that kind of shorthand is essentially irrelevant to good criticism. Which raises my basic question: why are so many self-professed film lovers reducing their passion--and by extension, the art form--into fanboy obsessiveness?

"Shucks, if only the director had held that tracking shot for another second, I could bump the score up another digit... "

Eric

[Danny Baldwin]

I find it wuite unreasonable, also, but D'Angelo himself admits that there is a +/- 3 margin of error to his system. But who the hell wants to bring math into reviewing?! 8)

I, also, don't often read reviewers who do not give grades before seeing hte movie the review is on. I like to see a grade, just as a guideline for viewing in general, but I don't want to see the various points the reviewer makes about each movie, to affect mine prior to viewing. I've always found the 4-star system the best (including halves), but then again, that's the only system I followed for the first few years I began to see movies.
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Danny Baldwin

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[the night watchman]

I don't particularly like scores either. I mean, there are movies I enjoy more than others that I respect or appreciate. How does one take that into account? For instance "Schinder's List" is doubtless a better movie than "Re-Animator," but which do I actually enjoy watching more? On a five-point scale, if I were to award the former a 5 in acknowledgment of its status as a great movie, and the latter a 5 in acknowledgement of its entertainment value, does that put both movies in the same catagory? Would it be fair to dock points from "Re-Animator" simply because it's not as "significant," "important," or "challenging" as "Schindler's List?"

[beltmann]

[beltmann]

Mark Dujsik,

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this subject. Why did you choose the 4-star system? Have you ever considered the 100-point scale?

Eric

[beltmann]

[Michael Scrutchin]

The 100-point scale is insanity. I don't get it.

I remember somebody bringing this up on the Cinemarati message board recently, where Mike D'Angelo and lot of other film critics hang out, and the responses in defense of the 100-point scale didn't convince me.

I've always liked the academic grading scale, but assigning grades to films is still completely arbitrary and relatively pointless. Like Eric said, a rating without an explanation is pointless. If you've been to other big movie forums on the Internet, you've almost surely seen an over-abundance of threads with titles like "Rate my favorite movies!" which consist of nothing but people assigning grades to movies, but without any discussion whatsoever. What's the point? Am I missing something?
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Michael Scrutchin
Flipside Movie Emporium
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[Danny Baldwin]

[filmsRpriceless]

D'Angelo is probably my favorite critic currently, although like many of you, I cannot understand the 100 system. I have been thinking about trying it to see what it is like, but I don't think I'd be able to, just because I like trusty old 4 star system so much. I've been using it for a long time now and it hasn't failed me yet. I also noticed that a lot of online critics and fans of m'da now use his system like Jeremy Heilman for instance, who used to use the 4 system I use.
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[beltmann]

Thanks for the Cinemarati link, Michael. I was browsing their discussion on this topic, and ran across this quote from Jeremy Heilman, who, regrettably, not long ago adopted the 100-point scale:

"If I only saw 20-30 films a year a 10 point system might be fine, but since I see a few hundred a year, I think it calls for a more detailed breakdown."

Again, I must ask why a "more detailed breakdown" is necessary. For either the writer or reader, what aspect of film criticism, analysis, history, or theory is truly, accurately helped by such division? I'm baffled.

(Incidentally, like Heilman, I spend a lot of time keeping up on current and historical film. I watched more than 500 films in each of the last two years, but I have never felt compelled to "breakdown" my responses so that I know exactly how much I liked each one in comparison to every other one. Such scoring simply doesn't matter to me--perhaps because I'm more interested in the work as an individual stimulus.)

Eric

[beltmann]

Here's another quote from the Cinemarati board, from Mike D'Angelo: "It's simply an overall indicator of enthusiasm, and handy when (a) you haven't written a review or (b) the reader hasn't seen the film and wants a sense of how it's been received but does not at this stage want to learn even vague details... The 100-point scale may seem needlessly precise, but try assigning a dozen B's in a row and see how frustrated you get." D'Angelo also explains that he never spends more than "three seconds" determining a score.

Initial thoughts:

Isn't a star or letter grade an "overall indicator of enthusiasm" and equally satisfy the needs of points A and B?

Sounds to me like the only justification for the scale is to help the critic sort and rank--which again raises the question about what defines good, useful criticism. Is the main function of a critic to merely rank works against one another, or to provide perceptions about them? D'Angelo's gripe "try assigning a dozen B's in a row and see how frustrated you get" seems to suggest that he places more emphasis on the ranking function than he ought to. That's particularly disappointing, since his perceptions are often very worthwhile.

If D'Angelo doesn't mull over a score--which is good, of course--doesn't that invalidate the rankings? If it's just a general idea of his response, why an 86 rather than 88? Why not just a "B+," which is certainly a reader-friendly grade? I have to assume that the answer is that D'Angelo is less interested in the reader than in playing a personal--and essentially meaningless--ranking game.

Eric

[the night watchman]

I'd never read any reviews by D'Angelo before, so I thought I'd trot on over and take a look-see. Well, his "Signs" review totally won me over. I'm bookmarking his site, 100-point rating system or not.

[Danny Baldwin]

I think the exact thing is to measure movies like South Park against let's say Amelie. Some critics may give those two movies the same rating on the 4 star scale, but I think the 100 point scale is more adequate for that. Still, though, if a person reads the review of someone on a four-star scale they'll find out how much that critic liked movie-a over movie-b.

One thing I still don't understand is D'Angelo's 100 point to letter grade conversion. If you browse his archives by letter grade, 68's are Bs, and such. So it's not just based on percent.
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Danny Baldwin

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[beltmann]

[Danny Baldwin]

Well, I would assume so, but hey, are there any more valid reasons to use the rediculous 100-point system?
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Danny Baldwin

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