The Method Behind The Madness

Now that I have accumulated a number of review posts on this website, I thought that I might take some time to explain how I go about rating the things I post on this site.

I’ll begin with how I rate movies.  First, let me start by saying I am not a student of the film industry.  I didn’t take film courses in college or anything like that.  When I evaluate movies, I am looking at them from layman’s point of view.  I consider things such as:

Was it entertaining?
Did the plot have holes?  Did it flow well?  Was it easy to follow and understand?
Did the film have good acting in it?
Was the costuming well done?
Does the film score fit the movie?  Does the music have a particular impact on the movie?
Are the special effects good or do they look cheap and low budget?

I don’t have the training or the expertise to say whether something was truly filmed well, per se, however I can tell you, for instance, whether or not it was easy to watch or if the “found footage” style might give you motion sickness.  I can tell you if the film is too dark visually for my taste or if the sound didn’t seem very good.

Now, when I was growing up, which was before the internet and all this streaming stuff, we went to the theater to see a movie or we went to the video store and rented movies.  Either of those was a task in itself as movie theaters were not as fancy as they are now and you always had THOSE people at the theater ruining the movie (you all know who I mean, the cougher, the talker, the loud laugher, the person who refused to put their pager on vibrate, the relentless immature teens running up and down the aisles and throwing popcorn at the screen. *NOTE For you young people, pagers were the precursor to your ever-loved cell phones*). 

Now, going to the video store was an equally challenging task.  You had to be sure to get to the video store at a reasonable time before all the copies of the good movies were gone off of the New Release wall.  You entered through a set of detectors that would beep loudly if you tried to take a video out without paying the rental fee.  Then you would walk a long wall plastered with VHS tape covers and pick up the box of a movie that looked interesting, look at the front and back of the box, and decide whether you wanted to pay the $4.99 to rent it for one day.  The movies that weren’t New Releases were around $2.99 for three days. 

There was nothing to see previews of movies on except other movies.  We didn’t have YouTube or anything to quickly look up the trailer to see if it looked any good.
All of this being the case, back then I had a very simple way of recommending movies.  It went like this…A movie would fall into one of these categories:

I would definitely pay to see this at the theater.
I would wait for this to come out on video.
I would wait for this to come out on cable movie channels.
I would not watch this.

Now I use a STAR rating system (because my old school system in no way applies anymore) so, I thought maybe I should convert those categories into a numbered system for the STAR ratings.  So…I came up with this:

0-1 Stars                   I would not see this, it’s not worth watching.
1.5-2.5 Stars             I would have waited for this to come out on cable.
3-4 Stars                   I would have waited for this to come out on VHS.
4.5-5 Stars                I would pay money to go to the theater to see this.

Okay, so that’s movies.  Now, when rating comic books I do something a little different.  When rating comic books I look at:

The overall appeal and satisfaction of the comic book.
How well the story was written…does it flow well, is it easy to follow, are there unanswered questions?
Is the artwork appealing?  Does it go well with the story? 

So, looking at things like that I rate like this:

Still using a STAR system using 1-5. 

1 being the lowest, this would mean that I didn’t like the comic book in basically any fashion.
3 is average, it didn’t disappoint but, it didn’t wow me either.  This would be specifically recommended to people only with similar interests in the story, artist, etc.
5 is the highest, this would mean that I would recommend this comic book to anyone.  This would also indicate that the comic book had a little wow factor as well.
 
Books and novels are similar to comic books.  Since I read a lot of true crime and horror, I look for certain things in a book:

How well is the story written? 
If it’s a true story, did they get the facts and timeline correct?  Did this writer base the story off of facts or did they throw in their own theories as well?
How easy is the book to read?
Does it get bogged down in pointless details or does it paint a complete picture?
Does the book tend to be a fast read or a slow read?

Keeping that in mind, I rate books like this:

Using a 1-5 STAR system, 1 being the lowest, 5 being the highest.

1 Star             This would mean the book isn’t worth reading.
2 Stars           I was barely able to stay interested enough to get through this book.
3 Stars           Worth reading at least once, IF the topic is of interest to reader.
4 Stars           This is worth recommending to specific interest groups.
5 Stars           I would recommend this book to anyone.
 
So, now that my crazy logic is somewhat explained, I hope you can all get a better understanding of what I am meaning when I rate each item I review.
Don’t forget, questions and comments are always appreciated!!!  You all have been great supporters and your feedback has helped immensely.  Please, keep it coming!!! Thanks for reading!

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