THE GRADING SCALE

It’s usually a question brought up, and I understand why. I made this page to give you, the reader, a grasp on how I rate the films I review on this site and to do that I will split it into two different categories. I created this page before, but I have updated it to add another category which entails why I give a movie a certain rating. So, here it is:

WHY I RATE FILMS THE WAY I DO

When it comes to rating movies, I not only have a grading scale written down, but I also have one in my head I follow along. It mainly falls into “how do I feel about this movie.” What I mean by that is, for example, if a film is utterly terrible, but I love it so much, it will get a better rating than it deserves. To fully break down what I mean, I have created three subcategories in my head:

1. The Masterpiece– A movie that is well-thought out, has good or great acting, and is just fantastic in general. It is marked down in rating though because of minor flaws that are riddled in it. Basically it is the type film you are supposed to break down and criticize for all its minor flaws because of how great it is.
2. The Entertainer– A popcorn movie in which it is either just for fun or doesn’t take itself seriously. These types of movies’ scores are brought up mainly because you can’t pick at them if they get what they wanted done. Comedies or action films usually fall into this category.
3.  The Nostalgic– Films that buy their way into my heart because of memories attached to them. I shouldn’t judge a movie based on reasons outside of itself, but when it comes to nostalgia, it is hard to get rid of memories. These films scores are usually boosted up past regular reason because of how much they were a part of my life.

I will most likely add on more layers in my head seeing as how “The Nostalgic” is a new one added to the list.  Probably a Christmas/holiday category in the future since they feel like they are a separate level on filmmaking all together. Anyway, to further this discussion of rating, I have an example in which I talk about three films that have the same rating, but have a different way of getting there. Here it is:

EXAMPLE:

In my days of reviewing, I have quite a bit of movies that have scored a 94%. Only three of them I will discuss though. They are “The Sixth Sense”, “Airplane!”, and “Balto”. All three have the same rating, but they all have different ways of getting there. “The Sixth Sense” is what a Masterpiece category film. It is a fantastic piece of filmmaking, but I had some nitpicking that brought it down because it is meant to be looked at as art and judge any little flaws it has, if you get what I’m saying. “Airplane” is an Entertainer category film. It was never meant to win awards, but to make people laugh, and they got their way as I did laugh a lot. Since they got what they wanted, who am I to give them a bad rating? Finally, “Balto” is a Nostalgic category film where, although it is a really good film, got where it is mainly because I remember growing up with it. The connection I have to it on a mental level really pulls it together. If you were to ask me which one I thought was better, I would pick “The Sixth Sense” because even though they are the same score, it offers more to me than the others in terms of storytelling. Usually the Masterpiece category trumps the others. Hopefully this example served to be beneficial to your thought process when reading my reviews.

HOW A FILM IS RATED:

I go by a school’s way of rating in my head to better understand how good a film is. What I mean by this is the letter grading. After I see a movie, I ask myself “what letter grade is this?” or, for example, “is this a B or a B+?” It helps to narrow down the score of the film. So here is my rating system broken down:

96% – 100%= A+
95%= A
90 – 94%= A-
86 – 89%= B+
85%= B
80 – 84%= B-
76 – 79%= C+
75%= C
70 – 74%= C-
66 – 69%= D+
65%= D
60 – 64%= D-
0 – 59%= F

And, of course here is what determines whether a film is Juicy or Burnt:

73 – 100%= Juicy Popcorn
0 – 72%= Burnt Popcorn