I wanted to take a moment to clarify my rating system, as I’m sure readers might often get confused when seeing truly great films get docked a point or two and others, such as “The Half Blood Prince,” get a perfect seven. Basically, when rating, films are compared to standards of their particular genre or class. For example, when rating “The Half Blood Prince,” it’s not being compared to “The Godfather” standards, but rather other teen supernatural dramas. If I were overanalytical and extremely critical of every single thing I watch, quite frankly all the ratings would be low and the reviews would be boring. I take films for what they are, what they aim to be, and how well they execute (or don’t). It would not be fair at all to the filmmakers who put hard work into their particual vision to get ripped in half in reviews because it didn’t reach someone’s unrealistically high standards. So when I give a mumblecore movie a good 6 points out of 7, it doesn’t mean that I enjoyed it as much as “Rio Bravo,” but rather that it was an honest effort that stuck to its guns and was able to entertain at the same time while holding its own amongst its contemporaries. I find this methodology to be relevant to any art form (after all, isn’t that what cinema is?); you shouldn’t say Picasso’s work is terrible because you prefer styles that show more realism.
