"One of the most genuinely confounding films to come along in years... This is not a film occurring in an alternate or imaginary reality; rather, it is a film of no reality, that is, a picture that changes the rules of its universe strictly according to its creators' whims. Hence, the film is likely to inspire even more heavy thinking on the part of cultural theorists than 'The Matrix' did."
* * *
"A lot of fluorescent, 7-Eleven-tinted images flash by, any of which could easily be removed or re-arranged without significantly disrupting the film's continuity, because it has none. If you can determine the spatial relationship between Speed's Mach 5 (or Mach 6) and any other race car for more than a few consecutive seconds, then good for you. As on the TV series, the pictures don't seem to move so much as repeat -- movement with no momentum."
* * *
"'Speed Racer' is not a feature film in any conventional sense... Whatever information that passes from your retinas to your brain during 'Speed Racer' is conveyed through optical design and not so much through more traditional devices such as dialogue, narrative, performance or characterization."
* * *
"Alas, this radicalization of film language, while certainly impressive to behold, yields heretofore un-dreamed of levels of narrative incoherence, but hey, not every experiment succeeds."
* * *
"One of the more blatantly anti-capitalist storylines to come down the cinematic pike since, I dunno, Bertolucci's '1900.'"
* * *
""Speed Racer" is a manufactured widget, a packaged commodity that capitalizes on an anthropomorphized cartoon of Capitalist Evil in order to sell itself and its ancillary products."
* * *
Three of the above quotations are taken from a three-star review of "Speed Racer." The other three are from a one-and-a-half-star review. Can you tell which is which? Perhaps the tone gives something away, but the descriptions of the movie, what it does and how it works, are strikingly similar. Clearly both of these critics saw the same movie, although one found the experience less daring, less exhilarating, than the other.
A bewildered parent writes to Roger Ebert's Answer Man column:
My family and friends are discerning movie-goers (we like all genres; we're down with the AFI 100). And we all, family and friends alike, thoroughly enjoyed "Speed Racer." It was a bit cheesy but I loved it as an old "SR" cartoon fan. My kids (16, 19) never really saw "SR" but enjoyed it just as well. My 16-year-old is a "chick flick" teenage girl and she raved about it! What I'm asking is, why do critics pan such movies? Isn't there a place for simple enjoyment and entertainment? Do you think that critiques of films may not always have the most useful criteria for judgment?I am reminded of the episode of "The Dick Van Dyke Show" in which Laura Petrie (Mary Tyler Moore) accidentally reveals to the public that her husband's boss, TV comedian Alan Brady (Carl Reiner), is bald. In the end, he says he's a little relieved after all that he won't have to keep up the pretense. So, Laura suggests, it's actually good that she slipped up, right? Alan is amazed. Not only do I have to forgive her, he exclaims in wonderment, I have to thank her for it! That's kind of the way I feel about comments like the above. It's not enough that a critic accurately describes what he or she sees in the movie. That's almost immaterial to some people. They just get upset when the reviewer doesn't like it as much as they did! (To the Answer Man correspondent -- to everybody, actually -- I recommend this review.)
Star ratings -- the bane of many a critics' livelihood but not mine -- are fascinating to me. They color everything a reviewer who uses (or is required to use) them writes about a movie. Add or subtract one star (especially if it changes the "recommended" status between two and three stars on a four-star scale) and readers will interpret the same review quite differently. More will take issue with the star rating than over anything in the review itself, because they assume the stars themselves have intrinsic meaning, independent of anything the writer has written.
When I conducted my Funny Games Experiment (which was neither disingenuous nor premeditated until I had finished writing the review -- and thank you all, once again, for participating, whether you knew it or not), I chose to give that movie half a star because... well, because that was part of the experiment. Yes, I think the film is a total failure. I believe its premise is not only invalid but deplorable, smug and naive -- all three at once. Not only that, it's Michael Haneke's shot-for-shot remake of his own worst film. I'm more angry at him for wasting his time than for wasting mine, the way I would be if Martin Scorsese decided to spend the next couple years doing a meticulous shot-for-shot remake of his own "Cape Fear" remake.
But, come on, "Funny Games" is a film by Michael Haneke, one of the world's major directors, so how bad could it be, right? Not bad enough, I decided, to give it zero stars -- which would have been too much like the kind of transparently cheap provocational stunt that I felt the movie was trying to pull.
In an indispensable piece on the current state of movie critics and criticism ("In critical condition"), David Bordwell writes:
If I say that I think that "Les Demoiselles de Rochefort" is a good film, I might just be saying that I like it. But not necessarily. I can like films I don’t think are particularly good. [...]I enjoy discussing, even arguing, about films with people whose taste or judgment differs from my own. It doesn't necessarily change anything, but I want to try as hard as I can to understand and be understood, to listen to what they're saying and to push and refine and articulate my own observations and feelings. (That's why I think writing in a blog format -- that allows reader comments and follow-up posts -- is more rewarding and more challenging than writing for print publication -- although, for me, the improvisational aspect of blogging and newspaper reviewing on a quick turnaround are comparably appealing.)The point is that evaluation encompasses both judgment and taste. Taste is what gives you a buzz. There’s no accounting for it, we’re told, and a person’s tastes can be wholly unsystematic and logically inconsistent. [...]
Taste is distinctive, part of what makes you you, but you also share some tastes with others. We teachers often say we’re trying to educate students’ tastes. True, but we should admit that we’re trying to broaden their tastes, not necessarily replace them with better ones. Elsewhere on this site ["The adolescent window"] I argue that tastes formed in adolescence are, fortunately, almost impossible to erase. But we shouldn’t keep our tastes locked down. The more different kinds of things we can like, the better life becomes.
Many times I have said that I'm not terribly interested in a critic's "verdict" on a film, or where they splat on the TomatoMeter™. All that matters is what the writer has to say. Somebody's star rating doesn't affect the quality of their review any more than it does the quality of the movie I've seen. (Imagine: "Well, that was an unimaginative and unilluminating review that told me nothing about the film except that the writer has an opinion about it. But she was absolutely right about it -- it really is a three-and-a-half-star movie!")
To me, the star rating is the maraschino cherry on the sundae. I have no feelings one way or another about maraschino cherries. But if it's there, fine, I'll swallow it -- and it won't affect my experience of the sundae one bit.
Coming soon: A closer look at what's on the screen in "Speed Racer," regardless of whether somebody likes it or not.
P.S. The first, fourth and fifth excerpts above are from Glenn Kenny's review. The middle two are from mine. And I think 1.5 stars is generous. When it comes to stars, I'm not usually disposed to generosity, experience having shown me that about 80 percent of all movies are below average....)
Describing a film based on star ratings in daily conversation is confusing to me. As a quick guide, star ratings of a favourite critic can be useful. A few months ago, I was rummaging through the discount bin at my local DVD store, and came across a few indie titles that had come out while I was in the army, and that had flown under the radar (no pun intended). I took out my phone, did a quick search for them on Ebert’s site, and refrained from purchasing them when I found out they’d been afforded less than glorious star ratings. I didn’t have the time to read the reviews in detail, so the star ratings came in handy.
Usually, though, I don’t pay that much attention to star ratings – I read the review, and the gist is all too often obvious enough. I’ve just read your Prince Caspian review, for example, and it is less positive than your one for Iron Man. But they’ve both been afforded three stars, and it makes sense. But comparing the star ratings for each film based on the respective reviews would not. There is no common ground. Both star rating is perfectly pertinent for their respective reviews.
There is one exception that I can think of. I have always been fascinated by the way they are applied in Halliwell’s Movie Guide, in which, even a one star rating can be attached to a film that the editor thinks is a fine piece of work. The star rating, in that respect, is comparable to the other star ratings in the book.
At the end of the day, it’s an elusive concept, the star rating. It can be helpful in a most superficial way, but to get the true meaning, one has to read the review. Captain Obvious out.
Thanks for noticing the "Prince Caspian" rating, Ali! I thought of getting into it, but decided not to. As I said in the review, I don't think it's a particularly good movie, and I have some moral qualms about the whole enterprise, but I enjoyed and admired parts of it. The way I looked at this one was that I gave it the minimum number of stars to tip it from "not recommended" to "recommended" -- whereas I thought of "Iron Man" as being less than great but pretty darned good. Same rating, different ways of looking at it...
I was somewhat confused by the star ratings in Halliwell's guide until I realized that they were trying even less than most reviews to give an assessment of how well the film succeeds, so much as how much the film succeeds. It's kind of an interesting take, where even a rating of 0 stars doesn't necessarily imply a film is "bad" at all, just unremarkable. An interesting failure and a well made but uninspired film might both "deserve," say, 2.5 stars out of 4 from Ebert, but Halliwell et al. would probably give the uninspired film 0 and the interesting failure 2. That said, film guides (Halliwell's, Maltin's etc.) contain reviews far too brief to be all that informative, and so the star ratings are particularly important there. I think I looked at the guide and mostly disagreed with Halliwell's ratings of the films I'd seen (American Beauty gets 4 stars, and Fight Club 1, for example) so that it didn't seem all that useful.
"The star rating, in that respect, is comparable to the other star ratings in the book."
Star rating on a curve, I like that idea. In fact I think that's how I tend to rate when I click on the stars on IMDb or Netflix. I'd like to that 90% of my movie-watching is from that 20% that Jim thinks are average or better - a percentage I wouldn't argue with. So I know I have a disproportionate number of 7 (or 4 - I wish they'd let you rate a half) star ratings, but I arrogantly think that my average movie experience is still better than 75% of the swill out there. (And yeah, I'm aware my percentages are off mathematically, but I know what I mean.)
Still, anyone who relies solely on star ratings without reading the review deserves what they get.
Same rating, different ways of looking at it...
I've come to use star ratings as an indicator of how seriously to take something--which is not the same thing as noting how serious a movie is. Two very different things.
I work on a 5-star rating system, and anything 3.5 or above means "pay attention." Even if something ultimately fails, or fails dramatically, I might give it a 3.5 to show that the film is a cut above--that it's not, say, another Brett Ratner film looking to make a buck. Hence my giving Speed Racer that rating. I think the Wachowskis really were going for something completely new in moviemaking... and I admire that. Even if I have not ever been, mm, their biggest fan.
Thanks for opening with those various quotes. The thing about Speed Racer that entertains me most, perhaps even more than the movie itself, is the wild variety of responses to it.. and how I agree with almost every one of them (such as yours), even if I don't agree with the final assessment.
I said it before, I'll say it again: some Friday mornings it's good to be alive.
okay here's what i don't get,
how can 80% of anything be below average? that's not the way average works. average is the point where most things are, that's why it's average.
i think what you're saying is, "i don't like 80% of all movies" but that doesn't make them bad. it just means you don't like them. there are plenty of movies that i don't like that aren't bad, they're just not for me. they have nothing special about them... they're average.
when you say, 80% of movies are below average, it makes me think:
a. that's wrong.
b. if he thinks 80% of movies are bad, then he must not like movies.
c. why is this guy spending so much time doing something that he clearly doesn't like, when there are tons of people who do like movies who would love to have his job.
d. what a jerk.
Has anyone else noticed that a lot of "popular" movies that garner the most critical attention -- Speed Racer, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, even last year's Grindhouse -- are not very popular at all (hence the quotes)? These are movies that grab the attention of critics for their cultural significance, and yet they seem to have no cultural value in box office numbers.
I'm not sure how this situates within the "star" discussion in mainstream film criticism, but I think there is a connection that I just can't identify yet.
I think you make an excellent point, though, Jim. Stars are next to irrelevant when it comes to the content of the review. Our conscious reactions to a movie (not to mentioned conscious evaluations) seem to be fairly inconsequential. Because I think we have a tendency to want to "place" a movie, assign it some meaning by singling out particular elements, calling them good or bad, and then structuring an argument around those observations. Thus, we can label a movie with **** or ** and feel it was justified based on "x" or "y."
While I would love to say that star ratings and reviews themselves are separate things, and that readers should pay more attention to the reviews themselves for the meat of an argument, I'm not sure this is true anymore (in a general sense). In a world of stars, grades, and --I hate to say it-- thumbs pointing up or down, reviewing has been re-calibrated according to rating devices. Reviews can be so bland that we may as well have just looked at the star rating. Because of the prominence of these ratings tools, the art of review writing is now approached (from a reader's and writer's perspective) in relation to stars and grades.
I still maintain that the best critics may write independent of stars; a select few are even lucky enough not to have to use them. But ratings and rankings have changed how reviews are constructed and consumed, and not likely for the better.
That said, I cannot escape the confines of stars. I started assigning ratings about eight or nine years ago and have been unable to stop. It's like a rating disorder. It's hard for me to see a movie and not think in terms of ranking it on some level. Which is sad, really, because I know they're arbitrary. And yet, I just can't get away from them.
Still though, I remain firm in my belief that conscious reactions are, in a way, pointless. The best critics will find a way to draw up their reactions to a movie --good or bad-- in a way that transcends the "good / bad" mold. Hopefully some day we move away from "good / bad" thinking and focus more on how a film's images and sounds produce a response, an
chris: I thought that was my best joke -- and an accurate subjective observation! That's what it feels like when, as a critic, you see almost everything. I considered saying "crappy," but "below average" felt truer, and funnier. (Clearly, I don't grade on a curve!)
As for b): If I didn't love movies I wouldn't keep going to them, even though 80% of them are disappointing. What I don't understand is how people can say they like movies if they have no standards and can just watch anything and like it simply because it's shown on a screen. That's not liking movies. That's liking watching. Now I'm off to listen to some music. It doesn't matter what music. I just like sounds.
Chris - no, that's not how averages work.
Consider a math example:
What's the average of the following numbers?:
1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 567901
I use a letter grading system myself- anything "B-" or above is a recommendation.
Any quantitative system is bound to have bugs in it, partly because your evaluation will change slightly over time, and partly because you can't really arrive at these things mathematically. In the end I have to think, "well, this FEELS like a B+", which involves subtle parallels to other films I've given a certain grade. (And if I give a particular grade too often in a row I worry my standards are going weird.)
(One trick I have is I never give a film an A+ after having seen it just once. Whether it's LAWRENCE OF ARABIA or GODFATHER II, I wait until I've seen it a couple of times before I go "okay, this is a masterpiece.")
Jim (not Emerson?),
I loved your little equation because I've been irritated for years about the way the word "average" is misused, or used misleadingly, when "mean" is correct or more appropriate. Such as the way that everybody with an income under, say, $50,000 can be stagnating but if a couple of billionaires are doubling their wealth the country's average income is doing great! Oops, getting political again.
Speaking of music of random quality do you remember the song that goes "Do you like good music?" I've only recently noticed what a bizarre lyric that is, even though Ken (was it?) said "like" and "good" aren't always synonymous for him (and I know what he means).
And as for the Answer Man post, here we go again. There is this certain crowd that continues to believe that not enjoying brightly colored, fast, simple product is impossible and that enjoying slow, quiet, dark, difficult movies is likewise impossible and therefore the critics (and their groupies) are not being true to themselves. It's true that enjoyment isn't the only thing, but if I recommend a movie to someone else then I enjoyed it on some level, even it wasn't the "simple" one. And yes, what exactly would be the value of a reviewer who just likes everything? He might be fun to hang out with but why read his blurbs? "Riveting!" "Action-packed!" "Unputdownable!"
Man, averages and critiques of star-systems, I'm really looking forward to the _Speed Racer_ thing coming up. I haven't seen the movie but will, and while I don't know anything about mean, median or mathematical average, and even less about how to assign stars, I'm curious about how this will play out with what seems to be a cinematography masterpiece and narrative mess. Reminds me a bit of _What Dreams Will Come_ which failed (I think) as a story, but was extraordinary not just technically, but artistically, in ways that are devalued because movies are considered holistic works of art (maybe excepting acting).
High and low combined in a single work, but not as a mode of working, but because one collaborator is miles ahead of the other.
I'm psyched and digging out my graphing calculator all at once!
I'd say the average (if I dare use that term) ticket-buyer likes movies, but doesn't care about them. They're just something to pass the time. Therefore they're totally confused by anyone who thinks critically about what they see.
I thought everyone knew that AT LEAST 80% of EVERYTHING made by humans is crap, movies included. It's probably a generous assessment. Critics, who see a larger percentage of what's made than even the most dedicated ticket-buyer, know this very well. The "average" moviegoer picks and chooses among hundreds of releases and sees only those select few that they're predisposed to enjoy -- so their opinion about "most" movies isn't worth much.
I'm sure most of you are familiar with (Ted) Sturgeon's Law: "90% of everything is crap." The median film may well be a "2 star" film (that sounds about right to me)and I don't really trust a critic who gives 3 star+ ratings to half or more of the films he sees (with the understanding that many critics may limit the sample of films the review and skew it towards films they like and thus want to write about.)
Like most "good" critics, my knee-jerk reaction is always to say that I don't like rating systems, but if I'm being completely honest, I think I do like them. There are lots of films I only have a casual interest in and would rather take a look at a quick rating before deciding if I'm going to read the review. Personally, I am required to rate films on a 1-10 scale and while there are times I find it silly, I know full well there are plenty of readers who are going to pay more attention to that than my review (a depressing thought.)
As for the original letter mentioned here, I am so tired of the "Can't critics just be entertained?" populist whine that people with bad taste, er, excuse me, that people with differing opinions love to throw out there.
Guess what? If I had found it entertaining, I would have given a good review! Iron Man, yes. Speed Racer, no thank you. Just because YOU found it entertaining doesn't mean that everyone found it entertaining and that the only possible explanation for a negative review must be that they are too snooty to appreciate it.
Everyone who has given a definition of "average" so far is a jerk. First, you have to define which kind of average you would like me to give: the mean, the median, or the mode.
Chris:
That has got to be one of the funniest (and most pointless) comments I've ever read here! Mr. Emerson was being diplomatic by calling 80 percent of movies 'below average'. Most movies SUCK! And I love movies, I truly do. But the lack of really engaging cinema being produced these days doesn't make me love movies any less, not even for a minute (though it does make me go to the theater less). No, that just means when a really great movie comes along it deserves to be cherished all the more. Why should we have to lower our standards just because we like going to the movies?
I noticed the same thing you did--that many reviewers of Speed Racer were describing the movie perfectly accurately, and simply rating it different than I did. I saw a meaningless visual masterpiece, a fast-paced ride through 2001's colorful tunnel, a perfect adaptation of a very silly, low-quality television show . (I'm amazed that the Wachowskis spent millions recreating in live action effects which were originally the result of extremely low-budget animation...)
Anyway, I found it beautiful and original and ceaselessly entertaining, and I call that a great film (if not necessarily a good one).
Most reviewers (including you, Jim) saw the same elements in the same film and simply deplored them.
Not really sure why. Maybe a generational thing? Maybe the difference between people who watched and liked the original show and people who didn't? Hard to say.
Thinking of various star-rating systems, I'm fond of the Chicago Reader's -- or at least the one they used to have, I can't find it on their website. 1 star (or was it 1 dot?) was defined as "has redeeming facet". I use this to describe so many of my guilty-pleasure films: "Well, no, it's not a GOOD movie per se, and it has huge plot holes, and the leading lady sucks, but there's that one scene with the tap-dancing octopus that's just awesome..."
Whoa! Whoa! Whoa.
What'd you just say about maraschino cherries?!!? Indifference to...delicious maraschino cherries!
I like maraschino cherries.
Interesting discussion. I tend to use star ratings as a kind of short-cut to finding new movies to see: When confronted with a dozen or so capsule reviews of new films in the weekly arts supplement, I tend to read the ones rated three stars or higher and ignore the others. Is this unfair? Quite possibly, but with limited time and a nearly unlimited number of films to consider, this is the best winnowing method I can think of.
There are a couple of things I find perturbing about ratings, though. For example, if three stars is a recommendation and two is not, what is two and a half stars? Such a rating (which Leonard Maltin appears particularly fond of) seems to indicate uncertainty on the reviewer's part, which in my view means he/she is not doing his/her job. Really, all you have to do is answer: Does this film do it for you or not? Another thing I've noticed is that some rating systems allow for excessive calibration of not-so-good product. This is somewhat true of star ratings (when half-stars are used) but even more true of the letter-grade system. Is there any difference worth noting between, say, a D and a D+? Perhaps critics can make such a distinction when talking to each other, but it means little or nothing to those of us who just want to know if a particular film is worth seeing. If I were a professional reviewer I would probably use a five-star system with no half-stars. Any finer hair-splitting than that is hard for me to conceptualize and in any case strikes me as overkill.
To end this blog,I'm going to say that I think out of all the critics I think Leonard Maltin is the master of the star rating system because he makes four-stars seem like it is a rarity because most of the time I have seen movie critics that give movies four stars like they are giving out candy.Sometimes he can be too generous with his four stars(Glory is a good movie but not a great one) but often he is right on the money(rightly he gave Star Wars and The Godfather three and a half stars while giving The Empire Strikes Back and The Godfather Part II four stars).
I'd give "Glory" 3 1/2 stars.
I would probably only give "A New Hope" 3 stars.
But yeah I agree. "Empire" is a vast improvement on "A New Hope" and "The Godfather 2" is better than "1."
But Ridley Scott's "Alien" is better than Cameron's "AlienS." The second is just a thrilling action movie. Jmaes Cameron can't achieve the brilliant atmosphere that Ridley Scott gives us in spades. And no amount of body count in the second (which has a entire crew of expendables) can equal the shock and horror of the single death of John Hurt.
To answer Marcia's question, the 2-1/2 star rating is a polite pan -- the film critic's equivalent of a gentleman's C. In most cases it denotes an admirable effort that the critic couldn't quite recommend to a paying audience but wanted to say so politely (and in a few cases, it means there was someone involved with the film he didn't want to offend).
I agree Maltin uses it too often, but I also admire his restraint in awarding higher ratings. This makes his book more useful than most others of its type. Maltin does short-change some films, but when he gives three stars or more, you are almost guaranteed a good time.
Although I do love Leonard Maltin as a movie critic I do agree with FilmFan that he does have his flaws where either he is being too generous or not generous enough(I'm still Astonished that he gave Blade Runner a star and a half)but the fact that he shows restraint with his Star Ratings does make him extremely valuable and reliable.
Stars. I remember writing Ebert a few years ago when someone was giving him a difficult time about the star ratings. I said something like "Why can't the stars be about how well the movie was made and the review be about how much you liked it?" And he wrote back and said something like "Exactly".
That idea can be reversed. The stars about how much you liked it and the review about how well the movie was made.
The interesting thing is these two ideas aren't alwasy synonymous. I remember Eberts review of Aliens, the second in the series. He didn't enjoy the movie...gave it a low sar rating, but in the review mentioned how well it was made. Sometimes those aspect are going to meld other times their not and will oppose themselves directly. I find myself appreciating films I just don't enjoy and I think it's a reviewers job to make that distinction and not always love a film that might be well made and then love a film that so poorly made it's not worth reccommending. Often critics confuse these concepts.