When you blog about movies and write down your thoughts, usually you will end that review with a score. Of course that number can not cover everything you think about it and one 8 can mean something completely different as the other 8. The question I want to ask this week is not how do you decide what the score should be, but more about the moment that you decide what it will be. Personally I usually already know the score while the movie has not finished yet. My score mainly represents how much I enjoyed a movie so that makes getting to score a movie a bit easier. Some of you might take several days though to give that ultimate summary of what you think of a movie.
How quickly do you decide what kind of score you will give a movie and when do you think is the best moment to score a movie?
I don’t do rating anymore as I think they’re irrelevant as scores always change whenever one thinks about a film over and over again. I prefer to let the review do the talking and let someone figure out what I would rate the film.
I often see that discussion about not having scores and you could argue no score can capture everything about it, still there are a lot of people who do want to know that number to get a feeling if it is worth watching.
I don’t give scores by numbers of thumbs up, but I do say whether I think it’s worth seeing, worth seeing only if you wait till it come to cable, a must see, etc. Which is a score, just not by number.
Sometimes I know early on, within a few minutes. That’ll usually be a negative because it’s excessively violent, unnecessarily gory, terrible acting, really awful cinematography. I also know if I like it pretty fast, but how much I like it — a little, a lot, wow — I don’t know till it’s over. If I hate it, I tend to turn it off or walk out on it. If I like it, I’ll stay through the credits, then think about it before writing about it or rating it. I don’t write reviews immediately after viewing. I give it a little time to gain perspective. I think that’s more fair. Every good movie is the greatest five minutes after it ends, but you may have a more realistic evaluation 24 hours later.
Yeah, that is a good way to do it too. Some movies are cool to see on cable (as long as there are no commercial breaks).
Generally I never turn a movie off. Only very few times I have done so…somehow I always want to see it all before forming an opinion on it. My score captures that feeling right after the movie because that is the closest to the experience. Sure that score might have been lower had I rated it some days later, but I want to get across that initial feeling because that is the reason you would want to see something.
There isn’t one “right” way. I have these guidelines, but I don’t always follow them. If something really impresses me, I may write it up immediately, though not publish it instantly. I do with everything — I’m the queen of typos. I need another pass through it to clean it up 🙂
I try to sleep on all my scores, but sometimes I just get to excited (or irritated) after I see a film that I want to score it right away. It’s an ongoing battle for me. lol
Haha, especially with movies at the end of the scale (high and low) I can completely understand that!
You can see my breakdown of ‘scores’ for this years films here:
http://afistfuloffilms.blogspot.com/2013/03/2013-movie-reviews-page.html
I personally grade each film by what I feel the film INTENDED to deliver. So, when I go into a rom-com, I judge it for what it is and don’t compare it to films that are trying for something greater. That is also why I’m VERY hard on Oscar bait that fails miserably. I’ve given F’s to films like ‘Blood Diamond’ and ‘Gran Torino’ because I was appalled that they even TRIED to be Oscar bait.
And, like you, I tend to know what I’m going to grade something about mid-way, but there have been films that have changed my mind completely (for good or bad) in the third act.
Nice overview page.
Interesting way to approach it with thinking about what the film intended to deliver.
I like to think about it for a day, but sometimes I get really giddy and crazy and you end with this super long review with a perfect score. Haha so 50% of the films I review in the summer each year 😀
So it all depends on the situation. It depends on how inspired I am by a movie to write something about it.
Yes very much so 😀
If I get inspired to write, then its a good film 😀
I don’t do scores, mainly because I’m never fully confident on one plus it forces my readers to actually look over my reviews ;-).
I am the opposite, if people only want to look at the score I’m cool with that. Each person consumes information in different ways.
As an initial matter, I am an unabashed supporter of scores (or in my case, grades) because it actually gives me the freedom to focus on what I want in the review. For example, in a particular review or essay, I may want to spend 50-75% of the space talking about a particular aspect that interests me (and I think will interest others); but THAT sort of discussion might give you a skewed perception about what I thought about the film as a whole.
All that said, I am not sure how helpful my grades are. Since nobody pays me for blogging, for the most part, I stay away from films that are not in my wheelhouse, and as a result, I end up seeing about 70-80 new movies a year. (I have a page for 2012 and 2013 that lists all the films I saw alphabetically along with the grades, even for the many I do not write a longer review for.) Since I have been grading all movies I see (for the last 2 years), my average tends to trend around B-, but I noticed I give very few As or Ds (relative to those I follow on letterboxd, etc.).
As for your question, there seems to be this perception that the black helicopters will swoop down and take you into indefinite custody if you change a grade on a film upon time passing/repeated viewings. I have no problem changing a grade. That said, I think the best time to give a grade is within 24 hours of seeing it, and when I do change the grade, it hardly ever ends up being significant (e.g., A- to B+). First impressions usually stick.
Yeah, I do think that if you don’t blog for money you in general will watch movies in the “better” part of the spectrum. You usually have an idea what the bad movies are and will skip them. Also do that. I have given both 1’s and 10’s, but I won’t give those scores a lot. First impressions stick with me as well.
Generally I come up with a grade (score) immediately after watching the film. I may adjust it after a write the review. On rare occasions it may be until I write the review before I determine a grade.
So pretty much the same way I do it. I never change grades after deciding them.
I’ll start each movie with 5. If I’m enjoying it, I’m adding points, if not I detract them. By the end of the movie if It’s, say 85/100 for me, I look at the other films I rated 85 and I decide whether this one was better or worse.
Also a very interesting approach to rating a movie Sati. Thanks.
Like many, I’m big on first impressions. I typically write a review within 24 hours of seeing said film, and my grading system (out of 10) reflects both what I felt the film achieved (or didn’t), and my enjoyment of it. More often, if I really enjoy a patently crappy film (such as a Michael Bay Armageddon or something) I’ll still give it a higher rating, but reflect my reasoning within the review.
I guess it’s a combination of enjoyment and quality, really.
I generally enjoy those big blockbuster action movies a lot more than other bloggers, so I am with you on that one Rodney. Enjoyment is my main thing in deciding but I can not deny that quality also plays a role. Still if the movie has a high quality and I didn’t enjoy it then I won’t rate it high.
I usually have a score for the film by the time the credits roll, but this can change. It’s usually when I’m sitting down to write the review itself that I realise that I liked/disliked the film more than I thought, and the scores change.
There are a few films I want to revisit, as I’ve liked them more in retrospect, but I see the reviews as my opinion at the time I wrote it.
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