5-Point Movie Review, 2013

In 2013, I was fortunate to view a least 20 motion pictures in the theaters. In a fancy way of saying “This is what I think of that”, I posted my own movie reviews with the tag of “5-Point Movie Review”. The five points are five characteristics of the film watching experience that most affected my personal enjoyment of said film.

Each is awarded a base grade utilizing the standard five-level grading system from “A” to “F”, “A”-being best and skipping “E” (because obviously “F”= “Fail” makes better sense than “E”=“Fail”), that I grew up with in school. While the base grade is applied as objectively as possible, admittedly this first step technically isn’t objective at all. Still, colloquially, this is what the base grades mean:

“A” = Better than the material suggested.
“B” = They did make the movie they wanted.
“C” = They didn’t make the movie they wanted.
“D” = They were incapable of making the movie they wanted.
“F” = They shouldn’t have made this film.

Each of five points/ characteristics may up-grade or down-grade the score, with the basic criteria:
+1 = Good job, worth seeing.
par = Meets expectations = 0 grade movement.
-1 = Detracts from movie watching experience.
Occasionally I’ve assigned either a +2 or -2.
There are 13 distinct levels on the grading chart, comprised of “+” and “-” levels respectively above and below the top 4 base grades. “F” is it’s own lonely level. Since by this structure there is nothing higher than “A+”, mid way through the year, I imposed the rule that in order to be awarded with the necessarily up-grade to “A+”, the review must begin with the base grade of “A”, not to receive any negative points , and have received at least 2 positive points.

THE “A”s:
Iron Man 3, This Is The End, Gravity

MOST UP-GRADED:
This Is The End, Gravity, Thor: The Dark World (each 3 points up)

MOST DOWN-GRADED:
A Good Day to Die Hard, The Lone Ranger (both 3 points down)

Thanks for watching.

Have and Happy New Year.

– Bryan