WoDM and I are reviewing people. We review sunsets, car rides, movies, albums, magazines, food, etc. If the cat jumps, we hold up a sign rating the jump from one to ten. Inari’s jumps tend to average around 6.9 or so. We’ve discussed including reviews on the blog, mostly because we play off each other. WoDM and I never agree on anything entirely, but we’ll generally agree on the overall quality of things.
I’m attempting to come up with guidelines for reviewing movies, questions we could both answer that manage to incorporate going to see fun movies as well as going to see serious movies. I have a problem with a lot of movie reviews in that they focus too much on plot or on the director or anything else. I don’t care, I just want to know what the gist is.
Here’s my working list of questions:
- Summarize the plot in one sentence. I stole this idea from an Adolescent Literature class in college. We practiced writing one sentence book summaries as a means of inducing people to read books. It eliminates the bologna and gets to the point. What’s the main drift here, what are we movie go-ers concerned with?
- Who would you take to see this movie? Explain. This question is meant to create an image of who would see this movie and under what circumstances.
- What impressed you most about this movie?
- What disappointed you most about this movie?
- Comment on the scoring, graphics/cinematography, the ability of the film to draw you in, the length, development of plot, etc… So the reviewer can compliment or insult a wide-range of the artistic elements of the film.
- Under what circumstances would you watch this film again? (torture, rerun on tv, plan to own it, etc)
Ideally, WoDM and I would both fill this out, and the reader would get two perspectives on the same thing. With a few adaptations, I think this review could be used for books, possibly for albums, and likely for rating outings. We shall see.
One Comment
I give your review system an 8.2. Well done.
The only one I have a problem with is #5, because it’s open-ended enough that it might encourage the reviewer to write an actual movie review instead of finely-honed praise/ranting.
I would change #5 to read:
5. One person involved in the production of the film must be given a prestigious award, and one person must be cast into an active volcano. Who should receive each of these fates and why?
Obviously, cast, crew, writers, producers are all eligible. You’d also have to answer both halves of the question whether the film was excellent or terrible.
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