On Movie Review Ratings

I feel like I'm not giving all movies justice with my ratings lately.

I get an urge to go back and skim through the lists I've already reviewed and change a bunch of them, but I know that if I did that it wouldn't be fair either. My impressions of each movie are only fresh in mind shortly after I've watched them, and those impressions fade quickly. I won't remember how great a movie really was or wasn't from the glimpses that remains now: when I see the covers, or titles, and think I still remember enough...

So I won't do that. At least not yet. At least not unless I see a rating I'm dead certain is really really discrediting and decide just to change that one, and then maybe just one more, and then another... yeah, OK! Best stay away from unmerited and false impressionist changes entirely. Best let my ratings speak for my first impressions and for the reviews to which they're tied - no matter how biased that first impression might have been.

It's difficult to move between the numbers too. Is this one leaning towards a 4 or a 5? How 'top score' is that top score really? When I give a movie like Kubo and the Two Strings a 4, and yet give Cars a 5... I start to doubt. Was the difference between them really that big? Why does one merit the absolute best score possible and the other not quite cut it? Because both of these two were AMAZING. I've seen them recently. I think I remember.

Does the fact that I've seen Cars a few times earlier and still consider it awesome amplify the merited rating - since the awesomeness level hasn't decreased even after all this time? Does it impact the score that the first time I saw this particular movie I probably thought it was even more awesome - and that this first sensation of awe still sticks with me to this day? Should I compare the animation quality to newer movies, and rate it in regard to that? It's ten years old, so of course it's aged, but considering it's age the animation quality is still surprisingly good... so maybe that would merit an even higher rating?

Often I rate movies with bias. There's just no avoiding it. Say I watch a romantic movie where the intended demographic is teenage girls... and I like it. Hell, maybe even love it? Can I really give this particular type of movie a top score? What if it's shallow, and shouldn't merit a high score yet all, but it just hit me right in the feels? Do I care too much about my image? Do I judge by genre? What if, in considering I might be biased towards a certain type of movie, I actually rate movies within that genre HIGHER to make up for said bias? Would that be fair... or just lead to even more bias?

Ratings are HARD. All kinds of strange things factors in that circumvent the seemingly so simple judgment call: is this good, or is it bad?

What is good? What is bad? What separates the two, and where does that separation lie? It leads to the very fundamentals of our existence, and those preconceptions based upon the circumstances of our lives, and our experiences, and how that factors in on how we rate these particular titles.

Sometimes a movie rating just fits perfectly though. Sometimes it's a clear 3. Sometimes it's an obvious 4. Sometimes it is FRIGGIN AMAZING. The most difficult distinction is probably the one between the top two scores, since a 4 borders on perfection, and perfection... that's a difficult level to reach. As such I probably give a great deal more movies that deserve a 5 a 4 than I give movies a 4 that deserve a 4. So maybe it all boils down to: the expectations of a top score.

Is it right to hold the top score at a level of absolute perfection, or should I give it to any movie I thoroughly enjoyed? If it's the latter a lot more movies would be getting that score, and yet if it's the former it's all still very much relative. No movie's perfect; it's still my impressions and bias that lead me to give the rare and spectacular movie that little boost and high five when it's perfect for me. Which leads me to the even more important question: who am I?

But that's a topic for another post - or a multitude thereof. I just wanted to write down some of my reasoning in regard to rating movies, and vent some of the unnecessary frustration that some of this reasoning sometimes entails. Am I overthinking things? Yeah. Very probably. It leads me to question: does anyone else have any similar struggles rightly rating cinematic works like these?

If I could give myself some advice it would be to just watch, enjoy, and write down those thoughts and impressions without paying too much mind to the numbers. They're just a guideline after all - a form of measurement, and great things can be difficult to measure.