Movie Ratings Scheme for Ain't no spoilers!

My respected brothers, sisters, kings and queens - there AIN'T NO SPOILERS here. Forever.

Welcome to how we do our “ratings” – a mad way to compare movies in a mad world.

Like everything else in the west we break our ratings scheme down to basic pieces and then put them all together, while being aware that this still is a drastically inadequate way to rate a movie. So we’ll do it both ways and use the eastern, holistic thinking. Not just to use those f&$&*$g words - to actually MEAN it, if you know what I mean.

In fact I would invite you all to consider the following: just like there’s fifty ways to leave your lover, there’s ninety nine ways to skin a cat. And there’s only ONE way to decide. And that is YOU. YOU will, ultimately, decide how you feel about a movie. YOU will, dare I say, overrule the experts, the fans, the fanatics and the diehards and make your rating your own. Therefore, respect to you, sir, madam, boy, girl. Respect!

Having rambled on its time now for me to skin that cat ninety nine ways.

Firstly...we all agree (yes, that includes you and me) on a 10-point rating scale. You’ve got to “KISS” sometimes, you know? And for each factor I’m going to address below we can assign a rating on a 10-point scale. We then use the weights to come up with the “overall rating” for the movie on a 10-point scale. Got it?

Second, our weight factors. Our rating considers these factors which I think are key elements to a movie...

·  The chutzpah of the movie - did it grab you by the throat and create a big lump? Did it exhibit “audacity or impudence”? as the definition of chutzpah goes - in essence the overall character and authenticity. Did it make you think of it all night and you had to go pee at least three times? Did it make you smile hither and thither, or snatch that fresh box of Kleenex? In short did it evoke emotions in you without you knowing your emotional mind was the queen of your castle during the movie? Did it suck you in where your reality became it’s reality (and not vice versa)? In my book (and in several others mind you) this is the most important factor to judge if a movie hit the mark and became a hit in your heart. Hence this factor gets a weight of 20%.

·  Direction - definitely my favorite factor. The director is the creator of the chutzpah, the soul, the heart and the “kwon”. Yes, that’s a Jerry Maguire reference. Put the whole thing together for me, Steven! Direction gets a weight of 15%.

·  Screenplay - this is so confounded with direction, it’s so bloody hard! But you know what, the writers deserve a lot more to get the script just right and give the backdrop for directors, to give them the mood of each scene and bring it to life in the directors’ mind. So that the director then knows exactly what she needs to do. If it were not for writers playing this part its like taking the foundations off our house of cards. The whole thing falls apart. So, the foundation stones get 12%.

· Cinematography – this is 10% for me. The reason its lower than direction and screenplay is because this is right next to the foundational pieces of the house. While chutzpah, direction and screenplay lay the foundation, cinematography, photography and the creation of the visual angles, lighting, movement and setting the pace are all the drywalls and the walls that set the frames of the movie edifice.

· Acting - that sickness, that swallow, that improv, in-the-moment spontaneity makes acting almost as important as direction but not quite. Because the director can make an actor suck or touch greatness. I’m going with 10% for acting. The combination of direction and acting can actually add up to more than 18%, and we know it! And it might feel we’re underplaying acting here but we’re not. After checking out a few thousand movies in different languages like me (or being an actor or a movie industry guy or gal) I already see your nodding head. Plus now we’ve laid the floorboards to walk on in our little home J.

·  Editing - In general editing makes the final calls with the director. The editor pieces things together, sticks the vinyl together, and most importantly decides with the director which pieces to throw away. Haven’t we yearned for “uncut” versions of so many scenes? Haven’t we wondered what’s coming next? The editor makes the cuts and makes us wonder what’s coming next. If she’s not done that to you, she hasn’t edited, she’s just mixed pieces of paper. The origami is simply not there! For this reason I give editing at least 10%. And this is the first floor of our home.

· Production design - an important part of movie-making because this gal creates the physical world that’s the imagination of direction and script writing, doesn’t she? If that is not as real as what imagination suggests in the script and what the direction desires then all the best acting’s not going to matter. These are the rooms, the décor in each room, the floors and the environs of our home we’re building with the foundation that’s screenplay. The sets, expressing the intent of the script, the (un)reality of things and the behavior and interaction of humans or animals with their environs. This is what brings the screen to life in visual and aural form. Makes sense? So...in my book this is 8%. Now we’ve built our second floor.

·  Sound and Music – 5% for sound and 5% for music. Sound and music are both choices that do two main things - decide how to marry with cinematography without a divorce, and set the mood for every moment and scene. Sound and soundtrack (music) are the first inhabitants to enter our home, so they need to treat the home well. And the home needs to welcome them! For this marriage to work it takes two to kiss.

·  Genre Differentiators - this is 5%. These are the special traits that are unique to the genre the movie falls under. If it’s a suspense thriller, we WANT it to be a suspense thriller, don’t we? We don’t want to be cheated out of what we expect and a wimp of a thriller or we know everything that’s going to happen in five minutes and we’re going “enough already, move it!” And in some cases expectation sets the tone for the entire home (the structure we’ve been building with this rating-scale J). So...in a weird turn of events the genre differentiator and viewer expectations can make or break how a movie is perceived and reviewed. This is why the genre differentiator is our “child” of the home. The child needs to be nurtured and pampered - till she’s grown up!

So...here’s the final tally on weight factors for the TOP 10 ratings on movie ratings...

·       Chutzpah                    20%

·       Direction                   15%

·       Screenplay                  12%

·       Cinematography             10%

·       Acting                      10%

·       Editing                     10%

·       Production Design          8%

·       Sound                       5%

·       Music                       5%

·       Genre Differentiators     5%

Now for some high school, nah, elementary school arithmetic. Let’s say you just watched Joker, and you rate it as follows (I did the ratings but you get the point):

Movie Characteristic	Permanent Weights	Enter Rating (on 10)	Product (calculate)	Comments
Chutzpah	20%	8.5	1.700	Joker
Direction	15%	8.0	1.200
Screenplay	12%	7.5	0.900
Cinematography	10%	8.0	0.800
Acting	10%	8.5	0.850
Editing	10%	8.0	0.800
Production Design	8%	7.0	0.560
Sound	5%	8.0	0.400
Music	5%	7.5	0.375
Genre Differentiators	5%	8.5	0.425	drama, thriller
		Total =>	8.010

Here’s how the arithmetic works - you enter all your ratings on the 10-point scale, then multiply each one by its weight, and then add them all up. That’s basically IT!

So...my rating for Joker is an 8.0 (I usually round off to the first decimal). I’ve pointed this out in an earlier post here. Not bad for a movie, huh? 

From now on you know how these ratings are generated and I’m the one doing them, so relax with a glass of wine (or a cuppa) and read on, will ya?

Joker (movie)

Laideez and zentilmeen, baayz and gayrrlz - there AIN'T NO SPOILERS here. Forever.

Welcome to Joker. Watched on Oct. 12, 2019. Directed by Todd Phillips.

Folks, saw Joker. I mean, really SAW it. A seminal accomplishment in cinema. Recall Taxi Driver with de Niro and The Dark Knight with Heath Ledger? This one harks back to both of them and is those two combined, on steroids. Scarier, intense and an emotional roller coaster. A serious contender with one of the greatest movies made without a doubt in several categories, most of all for actor, director, picture and original soundtrack. Sprinkle on screenplay, soundtrack and cinematography as well. And what a far cry from what you might have thought so far on Joker. Read on for a dissection.

The story: Arthur Fleck is struggling to get by in Gotham City, playing different acts (jobs) and trying to figure out who he is. Then follows a masterful portrayal of the life of the destitute and the injustices they have to go through in a large city with less real largesse than what’s in people’s minds. Train rides sitting in dark and dingy corners, the filth of the ghetto-like apartment complexes matched equally with charming smiles exchanged between inhabitants. The smiles are fresh and full of life in the midst of squalor, providing a contrast between peoples’ outer and inner beings.

In the midst of all this Arthur has his own dreams of leading a better life. He does have a mental disorder; but really...does he? We will not get into his fantasies and dreams but let’s just say he’s like you and me, wishing a better quality of life for him and his kin. And then disappointment strikes. And again. And again. In parallel we discover his disorder of laughter for no reason (or for some reason which we can interpret for ourselves). I can tell you this laughter is scarier than the Taxi Driver’s; it’s the combination of camera work, sound, light and acting that creates the scariness. As Fleck transitions into his Joker self we’re by now living the transformation with him and wishing for things to get better. And they do, depending on what “better” means for you.

Arthur’s experiences, how he responds and becomes Joker is the rest of the story.

My (in)sane musings: I was shocked, surprised, scared and taken aback several times. Especially that mentally deranged laughter; again, is it truly deranged? In the process Joaquin Phoenix and Todd Phillips have created one of the scariest, most enigmatic characters. We also get some history on Arthur Fleck, the origins of Batman which were woven into the story a bit sneakily in my opinion. Sneaky but slick. You see why Arthur is who he is and who Bruce is, and you get why Arthur is Joker. It’s like that story where there cannot be a world without contrast. The lack of contrasts in behavior and action creates nothing. And in the creation of Joker we come close to seeing how one can get sidelined by society, resulting in anarchy of the mind. Joker “doesn’t give a shit” is what I got out of this.

In a metaphorical way Joker is an enactment of Arthur’s mind itself. The mind feels that anarchy is better than the status quo, so let’s make sure we move towards that state. To do so would require a revolution, a movement, a tour de force of action considered by many to be criminal acts. But “who gives a shit” in Gotham? Let’s make them aware that there’s a state beyond what we have, and let’s take action to move Gotham to that state. Hence Joker, Arthur’s alter ego creates a whole lot of jokers. Reminds me of the Bhagavad Gita, the Hindu scripture which defines “sthitha pragnya” as a state of being where you’re taking action without worrying about consequences. Might there be a thin thread connecting these two, separated only by five thousand years?

Different from Jack Nicholson’s projection of the Joker in Batman, this Joker laughs at several things around us. Different from Robert de Niro’s Taxi Driver, this laugh is scarier and to top it, de Niro himself bears witness to this. It’s up to us to figure out what our Joker’s laughing at. I found my inside self laughing at a whole lot of things. And think you will too.

I'm a whopping 8.0/10 for Joker. Hahahahahahahahahahaha...(deep breath)...

hahahahahaha...deep breath...deep breath...hahahahahaha...Put on a happy face, will ya?

1917 (movie)

Laideez and zentilmeen - there AIN'T NO SPOILERS here. Forever.

Welcome to my take on 1917. Watched on Jan 26, 2020. Directed by Sam Mendes.

Cinematography, sound, George Mackay's acting, and Sam Mendes who put this thing together. Lethal combo. The vagaries and insanity of war. The perversion of the human existence in the form of floating bodies. Slush and filth. Green fields and the deep blue sea. You just want to let them be.

The story: In 1917 in the middle of World War 1, an English army regiment and the General find out that the Germans have retreated from a strategic position in France. They realize this is a trap to make sixteen hundred troops come after them and then "bomb the shit out of them". But the troops are at least a couple of days away and the only way to stop them from launching their attack is to send a couple of messengers with the General's orders to call off the attack. Two junior soldiers (Lance Corporals), Will Schofield and Tom Blake are selected to go on this mission which might very well be a one way trip to hell.

The reason General Erinmore (Colin Firth) gives the two soldiers why its only the two of them going to deliver this message? "Down to Gehenna or up to the Throne, he travels the fastest who travels alone". And you know you're going to travel with these soldiers from that point. But you will not be ready for that journey. Guaranteed!

From that moment on, I was sitting at the edge of my rear end and didn't even feel the edge of the seat biting into it. George Mackay (Schofield) and Dean-Charles Chapman (Blake) are the two corporals on the mission, with explicit orders from the General. On the way Schofield is told to have witnesses when the message (order to call off the attack) is delivered to Colonel MacKenzie (commanding the sixteen hundred troops for the attack) because in those days you just did things for glory and medal. 

1917 is a quest, an adventure, a mission of two Lance Corporals in the British army trying to save the lives of sixteen hundred men about to walk into a trap set by the Germans. In the midst of what we call the Great War now, we can see the nonsensical nature of existence and how life is treated in all Her forms.

Methinks the other essence of 1917 is that Sam has figured out how to bring out the soul of the film through the contrasting souls and their behaviors. For example the French lady Schofield runs into with the other stranger (nope, won't tell you more), the reaction of Lieutenant Blake, Mark Strong playing the passing British regiment, and several other occasions. Sam's also figured out how to extract the anti-souls from the human spirit - e.g. when Blake and Schofield encounter the German pilot. Just goes to say how circumstances can change lives quickly, oh so quickly, and what "boundless human stupidity" the Great War was. Actually I'd prefer to call it the real small War. Let's not give it such a pedestal.

Enough said - Go watch 1917 and live it yourself!  I'm a 7.5/10 for this Sam Mendes masterpiece.

And oh, my ratings will crystallize for you over time - it’s a composite of various factors weighted thoughtfully to arrive at the right recipe with the secret magic sauce. I'll unveil it soon enough. Until then...ensoii the journey :-)