Hyperon's Rating System

Quincy has been bugging me to reinstate my old rating system. I’d cut it because it didn’t seem like anyone cared, and because I was worried people would just “bottom-line” it and not read the more nuanced review (people like Quincy, perhaps). However, I miss the old system, so it’s coming back. I used to tell people to read column #121 for an explanation of my movie rating system, but since that was a long time ago, and especially since I don’t have it up on the website yet, I thought I would briefly explain it here.

The first rating I do is the Suspension of Disbelief Index. Ranging from 0 to 10, this tells you how seriously to take the gaps in logic you see in a film. (We all know people who take every movie supremely seriously). For example, alien creatures in DUDE, WHERE’S MY CAR? Should not be a concern. If those same aliens were to show up in SCHINDLER’S LIST, however, that would be a legitimate beef. 0 means everything in the movie should be hyper-realistic, and 10 would be Bugs Bunny.

This box serves no purpose other than to let me know if I can post boxes in my blog. Actually, though, now that I think about it, a box should have a purpose. So, the purpose of this box is to enslave the race of penguins. You hear that, you tuxedo-wearing flightless freaks? This box is coming for you!!!

Next is a Genre Grade. We all have seen and enjoyed movies that are never going to make any critic’s Top Ten List. But we still enjoy them. That’s kind of the purpose for a Genre Grade. For example, SCREAM isn’t one of the best movies ever made, but for a horror film, it was an A-.

The big one is the Pantheon Percentile. What that means is that we take the film and rate it compared to all films ever made in the history of cinema. Therefore, a perfectly average film would score a 50, while the best films ever would score a 99.

There might also be other ratings, but they will vary from movie to movie and should be pretty obvious. In fact, feel free to suggest some, and if I like it I’ll include your rating too.