Oscar

The Academy Awards took place this past weekend, and in typical Oscar fashion, most of the best picture nominees were movies that few of us had seen.  Of the nine films that were nominated for best picture, I personally have only seen two; one of which I believed deserved its nomination (The Help), and the other I did not (Moneyball).  My wife takes advantage of awards season in the sense that she allows the nominated films to act as a guide for the movies she wishes to view in the near future.  I take advantage of this time to remind her that I have been telling her we should see movie X for some time.  Often times, we end up disappointed in nominated films, because let’s face it; a nominated film does not necessarily equal an entertaining film.  From the 1990 winner for best picture (Dances With Wolves) to the most recent winner (The Artist), I have seen all but five of the 22 winners, and only a handful of them do I consider being entertaining.

Obviously winning Best Picture, or being nominated for that matter, does not determine what movies the viewer may like.  I find a better source for a movie’s entertainment to be the website www.rottentomatoes.com, and even better than the cumulative critics ratings is the Audience, or User, ratings.  As will become evident in a moment, I apparently do not have a life, because as of this date, I have rated 842 films on the site.  The site gives the user the option of rating a film between 1-5 stars, Not Interested, and Want To See. 

After taking advantage of this site for years, I realized that merely rating a movie as 1-5 did not tell me nearly enough about what I liked about the film.  Due to this, I developed my own system to determine the greatness of a film.  I simply call it my Movie Greatness Ratings.  I decided to take the elements that I believe make a movie great, and give them weighted averages to determine the overall score.  The following are the elements that I believe make a movie great:

Story

Story includes the elements of the plot and the ability to capture the audience's attention, the writing for its specific genre, and the film remaining in the guidelines that the story has established (no cheating).

Originality

Originality includes a unique premise or ideas, including effects, that are either new or uncommon in films. Includes a new take on familiar genre or story.

Quality

Quality includes the level of production, direction, acting, and overall feel of the movie.

Entertainment

Entertainment includes the film's ability to keep the audience's undivided attention, maintain interest in where the film is going, and causing a resistance to get up and use the bathroom until the film is over.

An additional factor that I rate, but do not include in the formula because it has no effect on a film’s greatness is Pace.  I include this because some people do not enjoy slow movies, and others may not enjoy film that is frantic.

My Movie Greatness Ratings total scores typically lie somewhere between the Critics and Users ratings on Rottentomatoes, but it gives more details about what makes the movie good.  The highest rating for an individual category is 5.  It is my intent to update this site with the scores of films that I watch and hopefully provide some insight about what I enjoyed in a particular film.  Below are my ratings for the two Best Picture Nominees that I have seen:

The Help:

Story: 4.7  Originality: 4.8  Quality: 5  Entertainment: 4.8  Pace:3.5

Total: 95.8  Rottentomatoes (RT): 75  Audience: 91

Moneyball:

Story: 4  Originality: 4  Quality: 5  Entertainment: 3  Pace: 3

Total: 77  RT:95  Audience: 90