Issue 07: Making the grade—or not
Letterboxd, the site I use to keep track of what movies I've seen and where across the web I've had reviews published, released a mobile app at long last. It's great! You should use it! It got me to thinking, however, about grading and rating movies.
Since I've started watching movies seriously—give or take 5 years ago—I've kept a journal where I review everything I ever see; yes, even the downright terrible films. In my first, now-filled notebook, I would give everything a letter grade, with A+ the rarely-accorded denotation of a masterpiece. I decided to drop this practice when I started my second notebook (fast approaching completion) and I've noticed that the way I watch movies has changed as a result. Whereas I used to sit through every film adjusting the tabs on a little mental scale in my head (“ooh, that was a poor edit, gonna have to move this down to a B+”), I've come to realize that, try as we instinctually might to categorize the world around us, art can't be so easily classified.
How can you account for those movies that are rough around the edges yet leave you powerfully shaken to your core? If a screenplay makes one or two missteps, an actor doesn't quite give it their all, a scene goes on a bit too long, does that make a film somehow worse than a movie that follows all the rules without saying or doing anything of significance or excitement? I think of movies like The Descendants, which I had so much trouble reviewing back in the day; I couldn't find any faults with the filmmaking, acting, or writing, yet I couldn't shake the sense that I had just been presented with the cinematic equivalent of dry cabbage. And normally I like cabbage.
Compare with, say, The Immigrant, which I caught up on last summer. While I didn't entirely buy Tom Hardy or Joaquin Phoenix's performances, the sterling cinematography and Marion Cotillard's acting elevated the film in my estimation to a must-see. Surely if I had seen the movie in my grade-assigning days, I would have docked it major points for the falseness of its male leads. But since I've started evaluating movies differently, I was instead forced to grapple more intentionally with my disconnect between the male actors and the rest of the film's significant achievements.
Grading is fine for quick categorization for one's own sake—using a 5-star system to differentiate tried-and-true favorites from films you want to give a second look, or whatever; this is initially what I did on Letterboxd—or for the sake of giving a fast recommendation to friends, but I challenge ye grade-givers of the world to reconsider giving any grade at all. It's funny, you'll find, how flexible a first impressions can be.
Articles, News, and Interviews
Name that director: “I remember standing in the outfield thinking, ‘I want to read The Brothers Karamazov.’” http://nyti.ms/1MiZz9U
How to shoot a documentary in Iran: http://bit.ly/1p2DVBq
A visual tribute to Ken Adam (1921–2016), the man who designed Dr. Strangelove's War Room: http://bit.ly/254GbJe
Who really votes on what movies make the IMDB top 250? http://bit.ly/1RYCOwq
On Bette Davis: “How many stars of that era, or even our own, were so frank about their relationship to their looks?” http://bit.ly/25bcp5G
Zack Snyder (300, Man of Steel) would not have been my pick to direct an adaptation of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, but, well, to each their own I guess. http://bit.ly/1puzj7f
Poster of the Day
1930 was a great year for movie posters. It also gave us the immediately iconic movie titles TROLLBRUDEN (“The Troll Bride”) and Madame Satan. http://bit.ly/1TZWhjZ