Saying Farewell to Movie Review Letter Grades
From now on the words will speak for themselves
I think at least one person has asked about the absence of letter grades on each of the five reviews I posted this weekend wondering if I stopped grading films along with posting my reviews. In short, the answer is yes, I will no longer be publishing letter grades with my weekly reviews. Too many arguments, emails, irrelevant discussions and comments have been made comparing letter grades from one movie to another and I have always had a distinct displeasure grading movies since they are, for the most part, worthless.
I have addressed this in the past when Roger Ebert published an article headlined "You give out too many stars". I responded with "Roger Ebert Responds to Star Haters" in which I explained my "C rule" in which a "C" means average. I wrote:
The "C-rule" works. So many films basically sit on that average line. Sometimes a little more (C+) and sometimes a little less (C-). Once you become comfortable with the idea it really does make things quite simple.
Even after explaining my method (and more than once might I add) I still had to field emails and comments regarding the grade alone, which ultimately meant we were no longer discussing the merits of the movies and instead debating on the value of a "C+" or a "B-". Again, worthless.
The realization to finally dismiss letter grades altogether came last week when a regular commenter began arguing the quality of a movie based on the grade I had given it, never once referencing the words and descriptions of my review. This was a reader that often brings solid conversation and debates to the table so it saddened me to see they had resigned themselves to put so much weight on one puny letter and overlook the 644 words I had used to build my case.
By eliminating the grading scale all we are left with is the opinion itself. It will open up actual discussion about the movie and not whether or not I gave it the proper grade. It still allows you to disagree with me and disagree with me passionately and it should be interesting now that the grades will no longer be part of the discussion.
At this point I will yield the floor to Mr. Ebert who ended the article I referenced above as follows:
I cringe when people say, "How could you give that movie four stars?" I reply, "What in my review did you disagree with?" Invariably, they're stuck for an answer. One thing I try to do is provide an accurate account of what you will see, and how I feel about it. I cannot speak for you. Any worthwhile review is subjective. If we completely disagree, my words might nevertheless be useful or provocative. If you disagree with what I write, be my guest. If you disagree with how many stars I gave it, you can mail your opinion to where the sun don't shine.
Ebert continues to use the star rating because his editors tell him to. Fortunately I am my own editor and while I realize a letter grade is something so many people love to go to out of simplicity alone, but if that's the case why was I awake until 4:45 AM yesterday editing together my five reviews if all anyone was going to look at was the letter grade? If it's simplicity you want, you can still count on the final paragraph in 99.9% of my reviews, which give you my parting shots and what boils down to my opinion in just a few sentences. Very little reading involved.
As of right now you will be hard-pressed to find any grades left on the site other than those still embedded in some of the articles, which I'm not going to take the time to go back and remove. However, if you are interested I am actually still grading movies for sorting reasons on the back end, but it won't show up on the "A" to "F" scale on the site. Instead, you can visit the RopeofSilicon Movie Review Archives where they are labeled anywhere from "Great" to "Awful".
One thing to note, however, is this is not the end of this discussion. As much as I would assume all movie reviewers hate grading movies or succumbing to the star system, there is value to be had in making sure readers know just what films exactly a reviewer treasures. Roger Ebert has his list of Greatest Movies and it's a list I go to often and it's a project I intend to start on myself come 2010 and one I hope to be able to include all of the readers on as well, allowing you to make similar lists and share your thoughts on your favorite films. Unfortunately, it's going to take some thinking on how to implement the backend.
Simply trust me when I say all my decisions are being made to make sure we continue to have mature and thoughtful film conversations around these parts. It's an attempt to make sure we stay on topic, stay clear of mud-slinging and hopefully share a wealth of thoughts and opinions on our favorite films.
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I have no problem with it, but it will be curious to see the effect it has on the readers. Personally, I like giving films either letter grades or stars, but the lack of will not keep me from reading your reviews. Your opinion is one I have come to respect very much and your logic is sound in making this decision.
I am one of those people you had to recently argue with about grading. I know YOU know that. I'm just explaining it to the other folks who might read this.
I think your no more grades is wonderful! No more Patricia picking on you. No more useless comparisons between C grade pictures and B grade pictures. Just I liked it, I didn't like it, I hated it, or I loved it. Bully for you.
I hope we can still agree to sometimes disagree.
@Patricia: Agreeing to disagree is what it's all about. And in the future I may start adding something like "Bottom Line" sentences to give people a little something to chew on as a conversation starter, I just prefer it to be something related to the movie as opposed to the value of a letter grade.
For example, the conversation going on in my Surrogates review is a quality discussion about the "reality" of movies and something that has come about based on the review. It's a conversation worth having and worth sorting out, especially for anyone that intends on reading any of my future reviews.
I respect this decision. A step in the right direction, countering our horrid one second attention span generation. I've always loved your reviews and seriously appreciate the time and thought you put into them. Keep doing what you do!
So basically if I'm heading out to the cinema to see a movie and want to see very quickly what film you recommend, I should trawl through 20 movie reviews, weigh them up objectively, and make an informed decision. Good luck.
@Mark Rock: Is the taxi at the door with the meter running? You can't spend 10-15 minutes reading some reviews? What if the letter grade had been up or down for something you don't really care about?
Brad, you see the power you have thrown away? Brawhahaha.
@Mark Rock: You bring up a good point, and it's the reason I am not done thinking about this and searching for an alternate decision. If you look at Ebert's column he references the San Francisco Gate's use of a small cartoon character, which is something I may imitate because I know there is a desire for the quick recap, but I don't think grading or even a star system is the best way to go. After all, this is about movie conversation just as much as it is about getting a movie quick fix, but do know your comment is a MAJOR consideration.
Brad,
I'm a big fan of your reviews, including grades. I dont think you should have led idiots who like to argue over a person's personal choice to make you discard giving grades. You shouldn't have given in like that. Just my opinion.
i always thought you graded things very fairly and were always on spot for the most part.
but than again a review is just your own opinion so i dont know what anyone could complain to you for.
your reviews in words were always well done regardless so ill be looking forward to those.
@adu: Don't worry about it too much, I still have other thoughts brewing, with a quick article looking at all of the week's releases on top of my reviews looking more and more like a possibility for those looking for a quick fix.
I never read reviews of movies that I will go see, they give away to much. I usually just look at the grade or rating to see if it's any good and worth my time. Like Zombieland. If it has one star in the paper, I might wait for it on video. But it had three stars now I really want to see it.
i dont see anything wrong in grading movies, all other top movie websites do it aswell, also if you do video reviews for big movies that will def generate more traffic.
Personally I have always enjoyed your letter gradeing system, since iv basicaly been with the site since just after u started it iv gotten used to what u give good grades to…and what u give bad ones, so when I see a good grade on a movie I would normaly have thought youd not enjoy, I at once know I need to see it. Basicaly im saying to anyone who had a problem with the gradeing system if u take the time to figure out what brad gives what grads to what movies youd have found it very enjoyable, (even if a movie u love got a bad grade) since its all about the persons opinio.
@Steve: I'm curious, do you think spoil films in my reviews?
I always do my best to give as little detail about a film's plot as possible. Hell, I didn't even name the cameo appearance in Zombieland even though damn near every other review I read included it in their opening graphs.
This is just my opinion. I respect this website, you Brad, and Laremy. I read this article and I definitely understand where you're coming from, but I've always hated when critics don't include a rating.
IMO, it's almost unofficially part of the job description, simply for the reason already stated that the majority of casual filmgoers (who don't keep up with movies like us on a weekly basis, don't surround themselves with movies, don't visit Rotten Tomatoes or even know about it) are on-the-go or out-the-door or what-have you and need a quick grade. I think it's silly that a vast majority of people out there will do this with my city's critic (because he is a hack who hates film – the worst kind of critic) in the first place, but that's a whole other story and issue.
Because yes, a lot of the time, it is excessive to read an entire film review. Again, I'm not saying that for your reviews in particular, or any critic that I follow.
I agree that the only problem is the inevitability of assholes comparing the films like, "You gave Film A a 5/10 yet Film B a 9/10, what's wrong with you?" when such two films have absolutely no relevance to one another yet said person has the audacity to ask.
It's just, whenever I'm on IMDb or Rotten Tomatoes, whenever I roll-over that Fresh/Rotten sign to see an "N/A" the connotation I get from not seeing a grade is "SCREW YOU – you HAVE to read my review to know my opinion on it." And that itself turns my head in the other direction.
It's definitely a complex issue. Just again, personally I prefer the grades because I grade every film myself (and when I dip into reviewing every now and again).
That's step in the right direction. For some people, when they see a simple damn grade, they have absolutely no interest in reading the text that the reviewer spent several hours writing. And that's not right, because words are always more important. And besides, it's always more complicated than grades. You can give this movie B+ and that movie B+, but you know they will never be of absolutely the same quality.
Brad,
Whilst I appreciate where you are coming from and I agree with you to an extent, there are a few problems with just taking out grading.
1. Like above said, its a quick fix, there are many times where I just want to see a film and not know a thing about it. I'm not saying that your reviews spoil anything, but sometimes its good just to know what is good to see and be surprised by it.
2. Grading may be used because the editors demand it in some places, but there are other reasons as to why it is commonplace in reviewing not just movies, but video games as well.
3. I appreciate that there is way too much arguement about the grading when you review films, but you just need to look at this weeks reviews for evidence. There have been very little comments which lead me to believe that the arguing over grading does not hinder people discussing the movies, but are just added discussions.
All of the input above is the very reason I love this website. Intelligent discussions with well thought out opinions.
I'm think some people…this is just an opinion…want to hold onto grades because the concept has become such a pervasive pattern of our lives. From the moment that first happy face is stamped on our papers in kindergarten until that final grade report in high school, we grow up being graded and accepting grades. Somewhere along the way our inner protests that it is too superficial and perfunctory die down and we begin to look for similar short cuts to guide our opinions.
What has been more than of a surprise to me, has been the people protesting that they look for the list of grade reports on Rope every week to guide their viewing choices. It never occurred to me that Brad has a superficial following who either doesn't want or doesn't get around to reading his reviews. But hey, if it increases Rope's hits and makes Brad more successful, I'm all for it. I think excellence should be rewarded.
Obviously, as Brad has already broken in here and said, he going to devise a method of giving us an overall comparative rating, a kind of thumbs up or thumbs down kinda of thing. An equivalent to rotten or fresh tomatoes. All will be well. But I once again want to say that grading films is just so inadequate, and argumentative. (Hangs head.)
@Brad Brevet: I love the bottom line/final thought idea. As far as spoilers, you walk the line while other reviewers hopscotch the damn thing. My observation is that most reviewers tend to spoil movies they don't like.
Look at your Invention of Lying review, a bit of a reach but I went looking for a recent example. "In the film's funniest moment we see Mark…" Why does that need to be included in a review. Even if it's not a flat out spoiler, if I went to see Lying and got to that point I'd be expecting the "funniest moment". Does that not spoil the moment? Then again, I'm always amazed by the roar of laughter for jokes initially thrown away in the trailers so I might be overly critical.
@GregM: Strangely enough, that is an example of a line I debated whether I should leave in or take out. The reason I left it in was to give an example of how far it took the religious bend, but like you said it now means readers will go in looking for that moment and it most likely will no longer be the funniest moment… Point duly noted.
Usually I don't read many reviews of a movie I haven't seen yet – cause I'm afraid of spoilers. Especially if it's a thriller/horror movie, of course. So yeah, sometimes I just like looking at the grade and thinking, "Well, this reviewer liked it/didn't like it". And on my own computer files, I grade all the movies from 1 to 10. It makes it easier to compile end-of-the-year lists.
But the funny thing about your site is that I rarely agree with your grades – so I'm always curious about reading the review when I see the movie. It's something in the vein of "Let's see what old Brad has to say about it", since I believe that most of the time you have something interesting to say.
This discussion brings the thing I'm most puzzled about grades: when a reviewer trashes a movie and give it, say, 2 stars, or when someone absolutely praises a movie and gives it 3 stars out of 4. This is one of the reasons I always have fun reading Peter Travers' reviews: if he hates a movie, he'll give it zero stars and he'll tell you why. When I see an A, a F, a D, I want to know why!
Brad
I am not sure, so I looked back on a some of your reviews of movies I have seen, 9, Extract and District 9. While 9 and Extract did not reveal anything, in the review of District 9 I thought you gave away everything but the ending. And this from a movie that gave away very little in commercials (wife was excited to see it, only to think it was just ok)