An Explanation of Two Guys Approach to Rating Films

 Comments by Ken Burke

 I’ve gotten comments at times about how Two Guys assign a stars rating to something cinematic under review, especially when: (1) We’ve given so few 4½ or 5 stars ratings since we’ve been in business over these last roughly 14 years, and (2) why are we often lower than the larger critical community even when our reviews show a lot of support.  For example, Ryan Coogler’s Sinners got a huge 97% positive reviews from Rotten Tomatoes, yet we gave it only 3½ stars.  So, here’s some commentary about our ratings for your clarification.  In the case of Sinners I did have some qualms about it which would pull it down from my normal high position of 4 stars, no matter how else it’s perceived by other critics, but, more importantly, that normally-highest 4 stars reflects how I compare anything under review in this blog to the full history of cinema (although I admit I’m much more familiar with U.S. product than the vast output from the rest of the world, so my comparison-base is limited compared to some of my better-versed colleagues); while most reviewers give their opinions based on what’s most successful (or not) in the current marketplace, I’m always aware of the decades of previous works which have established what successful cinema can even aspire to be; thus, while I’m aware of a lot of magnificent 5-stars films from over the years, I haven’t included them in what's found in the Two Guys Summary of Reviews if I haven’t actually written about them.

Still, I can give you a sense of where my tastes lie if you look at the Some Lists For Your Consideration tally just below, collections I determined years ago with—so far—nothing to change what’s there except the final one under Statistically Significant being whatever is the current All-Time Global Box-Office Champion.  One more thing to note, though, is that while I do maintain a full 0-5 stars option for anything I write about, by finding myself stopping most of the time at 4 stars my choice of a 3½ stars rating (of 5) could literally be seen as 70% but also be understood as about 88% of 4 stars (How’s that for a rationalization?), which means all of those 3½ stars ratings of mine (including Sinners) are actually a lot more positive than they might initially seem.  I hope that helps you understand my thought process a bit more, but feel free to respond in the Comments section far below if you want to pursue this further.  One last thing about my “BEST” lists below is I also consider when a film is made, what conceptual/technological options were available at that time, so my lists are filled with older films because they had to overcome so much in those long-ago eras (although there’s still racism, sexism, other cultural limitations even in some of the great films I like).

SOME LISTS FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

When analyzing popular media we must understand quantitative measurements, including sales and ratings, reflect attention not necessarily appreciation.  So, just because something is popular doesn't make it significant as quality is a subjective measure relative to tastes of each audience member.  At most, we can infer some common acceptance of a film's quality from its appearance on a number of "best" lists, but my preferences have no more value than yours, although they may reflect more training and experience.  Given that, here are some lists of mine to give you insights into my biases.

 

10 BEST ALL-TIME FILMS

1.  Citizen Kane (Welles, '41)                                6.  Blow-Up (Antonioni, '66)

2.  Persona (Bergman, ‘66)                                   7.  The Bicycle Thief (De Sica, '48)

3.  Rules of the Game (Renoir, '39)                       8.  2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, '68)

4.  Intolerance (Griffith, '16)                                   9.  City Lights (Chaplin, '31)

5.  Potemkin (Eisenstein, '25)                                10. Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer, '28)

 

10 BEST (other) AMERICAN POPULAR FILMS

1.  The Godfather (Coppola, '72, '74, '90)               6.  Annie Hall (Allen, '77)    

2.  Raging Bull (Scorsese, '80)                                7.  Bonnie and Clyde (Penn, '67)

3.  Malcolm X (Lee, '92)                                           8.  Casablanca (Curtiz, '43)

4.  Schindler's List (Spielberg, '93)                          9.  Apocalypse Now (Coppola, '79)

5.  Gone with the Wind (Fleming, '39)                    10.  The Graduate (Nichols, '67)

                                              

ADDITIONAL PERSONAL FAVORITIES

1.  Star Wars (Lucas,'77, '80, '83, ’99, ’02, ’05         6.  Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Capra, '39)

2.  Touch of Evil (Welles, '58)       ’15, ’17, ’19)         7.  The Bride of Frankenstein (Whale, '35)

3.  Chinatown (Polanski, '74)                                    8.  Woodstock (Wadleigh, '70)

4.  Raiders of the Lost Ark (Spielberg, '81)               9.  Dr. Strangelove (Kubrick, '64)

5.  Midnight Cowboy (Schlesinger, '69)                    10. Fantasia (Disney, '40)

 

SOME "ALL-TIME" BESTS FROM OTHER LISTS

            

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Wiene, '19)                   The Gold Rush (Chaplin, '25)

The General (Keaton, '27)                                         The Blue Angel (von Sternberg, ’30)

Grand Illusion (Renoir, '37)                                       Open City (Rossellini, '45)

Rashomon (Kurosawa, '50)                                      Ugetsu (Mizoguchi, '53)

Seven Samuri (Kurosawa, '54)                                 La Strada (Fellini, '54)

The Seventh Seal (Bergman, '57)                            Last Year at Marienbad (Renais, '61)

L'Avventura (Antonioni, '61)                                     8½  (Fellini, '63)

 

STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT

The Sneeze (Edison, 1894)                                    Workers Leaving the Factory (Lumieres, 1895)

A Trip to the Moon (Melies, '02)                              The Great Train Robbery (Porter, '03)

The Birth of a Nation (Griffith '15)                           Nanook of the North (Flaherty, '22)

The Jazz Singer (Crossland, '27)                           Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Disney, '37)

The Robe (Koster, '53)                                           Avatar (Cameron, 2009)

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:

 

We encourage you to visit the Summary of Two Guys Reviews for our past posts* (scroll to the bottom of this Summary page to see additional info about your wacky critic, Ken Burke, along with contact info and a great retrospective song list).  Overall notations for this blog—including Internet formatting craziness beyond our control—may be found at our Two Guys in the Dark homepage.  If you’d like to Like us on Facebook (yes?) please visit our Facebook page.  We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it unto us!  Please also note that to Post a Comment below about our reviews you need to have either a Google account (which you can easily get at https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount if you need to sign up) or other sign-in identification from the pull-down menu below before you preview or post.  You can also leave comments at our Facebook page, although you may have to somehow register with us there in order to comment (FB procedures: frequently perplexing mysteries for us aged farts).

 

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