I think SIL was rude and a little childish in her request that you change the channel. She is a guest and the other guests are enjoying themselves. Sure she can say it sucks though it really doesn’t give her many points on the intellegent conversational meter but that is her damage. The rest of her behaviour is not good ediquet.
My suggestion next time you watch Godfather (which is one of those things many fans will do at least once a year) invite your brother and warn her in adavnce so she can find something better to do like read some Emily Post.
I think familiarity breeds contempt, esp. when it comes to in-laws. People get too comfortable and then start shooting their mouths off. Unfortunately, as you can probably tell, I’m on that kind of thing like white on rice. Call it a teacherly reflex.
My FSIL just doesn’t like “violent movies.” I can understand that, but that’s far from all The Godfather is. It’s a family drama on an epic scale, with the violence underlying. I think if she gave it a chance she would like it but she’s predisposed against it b/c it’s a “guy movie.” Personally, I like guy movies, but to each her own.
Now that I’ve FINALLY managed to register on the board, I may as well throw my opinion in on something I’ve got strong beliefs about…
I’ve had the subjective/objective debate with my friends many, many time over, as we seem to be constantly disagreeing on whether films are “good” or not. Our conversations would run something like this: “Scorpion King was such a bad movie. It was nothing but the Rock running around wrestling in the desert for a scantily-clad hot chick. And it was silly.” “But it was SUPPOSED to be nothing but the Rock running around wrestling in the desert for a scantily-clad hot chick! And it was SUPPOSED to be silly!”
Anyway, we recently came to the agreement that films should be rated not on a single scale, but on two, an objective scale and a subjective scale.
The objective scale goes from 1 to 10 (1 being the best) and is a measure of how well the movie accomplishes its goals. The subjective scale goes from A to F (A being the best) and is a measure of how well one liked the movie. So, for example, The Godfather is a 1B for me, while it was possibly a 1F for Rubystreak’s Sister-In-Law.
And I’ll be damned if this scale hasn’t cleared up a lot of confusion! Un Chien Andalou, for instance, gets about a 1F from nearly everybody: it accomplished its goals flawlessly, but its main goal was to actively confuse the viewer. On the other end of things, I’d give Reign of Fire a 7B or so: it was pretty poorly done, but I enjoyed the hell out of it nonetheless.
We still argue about everything, but at least it’s more clear now what we’re arguing about.
Subjective Enema, your system is elegant and intelligent. I personally like it and would use it. However, you are assuming a rational actor, and I don’t think my SIL. If she were, she’d actually have to try to sit through the whole thing before dismissing it. She’d also have to be able to make an objective assessment of something she didn’t like, which, let’s face it, is hard for a lot of people.
I will keep your system in mind. You should copyright it.