Tonight, I stumbled onto “The English Patient”, which although I’ve never seen it, hit a brain cell that reminded me that this was a very good picture back in the day. “Oscar winner, for best picture”, I thought.
So I looked at the one sentence movie summary, with the stars, year, and rating. 3 stars, out of 4. Ok, maybe it didn’t win the Oscar for best picture. So I jump on the Internet, and not only did it win best picture for 1997, but 8 other oscars as well. 9 oscars, and it gets only 3 stars? Wow, who graded this picture?
So, who rates these things for the cable companies across the land? I can understand not liking the movie, but even if I hated the movie, the best picture of the year winner. would get 4 stars.
So, assuming its not a typo, how would this happen? Is the guy who types in the movie info have the power to rate the films as he/she wants? If so, that would be a pretty fun job. Howard the Duck? 4 Stars! The Departed? 1.5 Stars!
Just watched a cute episode of MST3K (a lot of them are on Amazon Instant Video now free to Prime members.) Laserblast. AWFUL movie. Evidently Leonard Maltin gave it 2.5 stars, and at the end of the movie the guys went through the rest of the guide and pointed out movies that were, by that standard, as good as or worse than that. Temple of Doom is only 2 stars and therefore worse than Laserblast. Sophie’s Choice, just as good as Laserblast.
Yeah, I too sometimes wonder about the ratings films get on TV listings.
Even on TCM they seem to be rather arbitrary…some great classics getting 3 starts, while other mediocre films get 4 stars. At least when Robert Osbourne introduces the films, he will give some insight about the era, the story, the actors, the critical reviews at the time and how the film has held up. In other words, even if the film is so-so, he will mention that this was some actors first big break, or mention that the story was based on a true event in history, or some facet of the film that will make it a least worth viewing on some level.
Then again - if you read Rotten Tomatoes, it is equally amazing how some reviewers will think a film is one of the best of the year - whereas 92% will say it is the worst of the year. I guess you have to resort to researching the reviewer and see if you agree with their other picks. I miss Roger Ebert - I didn’t agree 100% with him, but I always respected his reviews and appreciated his comments.
Would be ok if this thread turned into that. I think the question has been mostly answered. Not only would it be possible for The English Patient to get 3 stars, but it was also more than likely not a typo but just snagged from one of the sources listed.
I’ve seen a few ratings that raise eyebrows, but nothing that comes immediately to mind.
One other thing I have noticed though, is that some movies don’t get rated at all. This to me is strange, since movies, even direct to video movies get rated. So, either the movie that has no stars next to their name actually received zero stars in its rating, or it simply doesn’t have one. And I have seem the dismal one half star rating given out next to the name of the movie (depicted as a lone star sliced in half), so I know my cable company goes that low. I’ll keep an eye out for movies that should have at least a rating that for whatever reason have no stars, and list them to see if anyone else would concur that the movie sucked so bad that it would register a zero.
Well, the Academy doesn’t necessarily get it right every time and not every critic has to agree with their choice. As I recall, The English Patient suffered from being overly long and, while popular with the critics, may have appealed mostly to the art house clientele.
Why? Winning the Oscar for Best Picture doesn’t actually make a movie objectively the best movie of the year, and even if it did the best movie in a weak year isn’t necessarily equal to the best movies in other years.
If you look at a list of Best Picture nominees and winners over the years, you’ll see some former winners that are largely forgotten by everyone but film scholars today, some years where all the nominees are largely forgotten today, some years where multiple nominees are considered classics today, and likely a number of years where the movie you would have chosen as the best – or even that most critics would have chosen as the best – isn’t the one that won.
What get’s me is, the older movies get the more stars they get. When Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure first was broadcast on TV it got zero stars, and then 1/2 star, and then 1 star and so on. It was on not too long ago and had 3 stars on it!:eek:
In 10years it will rate 4 stars!WTF?:smack: