Since I started rating and reviewing films, I've gotten more than a few questions about what exactly my ratings mean. Here, I'll attempt to explain each one as best as I can without missing too much of My Name is Earl. Ultimately, I judge films based on a wide number of factors, ranging from context to entertainment value to personal politics.
5 - This is the highest rating I award. Films that I bestow this awesome, earth-shaking honor upon are usually shining examples of their genre, ground-breaking in one or more ways, impeccably constructed, and littered with unforgettable images and sequences. This isn't to say they are perfect, but it is sometimes hard to find flaws.
Examples: United 93, Hard Boiled, Dr. Strangelove, North by Northwest, The Maltese Falcon (1941)
4.5 - This score suggests one of the best pictures made during that year, but probably not during the decade. The fact that I don't award them a 5 usually isn't so much because of a flaw but because they didn't quite affect me the way I'd expect a 5 to do.
Examples: Flags of our Fathers, One Hour Photo, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Searchers, Rear Window
4 - This is the point where purchasing the DVD becomes a consideration. A 4 is an excellent film that could be highly entertaining, moving, though-provoking, or all of the above. Similar to the 4.5, usually a higher score isn't awarded because it doesn't quite live up to the shadow cast by the better films.
Examples: The Departed, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Dumb and Dumber, Psycho, Stagecoach
3.5 - Pretty good, but with one or more major flaws. I still consider this a very good score, as it suggests more than a mere recommendation.
Examples: The Queen, Matchstick Men, Jurassic Park, Scarface
3 - Perhaps the most important of all the scores, this is where recommendation officially starts. A film that gets a 3 could be entertaining fluff, or a well made but misguided idea movie, or any number of things. It's nothing worth buying or seeing twice, but ultimately is a success.
Examples: Clerks II, The Transporter, Clockers, The Last Tycoon
2.5 - If 3 isn't the most important score, this may be. 2.5 represents the highest score I can give a film and still not officially recommend it. Oftentimes I really enjoy and admire parts of these films, but something sabotages it. A good way to describe a 2.5 is "honorable failure." A more elaborate example than usual: The 40-Year Old Virgin was funny as hell and surprisingly sweet, but lapsed into dreadfully cliche rom-com territory, rendering it unrecommendable.
Other examples: The Fountain, Hard Candy, The Matrix Reloaded, New Jack City, Cross of Iron
2 - Films that receive a 2 typically have plot holes large enough to fit trucks through, poor acting or directing, and little to no to negative social value. Nonetheless, some redeeming features keep it from being a total dud.
Examples: Mission: Impossible 3, Far From Heaven, The Last Supper, Commando
1.5 - These films are usually seriously bad or just pathetic. They may fail to do what they set out to do or have a goal so ignoble that success is worse than failure. Not worst of the year material, though.
Examples: Superman Returns, Legally Blonde 2, Red Dawn
1 - The quintessentiall bad movie score. A 1 may be boring, incompetent, stupid, or pretty much any other negative adjective one can conjure. Just as a 4 usually fails to reach a 5 because it isn't better, a 1 fails to reach a 0 because it isn't worse.
Examples: Crank, Fantastic Four, Charlie's Angels, Robocop 2
0.5 - This is the rating I usually assign films that are outwardly 0 worthy but are so inept that I can't take them seriously enough to loathe with every fiber of my being.
Examples: Man of the Year, Doom, Freddy Got Fingered, Wild Wild West
0 - I reserve the 0 score for the absolute worst. Being bad isn't enough to earn a 0; the film must be offensive in its willingness to offend my good sensibilities. More often than not, a 0 is a technically sound film that wastes potential or goes out of the way to piss me off. Movies with messages like "Gun Companies Are Evil" and "People Have The Right To Treat Each Other Like Shit As Long As They Do It Cute" are just begging for the 0 score.
Examples: Nacho Libre, Running With Scissors, Van Wilder, The Contender, From Dusk Till Dawn
