Latest Micro-Reviews - Edition 7

Only three movies to review since the last time, but I think I've just given myself a new chore. More on that in a bit. Here are the movies:

Wild Hogs	69	I laughed. I did. I had low expectations, and I laughed. It was a lighter take on “City Slickers” but with a similar theme. Sometimes Travolta is good, sometimes bad. In this movie, he was both, alternately. I still recommend it for guys in their 40s-50s, and the women who know them.
Night at the Museum	62	Stiller didn’t do his normal character, so that was a positive. They didn’t drag out the premise, and that was nice. A fun, family fantasy. Once.
Excalibur	82	Though a bit disconnected, the elements and the atmosphere carry the themes. It’s not as accessible as “Camelot,” darker and more symbolic. I like them both.

This set of films made me decide that my rating system needs adjustment. Once upon a time, I wrote "In general, a movie needs to get above a 70 before I would recommend it, and generally movies in the 70-80 range would carry conditional recommendations -- I'd recommend it if I knew a particular person liked something that the movie provided."

Well, since I've been doing this rating thing for several years now, I have discovered that the range of 70-80 does not give me enough latitude. I've also realized that I see very few movies that are below the "conditional recommendation" level. (I believe I self-select -- most movies I would not recommend are movies I just decide not to see.) Consequently, I leave a lot of room in the lower numbers, and the higher range (especially the 70s and low 80s) gets crowded.

So, I'm modifying my system. From here on out, a movie that I could conditionally recommend can get a rating as low as 50. That being the case, Night at the Museum, with its 62, is still conditionally recommended, but was not as entertaining as Wild Hogs. Both, by the way, are relatively predictable. But since I expect that of comedies, I can still recommend them to some audiences. Night at least had some innovative ideas. Hogs? Not so much. But Hogs made me laugh more.

I don't know that I want to go through my entire list of micro-reviews and update them immediately. Over time, though, I think I'll start rating movies with this modified metric in mind.