Report Card: Movies of 2009 Get a 2.15 G.P.A. So Far

I was recently prompted to take a look back at my reviews of 2009, average out the grades and see how things shaped up. However, once I got done with that I began wondering how this year stacked up to earlier years and my first days reviewing films back in 2003. Of course, I dreaded the prospect.

For those of you that are either new to the site or don’t read all of my posts, you may not know how I feel about my early movie reviews back when I started RopeofSilicon.com. Perhaps you think I am awful right now, and if that’s the case, I cringe at the thought of what you would think of my writing back then.

As for this little experiment, I have listed the overall grade point average for my reviews on a per-year basis, the total number of reviews, the best and worst reviewed movies of each year and a little explanation of where I was in terms of the site and my idea of where this whole thing was going to go. Hopefully it gives you a better idea of where the site has been and what the future may hold. Readers like you have become such an integral part of RopeofSilicon’s future, and I think this is great way to give you a look back at where it all started and how I have changed as the years have passed.

This is probably also a good time to tell you how I approach the actual grading of a movie. Personally, I hate grades, which actually makes this entire article quite ironic, but everyone loves to look at them as the quick decider before reading the words of a review and occasionally they make for good conversation. So what can you do? The way I use grades is to look at a “C” grade just as it is looked upon in grade school. A “C” means average. So often people see me giving a movie a “C+” and think this is some kind of horrible grade, especially since a “C+” is considered “rotten” at RottenTomatoes. Well, I don’t submit to RottenTomatoes so I don’t really think about that too often. A “C+”, in my mind, means a film is above average and considering the number of films I see in a year, above average isn’t all that bad.

The number of films one sees is also a very important statistic in my opinion and looking at a “C” as average plays heavily into that. I think we can all agree most films are either average or just below or above. Considering the number of films there are out there, it is actually probably more like the majority are below average, but that’s for another conversation. So, when I personally hand out a “B” or a “B+” I think that means a lot. Granted, back when I started doing this I didn’t look at it this closely. It was only when I realized this was going to be my career did I begin thinking about how important these grades may be down the line. Tossing out a bunch of “A+” grades would soon mean an “A+” meant very little. So I set myself the “C-is-average” standard and have lived by it ever since.

I hope that makes sense, and with that… Let’s get started and see what we find…

2003
2.52 G.P.A. (67 reviews)

In March of 2003 I was invited to screen my first movie, The Hunted starring Benicio Del Toro and Tommy Lee Jones. I hated the movie and didn’t even end up writing a review. Strangely enough, it wouldn’t be until May that I would post my first official review for The Matrix Reloaded. At that time I was still paying my way into screenings for the majority of studios and having to catch a matinee directly after work on Fridays in an effort to get the reviews up as early as possible. Obviously, not the ideal way to look at and review a movie, but what did I know of ideals?

It wasn’t until September of 2003 that all of the studios were inviting me to screenings, which was when Focus invited me to review Lost in Translation… I loved it and slowly the PR reps got to know me and I got to understand how things worked. However, I was still very green when it came to reviewing movies. I didn’t know what people wanted to read, how much plot to reveal and so forth. Some of the reviews went on forever and others read as if I was searching for more things to say.

As a result you get the films at the top and bottom of my reviewing year that you see below, but some of the more memorable titles not listed below include the likes of Finding Nemo, Pirates of the Caribbean and Master and Commander.

BEST REVIEWED

  1. Kill Bill: Volume One
  2. The Last Samurai
  3. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

WORST REVIEWED

  1. Duplex
  2. In the Cut
  3. Johnny English
2004
2.52 G.P.A. (101 reviews)

I reviewed 101 movies that year, making it my second highest number of reviews in one year and at that time I was still working a full-time job as well as trying to catch as many films as I could and stay on top of all the daily news updates and build the backend database for the site. My writing was still extremely weak as I went for quantity and not quality, but I was starting to get the hang of it when 2005 happened…

BEST REVIEWED

  1. The Passion of the Christ
  2. Kill Bill: Volume Two
  3. Million Dollar Baby

WORST REVIEWED

  1. Against the Ropes
  2. The Reckoning
  3. Van Helsing
  4. THX 1138: The Director’s Cut
  5. Alexander
2005
2.42 G.P.A. (57 reviews)

Laremy came to the site in 2005 after introducing himself just before The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and emailing me a multi-page diatribe on how he hated The Notebook — I sympathized. He reviewed movies for me from 2005-2007. While I still saw damn near every single movie released in theaters I wasn’t reviewing them on a regular basis any longer and getting the design and database for the site built up was priority #1, such as adding the award show histories and so forth. I mean, how else would Sin City be one of my best reviewed movies of the year? Sure, I like that movie, but an “A”?

BEST REVIEWED

  1. Cinderella Man
  2. Sin City

WORST REVIEWED

  1. Madagascar
  2. Stealth
2006
2.34 G.P.A. (39 reviews)

BEST REVIEWED

  1. Lady in the Water
  2. The Descent
  3. The Queen

WORST REVIEWED

  1. The Omen
  2. Annapolis
  3. The Protector
  4. The Guardian
2007
2.44 G.P.A. (58 reviews)

The site was now my full-time job and the design and back-end work was starting to get locked up allowing me time to focus my attention on the actual task of movie discussion and not website maintenance. While the G.P.A. for 2007 isn’t necessarily all that high, I still look back at that year fondly as you can tell as it has the highest list of “Best Reviewed” films in this retrospective.

BEST REVIEWED

  1. Things We Lost in the Fire
  2. Atonement
  3. Hairspray
  4. The Bourne Ultimatum
  5. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
  6. Michael Clayton
  7. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street

WORST REVIEWED

  1. Are We Done Yet?
  2. Goya’s Ghosts
2008
2.20 G.P.A. (138 reviews)

BEST REVIEWED

  1. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
  2. WALL•E
  3. The Dark Knight

WORST REVIEWED

  1. Over Her Dead Body
  2. 88 Minutes
  3. What Happens in Vegas
  4. Mamma Mia!
2009
2.15 G.P.A. (69 reviews)

There is still plenty more to look forward to as the second half of every year always offers the better films so I expect that G.P.A. to improve.

BEST REVIEWED

  1. In the Loop
  2. The Hangover
  3. The Hurt Locker

WORST REVIEWED

  1. Fanboys
  2. The Last House on the Left
  3. I Love You Beth Cooper

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