Note from a Concerned Reader

The Stars Are Half Empty; or, Why I Didn't Vote in the Black Swan Poll

"I curse the Satanic force that dreamed up the four-star scale (at the New York Daily News in 1929, I think). It forces a compromise. So why don't I simply drop the star ratings? As I have explained before, I'd about convinced my editors to drop them circa 1970, when Siskel started using them. To drop them now would be unilateral disarmament. Do editors even care about such things? You're damned right they do."

—Roger Ebert, "'You give out too many stars'"

When I read 2NK's "Introduction of Methods," I was hoping that I was witnessing a subversive takeover of the ubiquitous star scale. I've long had mixed feelings about the scale, so something that twisted it without doing away with it entirely has a significant appeal. Before I get into what I had hoped I was seeing in 2NK, let me briefly touch on the duality of the current system.

Roger Ebert does a very good job laying out the case against the star rating system in his column, so I will attempt to offer a very brief summary in saying that the system's ability to compare movies is fundamentally flawed. Comparing Airplane to Lawrence of Arabia is hard enough. Using the same system to compare both of those films and Gigli and Chaos and your cousin's amateur film project is simply absurd. While Gigli was bad, no one would suggest that it was either immoral or technically deficient, so it must rank above the other two. When the bottom of the barrel is considered, it's easy to see how a "typical" bad film like Gigli ends up with 2½ stars.

Having said all this, I frequently appreciate the star system because it makes the review quickly accessible and potentially stripped of all spoilers. If Francis Ford Coppola makes a film, I want an assessment of quality without a shred of plot, and I get this by looking at nothing but the stars.

So here's where 2NK has the opportunity to twist all this is an exciting way. By giving each star a specific meaning (as outlined in the Introduction), it's changed the stars from a scale-type ranking to a checklist. Beautiful cinematography? Shade in star number two! A character too complex for anyone save Hugh Laurie? Shade in number four! Zagat has been doing this for restaurants. USGBC has been doing this with "green" buildings. And both systems have proved to be useful if not perfect. On 2NK, that we're using stars isn't meaningful, but it does bring with it familiarity that makes it more instantly accepted by the mind and this makes me wonder if maybe this could be first step towards dismantling a broken 80-year-old system.

In conclusion, let me finally address Mr Aranofsky's latest work with the my 2NK rating, and when I've issued it "☆★☆★☆," let no one say that I've given it "two stars." 




-J. Lucas