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A Scientist at the Movies Reviews by Greg Paris Introduction |
 The Evaluation System
Reviews by Title
Reviews by Date
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Reviews from Video
Reviews of the Classics
Personal Background
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Background Information: A Touchstone
Why should you care about my opinion about current movies? Perhaps you shouldn't...!
For reviews to be useful, there should be some consistent pattern between the opinions of a reviewer and the opinions of a reader. They need not always agree. In fact, I get value from reviewers who nearly consistently disagree with my tastes and opinions! (And for me, this includes several of the reviewers who contribute to Entertainment Weekly.) The degree of consistency is what matters, the degree of correlation, not whether they agree or disagree.
Since you may have no reason to know me or my interests, you might need a touchstone: something to guide your assessment of me as a reviewer until you become comfortable with me. Therefore, as background information, listed below are links that show my opinions about a few not-so-current movies, so you can see if your and my opinions are, or are not, consistent. I've selected both well-known and lesser known examples, as well as several which were highly polarizing in their reviews. In addition, feel free to browse the reviews themselves, particularly the title index. Good luck!
General trends
I favor the films of directors Peter Weir, Stanley Kubrick and Rob Reiner; but this has its limits. Note that both Kubrick's Barry Lyndon and Weir's The Year of Living Dangerously are in my list of "thumb's down". I enjoy good animation, and particularly favor the whimsy and deft touch of Pixar Studios. I will watch almost anything with Sean Connery, Walter Matthau, or Michele Pfeiffer. I like science fiction, and have been pleasantly surprised by how many fascinating movies have been made from the obscure short stories of Philip K. Dick (Blade Runner, Minority Report, and Next, to flag a few), but it helps to have good directorial support (Ridley Scott and Steven Spielberg, respectively, for the first two of those cited). I don't avoid foreign or art films, but where I live, they are often difficult to find without trekking (back) into the bowels of Cambridge or Coolidge Corner. But I do make these spring treks annually to catch the Oscar-nominated shorts and documentaries. However -- and here, the curmudgeon is speaking -- I remain totally uninterested in the Godfather series and the Rocky series, and have never ever seen It's a Wonderful Life all the way through.
Recommendations for other reviewers
As for printed guides to movies or videos, my personal favorite is Mick Martin & Marsha Porter's Video Movie Guide, which has gone through annual editions for some time now. I value both their content and their organization. Their opinions are often close to mine, their classification scheme is understandable (along with an amusing concept called "turkeys"!), and their books are a marvel of indexing. I highly recommend these volumes. As for other individual reviewers, I recommend Roger Ebert, movie reviewer for the Chicago Sun Times. His reviews are well thought out, interesting and articulate -- models for anyone who wants to break into this as a paid profession. He is also the author of a screamingly funny collection of negative reviews, I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie (2000, ISBN 0-7407-0672-1). For detailed movie information on-line, I prefer and recommend The Internet Movie Database for all sorts of film data, and although in the past I found Voice Chasers to be useful for credits to the hidden voice talent of animated films, this now has the look and feel of a dead site.
Frequency of updates
I don't consider these reviews as a blog; there is simply not enough time after each and every movie to update or review, and my weekends are not always my own. It is updated periodically, depending on the number of outstanding reviews and how much free time I have. In recent times, new reviews have appeared in clusters at about 4 or 6 week intervals. For the most recent update, containing the block of all new reviews in one convenient location, follow this link.
Reviews and Evaluation System
Originally, I began to rate movies on a three point scale: plus, zero, and minus. "Thumbs up" or "plus" means I recommend the movie (i.e., good, entertaining, would likely watch again); on extremely rare occasions I may give two thumbs up or two "pluses" for exceptional films (likely to become long-time favorites, or to be owned). "Waggling fingers" or "zero" means the middle-ground -- either I don't have a dominant strong opinion up or down, I'm equivocal, I have but weak opinions, or conflicting strong opinions. "Thumbs down" or "minus" means I cannot recommend the movie; and the rare "double minus" is self-explanatory for those few movies that deserve it. I chose this scale explicitly because it allows for a true middle-of-the-road or neutral feeling -- the "ehhh" or "OK" feeling -- and neither forces you to remember your long-past days of school grade-grubbing, nor requires that you count stars. Over the years, I've started fine-tuning some of my reviews, so you will occasionally see +1/2 (between + and ++), -1/2 (between 0 and -), or 3/4..., for example.
Unless the mood hits me, reviews will be a few paragraphs in length -- a bit longer than those you might find in Martin & Porter's Video Movie Guides, but notably shorter than those of Roger Ebert and other qualified professionals.
You may wonder why my scores are so skewed? "You have too many positive reviews -- are you soft in the head?" Are my scores really that biased? Yes. When compared with a professional reviewer, they are likely to be significantly biased. But here's why:
- I have a day job -- I don't review to make a living;
- I have limited time to watch movies;
- I am intentionally not comprehensive -- I am unabashedly selective; and
- I have specific tastes, interests and dis-interests.
Footnotes and Bad Jokes
As the reviews pile up, a few common themes emerge and some comments are repeated over and over. These occasionally require a brief explanatory note, or a footnote, or an exculpatory note, or the full prelude to the punch line of a bad (inside) joke. Here they are in an easy-to-reach compiled form:
- The first (of many?) bad joke
- Exculpatory footnote on the paranormal
- Angry footnote on the Book of Job
- The definition of RTI
- Credits for "Not so, master secretary"
(updated 1-Mar-08)
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