What My Ratings Really Mean

I know rating systems are dumb. But they’re an attempt to quantify some sort of standard of comparison by measuring a critic’s opinions with a sliding scale.

Perhaps every critic feels this way, but I am honestly proud of the way my film rating scores relate to one another. Naturally, I think my ratings are “accurate” in relation to one another and according to my own tastes, but I am not foolish enough to believe that something so subjective as my opinionated value judgment of a film’s quality has any universal relevance or application for anyone. And yet, here I am, taking my ratings and myself way too seriously…

So, that brings me back to acknowledging again that rating systems are dumb. But I don’t care. Here’s what mine means: Continue reading

Written Review: Paranormal Activity 4 (2012)

by Jason Pyles
Movie Podcast Weekly.com

Note to readers who haven’t seen any “Paranormal Activity” films: It’s not absolutely necessary to see the three preceding films of this franchise in order to watch this fourth one. The set-up for this movie picks up where the second installment left off, and the prerequisite highlights from “Paranormal Activity 2” are shown to us at the beginning of this fourth movie, anyway. But my recommendation to anyone who hasn’t seen any of this franchise is to simply watch the first movie and then call it quits on the franchise.

Premise: When a suburban family babysits a neighbor boy for a few days while his mother is hospitalized, bizarre and inexplicable occurrences start happening in their house. Continue reading

Written Review: Wolf Town (2010)

by Jason Pyles
Movie Podcast Weekly.com

Premise: Four friends get stranded in an abandoned, gold-mining town, where they are preyed upon by a pack of wolves.

Review: Nothing is scarier than being eaten alive. I’d rather be buried alive than eaten alive. That’s why this unthinkable predicament makes such an effective backdrop for the characters in “Wolf Town.” When watching a film like this, it’s impossible not to wonder to yourself, ‘What would I do if I were in this situation?’

I’ve said it many times before on my podcasts, but a golden premise to me is something I refer to as the situational thriller or situational horror film, which is when a movie’s characters find themselves in precarious circumstances that aren’t immediately life-threatening, but the longer they remain in the situation, the more deadly and hopeless their predicament becomes. Continue reading