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Journal memfree's Journal: "The Hours": Should you see it? Will you like it? 12

Journal by memfree
To estimate how much you'll like the film The Hours, give yourself 3 points for each of the following:
  • you're female,
  • you're over 25,
  • you've gone through menopause,
  • you read classic novels,
  • you sympathize with victims of AIDS
  • you saw (or will see) the movie with your girlfriend(s)
  • you've enjoyed watching Oprah
  • your Home Team's SuperBowl playoffs don't/didn't interest you

Give yourself an additional 5 points if:

  • beyond merely liking her, you are a Meryl Streep fan,
  • you enjoy period-piece films,
  • you saw and liked "Far From Heaven",
  • you liked how Nicole Kidman showed her acting chops in "Eyes Wide Shut",
  • you care which movies get Oscar nominations,
  • you have a liberal streak.

Give yourself an additional 9 points if:

  • you cry at sad movies,
  • someone close to you (nuclear family member/lover) has/had a mental disorder,
  • you're on (or host) a nationally broadcast show in which (among other things) you interview artists.

For each of the following SUBTRACT 4 points:

  • you don't (didn't) know Virginia Woolf was a real person,
  • you watch lots of old foreign films,
  • you've read the book,
  • melodramatic musical scores annoy you,
  • you pay attention to camera work
  • the above national show you're on is a public radio show.

Multiply your score by 3, add 36, and you'll have an estimated letter grade (using a 10 point scale) for the film. Note that if you had all the additions and none of the subtractions, you may be prone to give the film more credit than it deserves.

Okay, maybe the above isn't as accurate at predicting a grade as it is in describing the audience when I saw the film (the show host was for NPR, but I expect she'd be more cautious in praising the film than someone on, say, "Entertainment Tonight" -- which is why the distinctions are split).

If you fit the profile, go see it. For my personal thoughts on the film, see the Summary on my main page (with rating), or a few more words about it by themselves.

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"The Hours": Should you see it? Will you like it? More

"The Hours": Should you see it? Will you like it?

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  • I got 2 (or 42 if you do the multiplying, don't get the latters...)
    I guess that's a "no" then ;).
  • Prosthetic Nose!!!

    I dunno. I'm not really interested in films groomed for Oscar nominations (the last one I saw was the horrible Ralph Fiennes vehicle Sunshine). Right now all my powers are focused on trying to see About Schmidt, 25th Hour, Narc. Of course considering my weak local options, I might have to wait on 25th Hour. *sigh* Too bad. I really like Spike Lee.
    • Prosthetic Nose!!!

      If you haven't seen the Salton Sea, give it a shot. Not great, but an ok rental. And yeah, you should be seeing 25th Hour. Next weekend, go drive a couple hours to a screen that has it. See it, dammit! Then curse me out for wasting your time.

  • This is the most useful thing I have ever read on this site. So far it plays out with the people I talked with. This is loads more helpful than what conventional critics provide. Could you be persuaded to do this for every movie you see?
    • *blush* well, gee! Actually, there's no way I could do it with every movie. This one had a series of things that made it easy to define how the target market would like it. That and I found the audience to share a very narrow and specific set of attributes.

      I haven't seen "Kangaroo Jack", but once you got past: 1) under 12, 2) drunk or otherwise altered, and 3) making money off its ticket sales, then what else is there? I mean, does it have ANYTHING that might make anyone give it an 'A'?
      • Find a way to certify this style of critique as your intellectual property. If allowed to, it will revolutionize popular film critique because it is useful to everyone, not just film students.

        You know how the critics act, they talk up every movie like it's worth seeing but then claim [aol.com] it is especially (good|bad) for some demographic. What they prove is that they don't know what the %$#@! they're talking about and at the end of their drivel I still don't know if I'll like it when I see it. This is different, an additional filter, a backstop to fawning critic toadying. I'd do it myself if I made it to more than 1 show a year.
  • What happens if you get a negative number?

    j/k
  • I scored a 21 (-5 *3 +36), which is an F----------
    (aw shit, I bet the lameness filter hits me on this one, well fuck 'em. Fuck slashdot. Fuck them and their rules, and their stupid news and their post-dated breakfast cereal mentatility regarding woman and objects and electrons, fuck their pseudo-scientific blatherings and fuck their racist dogma. I will have no part in it any more! They have simply become a fancy BLOG with a couple of news stories on the front page.)
    • You mean you saw it, and you liked it? If so, I guess it just shows that the scoring is more about the audience *I* saw than about a true rating. I.E. it got the chick-flick audience.

      A couple things I didn't put in that occurred to me: +3 if you have or intend to get a Masters Degree or Better, +3 if achieving/faking an amount of social status is important to your life (possibly for work-related reasons). These seemed too snooty to include, but I did see a preponderance of well dressed, middle aged women who displaying good manners. Hard to pin down the exact behavior I was seeing.
      • no, as in your post was a cracking good show!
        Since my score was super low, I won't even bother watching it.

        (the +3 for masters will barely take off one of the minuses!)
  • I scored 117 on your score system... I'm not THAT gay, am I?

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