What do the little faces mean?

After musing about it, I decided to give a ratings system a go for my comments on movies (and whatever else). But instead of stars, I decided to go with “little cartoony caricatures” of myself, and to assign a bit of a meaning to each number of faces.

How do these ratings work?  Well, basically, I started with me:    I either liked the work or I didn’t, or perhaps I was somewhere in the middle.  Then, if I had a clear opinion, I went a bit outside of myself and tried to imagine other people disagreeing with me, and seeing what sort of reaction that produced.

Pretty self-focused, right?  Just built around my own opinions?  Let’s face, it all rating systems are, whether they are informed by extensive experience and study or not.

So basically, it comes down to this:

 Five faces = I like this movie a lot, and really, I can’t think of any reason you wouldn’t like it too.

Four faces = I like this movie quite a bit, but hey, I can understand it if it’s not your cup of tea

Three faces = Do I like it? Not like it? I can go either way, depending on the weather.
(On some posts I’ve added a “+” or “-” to these depending on whether I tend to swing positive or negative)

Two face = I don’t this movie very much, but if you like, well all right then, that’s fine.

One face = I can’t stand this movie, and I’m mystified if you do.

Now, just to be clear, when I say “I can’t think of any reason you wouldn’t like it,” I’m assuming you don’t have any built in predispositions against the type of movie we’re watching. I mean, obviously, if you just can’t stand space ships and science fiction, and I tell you that Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is a “Five Face” movie, I don’t mean it’s going to suddenly change your mind. Or if you consider anything made before the year 2000 to be unwatchable because it’s so old (as one friend of mine once said), than you may still not like Singin’ in the Rain no matter how many Faces it gets.

By the way, those faces came from a birthday card I got a couple of years ago. They were designed by a combination of the talents and imagination of two friends of mine, Timothy and Nathan, who incidentally also came up with original concept for the superhero in Stingray.