Rating Rules

Thank you for checking out the reviews we have on the page. These reviews are done by me, Garrett, as you heard in the Ep 4 - Muther Knows Best: Unpacking Aliens’ Influence on Sci-Fi and Horror podcast.

I do these for me. Mainly I like to be entertained and so I consume media at a cyclic rate at times. In an effort to maintain my memory of these items, I write these reviews. Below are the rules of the ratings that are typically broken down into "My Rating" and "Parents Rating." See the below sections for the rules for each of the types of media and what is in the review.

Books

Books are a very personal choice for content. It isn't very often that you will see or hear of a book or book series that sweeps the nation or world that isn't specific to one group (Looking at you romance novels like Fourth Wing). In fact the last ones I can recall hear about are Game of Thrones and Harry Potter.

With that, I have no idea what my parents like to read and I would never guess. While I could assume they would have similar mindsets for the content of the books as they do movies/tv shows, I know that it is easier for my mom to stretch in books than viewing options.

So I will not have a "Parents Rating" in the book reviews.

I recently did a survey to my readers asking if the reviews made sense, so I wanted to expand on the below paragraphs with something that is more granular. To do that, reviews will now have a table at the end of each review that will show 5 categories and the status for each person.

The status will be: Green = Nothing over the top/acceptable, Yellow = Something is off, Red = Too much

Personal Ratings

Here is my take on anything Media related and reviews. It doesn’t matter if the acting is good or the story is bad, I might still like it, but I will call out those things.

Mainly, my rule is that if the movie/tv show can take me into its reality, then it did what it is supposed to achieve. I don’t think most people always expect their movies to be award winning master pieces, but it might be the best they are able to do. To make sense of this with the new table, a movie such as "The Losers," I find to be HIGHLY entertaining which forgives the wacky characters and character choices such as the bad guy. So it would get a 🟩 for entertainment which is really what I want which would make the movie already a 6/10 and since I try not to give half points, the story rating (which could include plot holes, out of place language, bad fight scenes) might take a hit and its either got it or it doesn't.

I’ll give you for instance. The Prequel and Sequel Star Wars movies. I thoroughly enjoy them. The acting in the prequels is pretty iffy at times, but I grew up with them and enjoy them. I don’t find Jar Jar to be the worst character in all the movies I’ve seen, but he isn’t the best. As a kid he was annoying at worst. The Sequels have some story issues, but part of that is because you have different directors and one who openly admitted to wanting to kill the franchise. That portion aside, some of the character choices and development need work, BUT I still enjoyed them. I don’t care about the politics of “Bad female Character” or “They should have been gay” or any of the other things. The movie did what it is supposed to, it took me to the Star War Universe and provided me with a good story that I could believe minus some glaring plot holes. I’ll provide more in my review of them whenever that does happen, but they did what I enjoyed; Provided me an escape from the world in to its world.

Parental Ratings

So, what that in mind, I also have 2 other things that I think about. Would my Mom and Dad watch it. My Mom isn’t a big fan of movies that are gory, lots of language, sex, or anything else fun, but she does enjoy movies. My dad doesn’t mind pretty much any other than lots of language. Add all those things together, there are 3 items that will be at the bottom that equal the following.

Mom = Family Friend/Good moral story and something she could watch with the kids

Dad = Action packed, entertainment that doesn't drop "F" bombs or God-dammits too much

These items will provide a stamp of one of the following.

Approved = Will watch and enjoy without stopping the movie

Rejected = Would not watch/watch again/greatly rubs against their personal sensibilities

We have a perfect example of this in Leave the World Behind. The movie, while about family, has way to much language and is confusing for them. It is rejected by both.

Games

This is something VERY new and because video games in general are more subjective than movies, books, and TV shows, I will not be giving numbered ratings, but more a subjective rating which you can see below. Also the above table with will only have my rating as my parents don't/won't/will and have never played video games. I will be giving them a voice based on the last time I played video games in front of them and they thoughts on the games that myself and my brothers should play. So basically young kids. This is pretty much in line with their movie/tv show ratings so it is a good start.

The ratings are as follows:
"GET THIS GAME" = Easily a favorite game or series.
"Worth a playthrough" = It was fun, but I am not running to replay it in the near future or maybe ever.
"Not my cup of tea" = I can play this game and have fun, but it takes certain criteria.
"Avoid like the plague" = Hell no. I either couldn't finish it or rushed to finish it for this review (There will be VERY few of these unless something crazy stupid happens in game).