I decided to go with star ratings for this third or fourth movie blog of mine, after a lifetime of deriving mild joy from them but insisting they’re the death of media criticism. Or at least, silently agreeing as media critics insisted so. I’m swiping the awkward four star system from Roger Ebert, yes, but also from the TV Guide magazine of my youth. One summer, ABC was airing its summer of James Bond, and I went next-door to my best bud’s house and watched The Man with the Golden Gun with his family. To date, my favorite 007. I discovered the TV Guide in a heap of the Sunday paper and went looking for the next airing, which was supposed to be Diamonds are Forever, but something was substituted out. I guess the lesson should’ve been, “Trust don’t the TV Guide,” but I was too fascinated by its shorthand for evaluation. It was only in comparing their giving Robocop a 3/4 and The Matrix a 3.5/4 that I could begin to decipher the language and understand the critic behind the printed ink. … More A Note on Star Ratings