Stars in Rosenbaum's eyes

Posted by: spacecog

Rosenbaum’s Reader contribution this week is strange indeed, even by his standards. Seems a run in with some irate Star Wars fans (unhappy about his low opinion of the flicks) has left Rosey feeling a tad defensive. (Maybe he’s been reading a little anonymous blog as well.) So, after a typically pompous and obtuse review of Crash, Rosey attempts to explain the strange math behind the stars he so graciously bestows on the movies he drags his stinky ass to see -- zero stars to the "Special edition" Star Wars trilogy, for example, and 4 stars to Nadia, My Carbuncles Burn.

Anyhoo, here’s what Rosey says is the careful mathematical reasoning behind his 2-star rating for Mindhunters. Pencils ready!

1) Dumb premise => zero stars
2) Yet he loved a book it stole ideas from => *** (3 stars)
3) It’s very violent => zero stars
4) It gave Rosey "jolts" => ***
5) It’s well-directed for an action flick => ****
6) Rosey hates action flicks => *

So we add all this up (that’s 11 stars) and divide by six and we get roughly 2 stars.

Now, this, in addition to being COMPLETELY INSANE, is also transparently bullshit – if Rosey does this for every movie he’s ever reviewed, I’d like to see his worksheets. But it’s revealing nevertheless. Does Rosey automatically deduct points from every movie with action or violence in it? Isn’t, I dunno, Battleship Potemkin an action movie?

Rosey’s excuse for indulging his oddball preferences? He says his star ratings simply reflect his own personal response, and that he’s "not qualified to speak about [a film’s] value to anyone else."

Then why the fuck should anyone read your reviews?

Rosey’s answer: "In my reviews I try to describe the paths that lead to my subjective response so that readers can decide whether some part of my path might be theirs too."

Uh, dude – may I call you dude? -- THE ONLY PERSON ON YOUR PATH IS YOU.