***** Brilliant
**** Very Good
*** Enjoyable
** Not Bad
* Give it a miss
This got me thinking, because I found myself less than impressed with the terms for grading films, mainly because the only one of the five scores that was in any way critical of a film was the one-star award. I decided to analyse the weekly input by TV Buzz, and was amazed at the results.
| Days | « | «« | ««« | «««« | ««««« | Day Totals | |
| Saturday | 2 | 58 | 53 | 47 | 20 | 180 | |
| Sunday | 3 | 51 | 63 | 46 | 16 | 179 | |
| Monday | 1 | 43 | 51 | 52 | 22 | 169 | |
| Tuesday | 2 | 45 | 64 | 34 | 17 | 162 | |
| Wednesday | 2 | 47 | 51 | 51 | 17 | 168 | |
| Thursday | 0 | 50 | 54 | 39 | 18 | 161 | |
| Friday | 0 | 56 | 62 | 45 | 8 | 171 | |
| Week Totals | 10 | 350 | 398 | 314 | 118 | 1190 |
This table shows the spread of films by day and by star rating. Whilst there may have been some small element of duplication relating to some of the satellite channels, this is minimal. A number of films were given no star rating at all, whether through lack of space on the crammed pages, or because the film had not been reviewed, or it was in fact a duplicate entry. Nevertheless, there were 1190 films over the seven days from Saturday 7th to Friday 13th April 2012. The balance in terms of variation by day in the number of films and quality of films was fairly good, as demonstrated by the following.
The real surprise relates to the number of films awarded a single star - just 10 all week, out of 1190. So, less than 1% of films are "to be given a miss" then! There is no way that this split is appropriate.
5 Stars = 9.90%
4 Stars = 26.40%
3 Stars = 33.40%
2 Stars = 29.45%
1 Star = 0.85%
Seeing as 1180 films are somewhere between "Not Bad" and "Excellent", it must be worth looking at the ten failures, for they must be amongst the worst films of all time to be singled out for this special treatment.
1 - Showgirls (1995)
2 - Superman IV: Quest For Peace (1987)
3 - Holiday On The Buses (1973)
4 - Catwoman (2004)
5 - Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son (2011)
6 - Mutiny On The Buses (1972)
7 - Jaws: The Revenge (1987)
8 - The 41-Year-Old Virgin Who Knocked Up Sarah Marshall And Felt Superbad About It (2010)
9 - The Roommate (2011)
10 - The Invisible Man Returns (1940)
What conclusions can we draw from this survey? Well, there are a number, but without going into detailed analysis of statistics, I feel the following points are worthy of note.
a) The scoring/grading system employed by TV Buzz is flawed because there's no way that less than 1% of films are to be given a miss. By default, that makes over 99% worth watching - clearly a joke!
b) It must be the case that if qualifying for just one star is so difficult, the ten films above must be fucking dire! They must surely represent a level of entertainment akin to watching paint dry.
c) Sequels seem to fair rather badly.
d) The worst film in terms of the ratio of words in the title to entertainment value has to be number 8, above. Any film with such a long and stupid title which is then awarded one pissing star must be even more annoying than the others.
e) The only film above that was aired on the standard terrestrial channels (Channel 4 on Saturday 7th April) was 'Showgirls'. This begs the question - "Why the fuck is Channel 4 putting this shit on, when it's got such a crap reputation?"
As a complete aside to all of the above, I would like, as my parting comment, to highlight one particular film listed in the TV Guide, as it seems its title and star were a perfect pair:
Channel 5 - 3.15pm Trial By Fire
Action thriller with Brooke Burns (2008) ***
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