Every so often (about once a month), my brother and I take a friday afternoon off and go drinking. Something in our Irish, Chinese, Lebanese, Scandinavian, Congolese, Doberman, Indonesian genes triggered the common thought that this is a good idea. So we made a tradition, in our parlance, of heading down to Hurley's, eating a lousy british lunch, and then strapping on a pair of barstools and shutting the place down.
This has led to a fair amount of banter on a variety of subjects, the most recent of which has been to establish a universal movie rating system that accurately categorizes the subjects into 'worth watching' & not.
In the interests of bringing this system into the light of day and improving the lives of our co-inhabitants of this fair planet, I offer the system forthwith:
Movies can have up to 5 stars. 1 star awarded for each of the following:
- features hot chick(s)
- is set in space
- features a nuclear explosion
- features large lizards and/or robots
- is set in a post-apocolyptic environment
- features an F-22
- the main character has fewer than 50 words of dialogue in the movie
1 movie can have 6 stars, and one movie can have 7 stars, with the only caveat that they must stick to the above minimum requirements.
Once scored, you can subtract stars arbitrarily based on the actual performance, but must also subtract 1 star for the following:
- zombies / living dead
- Excessive gore (unless it is funny like The Fly or Watchmen)
- dismembered children (unless the scene is so horrific it can be blocked from memory like Watchmen)
If we disagree on the rating of a movie, it can only be settled on the field of battle. We have settled most disagreements with chess, but have more than once escalated this into public shouting matches in which the objective is to have the other side back down in embarassement before you do. Being somewhat shameless, this shouting can and does go on for up to an hour, and we have been asked to leave Hurley's twice despite our substantial spend.
We have perfected this as much as we are able, and I hereby open the floor to solicit further input and/or admiration.