This just might be the most college-way to rate movies ever

Disclaimer: I do not condone drinking in excess or underage drinking. This is a metric for films and is designed to clarify how bad a bad film is. Absolutely do not attempt to independently verify if a film is rated 15+ or Acute Alcohol Poisoning/permanent brain damage necessary to survive the film.

The other night after seeing some egregiously bad content on Youtube, I had an epiphany. The star method works fairly well for rating films in the upper ranges. If a film earns five stars, it is a great flick (e.g. Vertigo, the Godfather, or Casablanca). Four-star films might not be great, but they are worth your time (e.g. Apollo 13, The Prestige, Rocky). Three-star films get tricky – they could controversial but well-made like the Shape of Water, or they could be not great.

In the one to two-star range, the metric is even worse. A film that earns one star is clearly bad, but how painful is it to watch?

This is why I am introducing a new metric in addition to the star rating method for films that have 3 or fewer stars – the drinks to enjoy the method. The process is simple, an estimation of how many drinks would be necessary to enjoy watching a movie. The metric is good, but not perfect. 

One problem is that drinks are somewhat subjective based on tolerance, weight, food consumption and level of hydration. However, while rating based on Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) would be more objective, it would also be less meaningful to readers. If a film is rated .09, clearly you have to be in a mental state incapable of driving to enjoy it, but by how much? Rating it 4 drinks makes it seem more reasonable and concrete, like I could see myself throwing a few back and kicking it to that film. If a film were rate 8 drinks, however, it tells the reader that they might need to risk a hangover to enjoy the film.

Secondly, “enjoyment” is a somewhat ambiguous term. For my metric, I will take it as after watching a film, my reaction is along the lines of “Heck yeah, that was a good time!”

As a last thought, even if the metric proves unhelpful, it should at least prove to be fun.

Here are a few ratings to kick of the metric:
National Treasure – 4 drinks
National Treasure 2 – 5 drinks
Muppets Treasure Island – 0 drinks
First Blood – 6 drinks
Road House – 5 drinks
The Room – 4 drinks
The Human Centipede – 15+ drinks (to be fair, I don’t love gory films, but this seems accurate)
The Hangover Part 2 – 4 drinks
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part I – 6 drinks
The Muppets Christmas Carol – 0 drinks