Election Time...So What.

Election Time...So What.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Well, it's election time and the candidates are in full swing, campaigning for the most coveted of political offices – The President of the United States of America!
But I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about movies. Great movies. Movies that are of such artistic achievement as to garner a spot in the highly respected category of…'Inspired.'
You see, I have what I call my 'Keck categories of film ratings.' Not as in 'R' ratings like the Motion Picture Association rating, but rather a rating of excellence, artistic superiority, a rating that, well, categorizes movies into levels of quality film making.
To explain, I'll start from the bottom, those examples of terrible film making, and move upward toward those worthy of more respectable adoration.
It starts, as you might guess, at zero. Zero to ten, is one category. Those would movies that most likely would have a woman, scantily clad, holding a bloody chainsaw. Nuff said.
We then move up the numeric scale until we get to ten. Now the 'Tens' are very good films, some are even wonderful. But they stop there. Movies like The Pope of Greenwich Village, Red River, Trapeze, those are all Tens. A Ten needs to be moving, effective, have a steady and capable pace, with no slow parts. It need not be 'Great' but it does need to be extremely good and quite satisfying. A Ten needs to have all artistic elements working very well.
While the three films mentioned above are all very good, they all fall short of our next category – Classic. Now a Classic is a film that definitely moves the audience. It is one that you think about, contemplate, dwell upon. It's a film that makes you think about the characters and the story hours after the movie is over. Films like Hombre, Remains of the Day, The Young Lions, all of these rise easily to the level of Classic.
Now we come to the ever elusive and rare breed of film known as Inspired. The inspired movie is powerful, deeply moving, sometimes even disturbing. It is a film that may make you pissed off at your husband. It might make go home and hug your children. It might make you divorce your wife. If it does, then you’re a whacko!
But seriously, the Inspired film is one that pulls at your emotion and makes you think about it for days, even weeks after you've seen it. Some of those in the Inspired category are The Godfather I & II – not three! For three, we'd have to go back to the numbers. It's a Wonderful Life would be in there. Shane, Spartacus, Roman Holiday, The T.V. mini-series Lonesome Dove, and of course let us not forget one of the greatest of all Inspired films, Casablanca.
So there it is, the Keck system of film critique and categorization. Feel free to use this system as the need arises. I make it available to all. But be careful how you use it. There is real power in this cerebral cistern of cinematic citation. If you get a movie in the wrong category, the Universe may tilt and we might end up with a female President.
Just kidding.

Keck