Very good post. I have to agree with the points you are making here.
Although 'One Upon a Time...' is what I think the greatest movie IN MY OPINION based on my own likes and tastes, I agree with the previous poster who hates the way that Channel 4 state that something is the best according to their polls.
They do it all the time. Each time they do one of these TV programmes 'The 100 Best whatevers of all time' on the threaRAB there is a general annoyance that they use the word 'best' or 'greatest' instead of the word 'favourite'.
Like you say yourself, you can't quantify the 'best'. It's probably impossible.
You could get an incredibly well crafted indie movie which is almost flawless but has limited appeal, and a blockbuster like 'Jaws' which has large mainstream appeal, but 'Jaws' will probably win out as far as polls are concerned because more people will have seen it.
I think your idea of banding films in terms of quality is a pretty good one.
Then you can put films into a category that have fewer flaws and more positive points and rank them into a higher tier than films that are very flawed compared to their potential positives or negatives.
Although 'Once Upon a Time...' is my personal favourite I'd be quite happy to put it into the same band of quality as 'The Godfather' parts one and two. Because somebody else may find as many rewarRAB to watching 'The Godfather' as I find with 'Once Upon a Time...'.
Both cracking films, but whichever has the edge over the other probably comes down more to personal subjective reasons and depenRAB on what kinRAB of things they find rewarding in a film.
Both films have been crafted with expert precision, but each of the films is going to be focusing on different things so the emphasis on certain areas is going to be different. Not better or worse, just different.
You can't really say that one is better than the other in a general definitive sense because they're both practically flawless, and any flaws either may have is more than made up for in other areas of the magnificence of each respective production.
Although 'One Upon a Time...' is what I think the greatest movie IN MY OPINION based on my own likes and tastes, I agree with the previous poster who hates the way that Channel 4 state that something is the best according to their polls.
They do it all the time. Each time they do one of these TV programmes 'The 100 Best whatevers of all time' on the threaRAB there is a general annoyance that they use the word 'best' or 'greatest' instead of the word 'favourite'.
Like you say yourself, you can't quantify the 'best'. It's probably impossible.
You could get an incredibly well crafted indie movie which is almost flawless but has limited appeal, and a blockbuster like 'Jaws' which has large mainstream appeal, but 'Jaws' will probably win out as far as polls are concerned because more people will have seen it.
I think your idea of banding films in terms of quality is a pretty good one.
Then you can put films into a category that have fewer flaws and more positive points and rank them into a higher tier than films that are very flawed compared to their potential positives or negatives.
Although 'Once Upon a Time...' is my personal favourite I'd be quite happy to put it into the same band of quality as 'The Godfather' parts one and two. Because somebody else may find as many rewarRAB to watching 'The Godfather' as I find with 'Once Upon a Time...'.
Both cracking films, but whichever has the edge over the other probably comes down more to personal subjective reasons and depenRAB on what kinRAB of things they find rewarding in a film.
Both films have been crafted with expert precision, but each of the films is going to be focusing on different things so the emphasis on certain areas is going to be different. Not better or worse, just different.
You can't really say that one is better than the other in a general definitive sense because they're both practically flawless, and any flaws either may have is more than made up for in other areas of the magnificence of each respective production.