By Ankit Barlota Follow @AnkitBarlota It used to be either good, or bad. Then it evolved to good, ok, and bad. Few years ago, it changed to numbers ranging between one and five. And when some guy was stuck between 3 and 4, he started the trend of 3.5. There were a few others who tried something different. They increased the scale. For them, it was from 1 – 10 so that they could avoid (say) a 3.5 with a 7. Some even introduced percentage. Confused? Well, that’s completely alright. And that’s how it works in this field of REVIEWING. You always need to be prepared to face confusion. There are different types of reviews today. While giving star ratings is the most common and is prevalent even for hotel and travel reviews’, some have taken it to an all new level and have introduced a new system for movies. They have a critics’ rating, a business rating and an audience rating (Don’t ask me how they are different). There are also some reviewers who recommend movies on the basis of your taste of movies. Like, watch it if you like horror movies, watch it if you are a fan of this star, watch it if you like this director’s style of movies, etc. A review, at the end of it, must be able be to give us a binary answer- yes or a no. But most of them today are either too judgmental or too biased. As a result, the daily movie-goer in me is confused. The ratings that I have mentioned above have now evolved to 2.75 out of five, 7.3 out of 10, 60%, Below average-average-above average-good-very good and so on. I must admit though, “one time watch” is my favorite. If you have a friend asking about a recent movie, use this option, it’s the safest and will hardly bring you bad words. Not long ago, I asked a friend, “Macha how’s the movie?” He replied, “Acting super, BGM great, Cinematography excellent, and Direction fabulous. But, overall movie is ok - ok. ” That’s how most of these reviews are. Thanks to them, CONFUSING is now an art too! When you read through those hundreds of reviews, you will realize that almost all movies have a ‘mixed’ response. There are some honest critics who praise a good movie and tear apart the rest, and, there are self-proclaimed ‘reviewers’ who rate each and every aspect of a movie sitting at home and give an easy ‘thumbs down’ to good movies. These are people who record their review videos in one angle every Friday and they talk about a National award winning cinematographer and his work! This is about those who tend to confuse you. Let’s have a look at the other side now. The people who get confused.. Gone are the days when people just wanted to know if a movie is good or not. Today they want to know if the 150 bucks they spend for a movie is worth it or not. It’s a wise idea. But that’s only going to reduce the overall impact of the movie. Every person who thinks of watching a particular movie on the forthcoming weekend looks for a review on Thursday night. In the process, he knows the entire plot before entering the cinema hall. And hence, the element of surprise is completely eliminated. Result is reduction in overall entertainment value of the movie. And when they don’t like the movie as much, they find fault with the one who reviewed it. Huff!! Vicious circle of reviewing!! But I am not criticizing any of them. I am just “reviewing” them. And after saying all that, being an ardent Indian movie fanatic, I end this with the cliché, “Movies are meant for entertainment. Let’s just enjoy them and not dissect them.” Let’s start watching movies as a product on the whole and not judge aspects like music, editing, visuals, etc. separately. And more importantly, let’s hope that while criticizing the directors on how to 'make' movies, we don’t forget how to 'watch' movies.Disclaimer: The writer himself has fallen prey to this vicious circle. He has provided ratings for movies on his Twitter timeline, and also looked for movie reviews on Thursday night. Hence, criticizing and reviewing him is welcome. We suggest you give him a generous 2.35 stars. What say?Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this articles are the personal opinions of the author. The News Minute is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, suitability or validity of any information in this article. The information, facts or opinions appearing in this article do not reflect the views of The News Minute and The News Minute does not assume any liability on the same.