Blog Introduction

For those of you who don’t know, my name is Larry D and I have always been a big fan of movies. But unlike a lot of other movie lovers, I can’t really think back to a moment in my life that I didn't know this about myself because I have loved movies for as long as I can remember.

And because I have a desire for one reason or another to share my love for movies, I have decided to start this blog. But as you may have noticed, the subtitle of my blog is “movie reviews for the regular guy.” This simply means that I am writing my reviews for regular movie goers. You are not going to have to read me blather on about cinematography or depth of characters or direction or any of that stuff. The general movie goer doesn’t notice these things; the general movie goer doesn’t care. It’s not because you’re not smart enough, it’s because you go to the movies to be entertained.

And that’s what I am going to do my best to let you. Was the movie I saw entertaining? Is it worth your time? And more importantly, is it worth your money?

In an attempt to not only place a value on the entertainment level on the movie itself, but to put a value on what I think the movie will be worth to you, I will be using my own rating scale to grade the movies I’ll be talking to you guys about. Actually, it’s a rating scale I borrowed from my Uncle Jimmy, but I modified it a touch. But because the idea behind the scale is about 90% his, I named it after him.

So without further ado, I introduce to you……The Paulopoulous Scale. (Don’t try pronouncing it, you’re only hurting yourself)

When Jimmy introduced the scale to me I thought it was genius, it both tells you how good the movie was and how much you’ll be comfortable spending to go see it. When he explained his scale to me it had four levels that were rated as such:

Four Stars – Full Price rating: This is a movie that you will pay the full ticket price to go see and not regret dropping the money, or a movie you saw and wouldn’t have minded paying full price to go see.

Three Stars – Matinee rating: Still a good movie, but one you wouldn’t pay more than matinee pricing to go see at the movies. Paying full price for some of these movies might effect how you actually feel about it when it’s over.

Two Stars – Rental rating: This is a movie you won’t feel bad about missing in the theaters. It’s one of those movies you’d be better served renting from one of those Red Eye kiosks or your local video store.

One Star – TV rating: This is a movie that you don’t go to see, you can wait for it to come see you. In the comfort of your own home, where you have no financial commitment whatsoever.

I have since added two more levels:

Zero Stars - Don’t bother: This movie is so bad, I recommend that even when it comes on television…..you go out to dinner or something. Stay the hell away from this movie!!!

Five Stars – This is my “Instant DVD/Blu Ray Purchase” rating. A movie that was so good/enjoyable, it is worth the investment to own a copy of your own. In order to qualify for a Five Star rating, you first have to be a Four Star movie and not all Four Star movies are worthy of the Five Star grade. I am very picky with my Five Star rating, so if it gets a Five Star grade from me, you know it’s a good one.

One other thing I wanted to let you know about what you can expect from me when reading my blog. I will only be review movies that everyone can go and see. I can’t tell you how nuts it makes me to read movie critic’s top ten movies of the year and seven of them are either some art film they saw at some random film festival or a foreign film that would have you reading subtitles the entire time.

Now I live in the Quad Cities, right on the Iowa/Illinois border, the population is under 500,000, so you can imagine how many independent/foreign films make it out this way (not that I would ever be interested in seeing one, but you get the idea). So my focus for this blog will be to only review movies that come out as nationwide releases. These are movies that you’ve heard of and should be able to see no matter where you live.


I am excited to share my thoughts and feelings about movies with you and I hope you will enjoy what I have to say about them. And hopefully in the process some of my love for movies will rub off of you. 2015 is shaping up as a historic year for movies and your feedback on my reviews or suggestions for movies you would like for me to review, are always welcome. Feel free to leave your feedback in the comments section of the blog or e-mail me at moviereviewguy@yahoo.com.

So let’s get started shall we?!