Another Standard Setter

This metric sickness seems to be contagious. First Bill adds his thoughts, offering some excellent suggestions on fine tuning the funkometer, and now John Podhoretz at the Corner seems to be hinting at a new scale for bad, pretentious film reviews (via Ed Driscoll)

The Dargis would be the unit. Specifically, Manohla Dargis' review of David Lynch's Inland Empire. He warns you that you will be a changed person should you venture into that labyrinth of a review.

(and no review good or bad would keep me away from seeing this film, I'm a Lynch fan, and it's set in the Inland Empire, where I went to college, woohoo!)

Obviously this particular review is a full 1000 millidargis on the pretension scale, while something like her review of AI clocks in at a mere 350 millidargis (I'm following the European method of using millidargis as both the singular and plural form).

In contrast this Christy Lemire review of Deja Vu is downright cogent and concise earning -150 millidargis. Still not as clear as it could be (a truly clear and helpful review would be -1000 millidargis), but certainly better than most reviews you get (even if I disagree with some of what she says about that film).

But enough about them, should I start applying a metric to my own posts?

And what would that scale be?

UPDATE: I've just searched this site for previous mentions of Manohla Dargis, and I had forgotten her ridiculous review of Snakes on a Plane. That's a full 1500 millidargis for that review. It's 50% more Dargis than that Inland Empire review. She's really incredible. She's a master. A.O. Scott ain't got nothing on her. Peter Travers comes close, but who reads Rolling Stone any more?

And so many folks get Lynch wrong, he's not the freak (Dennis Hopper), he's the boy scout (Kyle McLachlan).