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Is The Dark Knight the movie event of the summer? Is it the best Batman film of all time? Or is it an unrelentingly dark, nihilistic tale of our post-9/11 world? That's all a matter of opinion.

As someone who airs his views in public, I learned long ago that everyone has an opinion about movies and most people aren't shy about voicing their disagreements with a professional critic.

That's fine with me, because I understand that every person who watches a movie brings his or her personal history along as baggage. How you view a film has everything to do with who you are, how old you are, how you were raised, where you were raised, what you've experienced in life-and what you haven't. It also has a lot to do with what movies you've seen-and what movies you haven't.

When I embarked upon the first edition of my annual Movie Guide, my editor insisted that I assign a star-rating to each review. I fought the idea, but he said, "People love that kind of shorthand." He was right. And just like the endless pop-culture lists we see nowadays, ratings are meant to inspire debate.