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When I worked on the first edition of Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide-then called TV Movies-some forty years ago, my editor, Patrick O'Connor, insisted that I devise a rating system. I protested the idea, explaining that I didn't think it was possible to boil every movie down to a number, be it ** or ****. He was insistent, and told me, "People love that kind of shorthand."

He was right. People do respond to these ratings and they love to debate the results. But I was right, too: it's often difficult to assess a movie with successful ingredients-and some unsuccessful ones-and assign it a number.

I decided then and there that I would rate each film on its own merits, instead of comparing one to another. If I'm watching a goofball teen comedy I don't try to measure it against King Lear, and vice versa.

People sometimes confront me with questions like, "Do you mean to tell me that Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein is a better movie than Revolutionary Road?" What I'm saying is that Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein succeeds better in what it's trying to achieve than Revolutionary Road does. That's why the horror-comedy merits ***1/2 stars while the challenging social drama gets **1/2.

But when all is said and done, this remains a completely arbitrary process. My editors and I often bemoan the fact that we don't have a **3/4 rating, to bestow on films that are pretty good but don't quite hit the bull's-eye.

Most importantly, I have stood firm on one matter all these years: I'm very stingy with our highest ranking of ****, saving it for the best of the best. In any given year we may bestow that rating on one or two movies at most. If we were more liberal I think we would cheapen the significance of a four-star review. There's nothing wrong with a *** rating, and giving a movie ***1/2 is intended as a high compliment. But in this age of hype, where some so-called critics are ready to call every movie that comes down the pike "the funniest movie of the year" or "an instant classic," I'm content to reserve our ultimate praise for the handful of movies that really deserve it.

Leonard Maltin, movies, cinema, films, movie reviews, entertainment, books, Penguin Books