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80-555: The book used a star rating system. The lowest rating was "BOMB", followed by one and a half stars, rising in half-star increments to a maximum of four stars, and frequently giving out two-and-a-half star (**1/2) reviews. The sole exception to this was Naked Gun 33 + 1 ⁄ 3 : The Final Insult , which was rated with two and one third stars out of four, referencing the film's title. Maltin did not cover direct-to-video films because of their great number (six released each week by 1994). Made-for-television films were included in

160-478: A "worthless" movie. Roger Ebert occasionally gave zero stars to films he deemed "artistically inept and morally repugnant." Scheuer's guide calls "one and a half star" films "poor", and "one star" films "bad". Not all film critics have approved of star ratings. Film scholar Robin Wood wondered if Sight and Sound readers accepted "such blackening of their characters." Jay Scott of Canada's The Globe and Mail

240-457: A film critic used a star-rating system to grade movies. "The one-star review of The Port of Missing Girls launched the star system, which the newspaper promised would be 'a permanent thing.' According to film scholar Gerald Peary , few newspapers adopted this practice until the French film magazine Cahiers du cinéma "started polling critics in the 1950s and boiling their judgment down to

320-422: A game ("Score Tonight") turns sour from the animosity between Johnny and Stephanie. Stephanie retaliates by kissing the next man who walks in the door, who happens to be Michael. Bemused by this unexpected kiss, Michael falls in love with Stephanie. He asks her out, but learns she has a very specific vision of her ideal man ("Cool Rider"). After realizing how he can win her affection, Michael gets to work on acquiring

400-529: A game or stage's difficulty (such as in the SNES version of Street Fighter II and its updates), or to rate the attributes of a selectable character or, in sports games , a team. Restaurant guides and reviewers often use stars in restaurant ratings . The Michelin system reserves star for exceptional restaurants, and gives up to three; the vast majority of recommended restaurants have no star at all. Other guides now use up to four or five stars, with one-star being

480-435: A motorcycle rider, and a sequence at the end of the film showing Michael and Stephanie flying off into the sky on a motorcycle. In the film, after Stephanie wins the contest, it goes on to show the luau in the final scene. Originally, there were a few minutes dedicated to a scene in which Michael (believed to be dead in his alter ego, by Stephanie) comes out on stage as Stephanie is exiting the stage, unbeknownst to her that he

560-593: A motorcycle. Michael begins to covertly accept payments from the T-Birds to write their term papers and uses the cash to buy a motorcycle. Substitute teacher Mr. Stuart leads a rousing biology lesson ("Reproduction"). A rival gang called the Cycle Lords (including members of the defunct Scorpions), led by Leo Balmudo, surprises the T-Birds at the bowling alley. Before a fight ensues, a lone, mysterious “Cool Rider” biker appears (actually Michael, in disguise), defeats

640-447: A professional at all. I went on this audition as a fluke, and somehow, through the process of going back and dancing, and then going back and singing, I ended up getting the part. I went crazy with that movie. I came to New York and the paparazzi were waiting at the hotel. I know the producers put them up to it. I am basically very private, and I'm really nervous about doing publicity. Every time I set up an interview, I say, "That's it, this

720-412: A purely mathematical basis, 2 1/2 stars would be the dividing line between good and bad on a 0–5 scale. Common Sense Media uses a scale of one to five, where 3 stars are "Just fine; solid" and anything lower is "Disappointing" at best. There is no agreement on what the lowest rating should be. Some critics make "one star" or a "half-star" their lowest rating. Dave Kehr believes that "one star" indicates

800-572: A rating. Star ratings are also given out at stand-up comedy performances and theatre productions. Star ratings are given at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe , the largest arts festival in the world. Since 2010, the British Comedy Guide has collected over 4,300 reviews of around 1,110 different acts, across 83 different publications in the form of a star rating. The use of star ratings is controversial because

880-465: A reference to the source material for the film if it was based on previously published material. Films were listed alphabetically letter-by-letter, ignoring punctuation and spaces. Articles were also ignored and transposed to the end of the title. The Guide was notable for containing what the Guinness Book of World Records calls the world's shortest movie review. His 2 out of 4 star review of

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960-458: A scale of zero to three stars, representing O'Brien's notion of their "literary permanence." He further listed stories with a ranking of three stars "in a special 'Roll of Honor.'" In this list, O'Brien attached an additional asterisk to those stories that he personally enjoyed. Oliver Herford 's essay Say it with Asterisks , quips "Never, I think, were a mob of overworked employees so pitifully huddled together in an ill-ventilated factory as are

1040-413: A star as a restaurant rating in 1926, which was expanded to a system of one to three stars in 1931. In 1915, Edward O'Brien began editing The Best American Short Stories . This annual compiled O'Brien's personal selection of the previous year's best short stories. O'Brien claimed to read as many as 8,000 stories a year, and his editions contained lengthy tabulations of stories and magazines, ranked on

1120-488: A star rating to rank the safety of transportation. EuroRAP have developed a Road Protection Score which is a scale for Star Rating roads for how well they protect the user from death or disabling injury when a crash occurs. The assessment evaluates the safety that is 'built into' the road through its design, in combination with the way traffic is managed on it. The RPS protocol has also been adapted and used by AusRAP, usRAP and iRAP. Euro NCAP awards 'star ratings' based on

1200-466: A star rating, with a bullet reserved for movies that the magazine didn't like." The highest rating any film earned was five stars. The British film magazine Sight and Sound also rated films on a scale of one to four stars. Some critics use a "half-star" option in between basic star ratings. Leonard Maltin goes one further and gives Naked Gun 33 + 1 ⁄ 3 : The Final Insult a 2 + 1 ⁄ 3 star rating. Critics do not agree on what

1280-415: Is commonly used in hotel ratings , with five stars being the highest rating. Similar systems have been proposed for electing politicians in the form of score voting and STAR voting . Repeated symbols used for a ranking date to Mariana Starke 's 1820 guidebook, which used exclamation points to indicate works of art of special value: ...I have endeavored... to furnish Travellers with correct lists of

1360-401: Is my last one. I'll do this because I committed to doing it, but I'm never doing another one." It was insane. Lorna Luft was the last star cast. The part played by Connie Stevens was originally meant for Annette Funicello but she was unable to appear because her schedule as Skippy peanut butter spokeswoman did not allow her time to film the scene. Adrian Zmed had previously played

1440-481: Is the cool rider and he is alive. He attempts to ask her what's wrong and she storms past him and runs off crying, then it cuts to the luau. There was a scene within the "Who's that Guy?" number in which Goose accidentally smashes Rhonda's nose at the Bowl-A-Rama door. None of these scenes have been shown since the film's release. Featured as background music at Rydell Sport Field: Featured as background music at

1520-481: Is undeniably stocked with solid songs and well-choreographed dance sequences, but there's no getting around the fact that it's a blatant retread of its far more entertaining predecessor." As of October 2020 , on Metacritic it had a score of 52% based on reviews from 11 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Janet Maslin of The New York Times condemned the film as "dizzy and slight, with an even more negligible plot than its predecessor had. This time

1600-538: The Emmy Award -winning Special Bulletin (each from 1983), and "Outstanding" for Minstrel Man (1977). Certain theatrically-released films (usually low budget, obscure, foreign, concert, or serial films ), as well as the majority of films based on Edgar Wallace novels, were also removed from the guide over time to allow the inclusion of new titles. Another notable feature of the Guide was that each review included

1680-651: The "death doughnut". Roger Ebert used a thumbs-down symbol. Other critics use a black dot . Critics also do not agree on what the lower ratings signify, let alone the lowest rating. While Maltin's and Scheuer's guides respectively explain that lowest rated films are "BOMB(s)" and "abysmal", British film critic Leslie Halliwell instead writes that no star "indicates a totally routine production or worse; such films may be watchable but are at least equally missable." Like Halliwell and Dave Kehr, film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum believes one-star films have some merit, however unlike Halliwell, Rosenbaum believes that no stars indicate

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1760-499: The "one improvement" on the original film: "Miss Pfeiffer is as gorgeous as any cover girl , and she has a sullen quality that's more fitting to a Grease character than Miss Newton-John 's sunniness was." Variety wrote that she was "all anyone could ask for in the looks department, and she fills Olivia Newton-John's shoes and tight pants very well." Pfeiffer told the Los Angeles Times three years later: That film

1840-428: The 14,000 films available for television at the time and contained 535 pages, including 32 pages of photos. Unlike Scheuer's book at the time, TV Movies included the movie's director, running time and larger cast lists. A second edition appeared five years later. After a third in 1978, new editions appeared every two years, and after 1986 every year. Maltin's regular appearance on Entertainment Tonight from 1982 and

1920-406: The 1948 musical Isn't It Romantic? consisted of the word "No". Another very short review concerned the film Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed where Maltin wrote, "It is what it is." Yet another was of Are Husbands Necessary? which asked the rhetorical question , "And what about this film?", and one more right behind these is Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol where, in comparing it to

2000-409: The 1960s and during the counterculture era.) However, the projects were scrapped due to the underwhelming box office performance of Grease 2 . Maxwell Caulfield was unhappy with the film's "drab" title, and unsuccessfully lobbied to change it to Son of Grease . Birch proposed an idea to feature Travolta and Newton-John reprising their characters as a now married couple running a gas station near

2080-470: The 2021 online TCM Festival. The film's screenplay was adapted in the Kannada (South India) feature film Premaloka , starring Ravichandran and Juhi Chawla , released in 1987, which went on to become a blockbuster. In 2003, Olivia Newton-John confirmed that a second sequel was being developed. "They're writing it, and we'll see what happens. If the script looks good, I'll do it. But I haven't seen

2160-463: The Asterisks in this Sweatshop of Twaddle." Literary editor Katrina Kenison dismisses O'Brien's grading systems as "excessive at best, fussy and arbitrary at worst." Book reviewers generally do not use a star-rating system though there are exceptions. The West Coast Review of Books rates books on a scale of one ("poor") to five ("superior") stars. According to editor D. David Dreis, readers love

2240-535: The Cool Rider, and they enjoy a romantic twilight motorcycle ride, which includes a kiss. Just as Michael is about to reveal his identity, they are interrupted by the arrival of the T-Birds and Pink Ladies. Before Michael departs, he tells Stephanie that he will see her at the school talent show . Johnny, enraged by Stephanie's new romance, threatens to fight the Cool Rider if he sees him with her again. The Pink Ladies walk away haughtily, but this has little effect on

2320-437: The Cycle Lords again, and reveals his true identity as Michael. Initially shocked, Johnny gives him a T-Birds jacket, officially welcoming him into the gang, and Stephanie is delighted that she can now be with him. Michael and Stephanie share a passionate kiss, and he whispers that he loves her. All the couples pair-off happily, as the graduating class sings ("We'll Be Together"). The credits start rolling in yearbook -style, as in

2400-561: The Duck , 1980's Jazz Singer , The Karate Kid Part III , Little Man , Mame , Mannequin , The Missouri Breaks , the 1980 adaptation of Popeye , Prêt-à-Porter , 1998's remake of Psycho , Silent Night, Deadly Night , 2007's remake of Sleuth , Street Fighter , 3000 Miles to Graceland , Valley of the Dolls , Van Helsing , 1985's Water , Year One , and Your Highness . High-school senior Leonard Maltin

2480-509: The Hands of Time"). She is named winner of the contest, and crowned the Queen of the upcoming graduation luau ; likewise, Johnny is hailed as King for his performance of "Prowlin'", along with his fellow T-Birds. The school year ends with the luau ("Rock-a-Hula Luau (Summer Is Coming)"), during which the Cycle Lords appear and begin to disrupt the celebration. The Cool Rider then reappears, defeats

Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide - Misplaced Pages Continue

2560-472: The Pink Ladies—arrive at high school ("Back to School Again"). The Pink Ladies are now led by Stephanie Zinone, who feels she has "outgrown" her relationship with her ex-boyfriend Johnny Nogerelli, the arrogant, chauvinistic (and rather immature) bully leader of the motorcycle -riding T-Birds. A new arrival comes in the form of clean-cut British student Michael Carrington (a cousin of Sandy Olsson from

2640-541: The T-Birds' self-confidence ("Prowlin'"). At school, Stephanie's poor grades in English lead her to accept Michael's offer of help. Johnny, upon seeing them together in a discussion, demands that Stephanie quit the Pink Ladies to preserve his honor. Although still enchanted by the mysterious Cool Rider, interactions with Michael reveal that she has become romantically interested in him now, as well. Michael ponders over

2720-588: The Vanities , The Cannonball Run , Cannonball Run II , Captain Ron , Celtic Pride , College , Cop and a Half , Delgo , Driven , The Dukes of Hazzard , 88 Minutes , Endless Love , Every Which Way but Loose , Fatal Beauty , Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas , Four Rooms , Freddy Got Fingered , The Garbage Pail Kids Movie , Grease 2 , 2010's Gulliver's Travels , Howard

2800-536: The additional title permitted it) and many others that never had. The latter category includes the "complete" (according to Maltin's introduction) Saturday matinee cowboy programmers of John Wayne , William "Hopalong Cassidy" Boyd , Gene Autry and Roy Rogers . The second edition of the Classic Movie Guide , published in 2010, moved the cut-off date to 1965. Since the 2013 edition, the Movie Guide

2880-472: The app was taken down in 2014 due to Penguin Group being unable to come to an agreement with Mobile Age, the creator of the app. Besides Scheuer's Movies on TV , similar books include Halliwell's Film Guide , by Leslie Halliwell , and The Good Film and Video Guide , by David Shipman . Scheuer's guide was the first published, in 1958, preceding Maltin's by ten years, and the two were competing titles until

2960-519: The bowling alley: Featured at the beginning: The sequel took in just over $ 15 million after coming at fifth on opening weekend behind E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial , Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , Rocky III , and Poltergeist . Caulfield said "basically we just got blown off the map by that little movie by Spielberg." As of July 2022 , on Rotten Tomatoes , the film had an approval rating of 35% based on 43 reviews, with an average rating of 4.3/10. The site's consensus read: " Grease 2

3040-408: The continuing charade he is putting on for Stephanie ("Charades"). At the talent show, Stephanie and the Cool Rider meet up but are abruptly ambushed by the T-Birds, who pursue Michael on their respective motorcycles, with Stephanie, Sharon, Paulette, and Rhonda following in a car. They chase him to a construction site which conceals a deadly drop, and the biker's absence suggests that he has gone over

3120-444: The cutoff is for a recommendation, even when they use the same scale. Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert "both consider[ed] a three-star rating to be the cutoff for a "thumbs up" on their scales of zero to four stars. Film critic Dave Kehr —who also uses a 0–4 star scale—believes "two stars is a borderline recommendation". On a five-star scale, regardless of the bottom rating, 3 stars is often the lowest positive rating, though judging on

3200-401: The early 1990s. Scheuer's books had a similar format to Maltin's, except with more listings for made-for-television productions. Star (classification) Star ratings are a type of rating scale using a star glyph or similar typographical symbol . It is used by reviewers for ranking things such as films, TV shows, restaurants, and hotels. For example, a system of one to five stars

3280-414: The edge and perished, leaving Stephanie heartbroken and inconsolable. Johnny and his T-Birds remove the competing Preptones – preppie boys – by tying them to a shower pole in the boys' locker room and drenching them. During the Pink Ladies' performance in the talent show ("Girl for All Seasons"), Stephanie enters a dreamlike, fantasy world, where she is reunited with her mystery biker ("(Love Will) Turn Back

Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide - Misplaced Pages Continue

3360-605: The end of the film, with Travolta to sing a new number "Gas Pump Jockey;" this did not come to fruition. Newton John rejected the offer to return, as she was more interested in doing Xanadu . Paramount tried to get Jeff Conaway and Stockard Channing from the first film to do cameos but this did not happen (Channing, by then 37 years old, had left Hollywood for a time in the early 1980s to focus on her stage career). Early plans for Grease 2 had Conaway and Channing's characters, Kenickie and Rizzo, as main characters while they attended summer school , which would have culminated in

3440-414: The enemy gang, and disappears into the night ("Who's That Guy?"). Stephanie is fascinated with this stranger. Meanwhile, T-Bird Louis attempts to trick his sweetheart, Pink Lady Sharon, into losing her virginity to him by taking her to a fallout shelter and faking a nuclear attack ("Let's Do It for Our Country"). The next evening while working at a gas station/auto garage, Stephanie is surprised again by

3520-450: The facilities provided. Some consider this disadvantageous to smaller hotels whose quality of accommodation could fall into one class but the lack of an item such as an elevator would prevent it from reaching a higher categorization. In recent years hotel rating systems have also been criticized by some who argue that the rating criteria for such systems are overly complex and difficult for laymen to understand. It has been suggested that

3600-421: The film has redeeming facets, and instead uses zero stars as his lowest rating. Examples of rating scales: Critics have different ways of denoting the lowest rating when this is a "zero". Some such as Peter Travers display empty stars. Jonathan Rosenbaum and Dave Kehr use a round black dot. Leslie Halliwell uses a blank space. The Globe and Mail uses a "0", or as their former film critic dubbed it,

3680-439: The film received mostly negative reviews from critics; however, Grease 2 maintains a devoted fan base decades after its release. It is 1961, three years after the events of the prior film , and the first day of school has arrived ("Alma Mater" from the original stage musical ). Principal McGee and her secretary, Blanche, react as the students—including the laid-back, ruffian T-Birds, and their trendy, “bad-girl” counterparts,

3760-402: The film. Bronte Woodard , the writer who adapted the original stage material for the original film, had died in 1980, and Canadian comic Ken Finkleman (who was also writing and directing Airplane II at the same time) was tasked with penning a new script mostly from scratch. The total budget for the production was $ 11.2 million, almost double the budget of the original. Birch's approach to

3840-474: The final edition listed the following contributing editors: Earlier contributing editors included John Cocchi, Alvin H Marill and Maltin's wife, Alice. In 1992, the movie guide was released on CD-ROM as part of Microsoft Cinemania . In 1994 it was released separately on CD-ROM. Cinemania was discontinued in 1997. A mobile application version of the guide was released, in 2009, to the App Store. However,

3920-408: The first. The quality isn't there." Jim Jacobs described it at the time as "awful ... the pits." In an interview 27 years later, Jacobs noted that Grease 2 "still brings a brief frown to his face." During an appearance for Rotten Tomatoes to promote the film Tick, Tick... Boom! , actor Andrew Garfield cited the film as one of his five favorite musicals, calling it "great". Pfeiffer

4000-447: The guides for many years, though in the late 1990s, Maltin gradually began to phase them out to make room for current feature film releases. All had been removed by the early 2010s, and no TV movies made after 2004 were included in new editions. Maltin used a different system for rating TV movies: "Below average", "Average" or "Above average", with select variants for highly rated films, including "Way above average" for The Day After and

4080-458: The half star is positioned to the left of one or more whole stars. Grease 2 Grease 2 is a 1982 American musical romantic comedy film, and a standalone sequel to the 1978 film Grease , adapted from the 1971 musical of the same name by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey . Originally titled More Grease , the film was produced by Allan Carr and Robert Stigwood , and directed and choreographed by Patricia Birch , who choreographed

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4160-499: The lack of a unified global system for rating hotels may also undermine the usability of such schemes. In the UK, providers and comparison websites often use stars to indicate how feature-rich financial products are. The most senior military ranks in all services are classified by a star system in many countries, ranging from one-star rank which typically corresponds to brigadier , brigadier general , Commodore or air commodore , to

4240-443: The lowest rating. The stars are sometimes replaced by symbols such as a fork or spoon. Some guides use separate scales for food, service, ambiance, and even noise level. The Michelin system remains the best known star system. A single star denotes "a very good restaurant in its category", two stars "excellent cooking, worth a detour", and three stars, "exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey". Michelin stars are awarded only for

4320-399: The material was to hew closer to the original, grittier stage productions from which Grease came; she had resisted changes made to the original film (largely made at Newton-John's behest) but was overruled. Grease 2 was intended to be the second film (and first sequel) in a proposed Grease franchise of four films and a television series. (The third and fourth films were to take place in

4400-582: The most senior five-star ranks , which include Admiral of the Fleet , Grand Admiral , Field Marshal , General of the Army and Marshal of the Air Force —some five-star ranks only exist during large-scale conflicts. Recruits entering American college football are commonly ranked on a five-star scale, with five representing what scouts think will be the best college players. International organisations use

4480-639: The number of predicted stars. The Unicode Standard encodes several characters used for star ratings in the Miscellaneous Symbols and Arrows block: The STAR WITH LEFT HALF BLACK and LEFT HALF BLACK STAR are intended for use in left-to-right contexts where the half star is positioned to the right of one or more whole stars, whereas the STAR WITH RIGHT HALF BLACK and RIGHT HALF BLACK STAR are intended for use in right-to-left contexts (such as Arabic or Hebrew ) where

4560-492: The objects best worth notice...; at the same time marking, with one or more exclamation points (according to their merit), those works which are deemed peculiarly excellent. Murray's Handbooks for Travellers and then the Baedeker Guides (starting in 1844) borrowed this system, using stars instead of exclamation points, first for points of interest and later for hotels. The Michelin restaurant guide introduced

4640-562: The original film ("Back to School Again"). Grease co-producer Allan Carr had a deal with Paramount Pictures to be paid $ 5 million to produce a sequel, with production beginning within three years of the original film. Carr decided to hire Patricia Birch as director for the sequel, as she had previously served as the choreographer for the stage and film versions of Grease . Birch was initially hesitant to accept after learning that neither composers Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey nor John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John would be involved in

4720-590: The original stage production and prior film. The plot returns to Rydell High School two years after the original film's graduation , with a largely new cast, led by Maxwell Caulfield and Michelle Pfeiffer in her first starring role. The film was released in United States theaters on June 11, 1982, and grossed $ 15 million against a production budget of $ 11 million, a far cry from its predecessor's $ 132 million domestic box office. Despite breakthrough roles for Pfeiffer, Adrian Zmed , and Christopher McDonald ,

4800-729: The performance of vehicles in crash tests, including front, side and pole impacts, and impacts with pedestrians. The United States National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) also uses a star ranking to rank the safety of vehicles in crash tests, including front, side, pole impacts, and rollovers, with 5 stars being the most secure. Some web content voting systems use five-star grades. This allows users to distinguish content more precisely than with binary " like buttons ". Many recommender systems , such as MovieLens or Amazon.com , ask people to express preferences using star ratings, then predict what other items those people are likely to enjoy. Predictions are often expressed in terms of

4880-508: The player to repeat and fully master previously beaten levels in order to receive a perfect 3-star rating, which may confer other benefits or bonus content. Another use of star ratings is to denote the rarity of characters in video games where players are tasked in collecting numerous characters, such as Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes and Marvel: Contest of Champions , in which stronger and rarer characters are marked with more stars to make them appear more valuable. Stars are also used to rank

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4960-400: The previous film ). He is introduced to the school atmosphere by former Pink Lady Frenchy, who agreed to help show Michael around. Frenchy has returned to Rydell to obtain her diploma so she can start her own cosmetics company (as preluded with “ Beauty School Dropout ” in the previous film). Michael eventually meets Stephanie, and quickly becomes smitten with her. At the local bowling alley ,

5040-539: The previous installments, he commented, "More of the same, only worse." Along with typically listed worst pictures of all time , the hundreds of films Maltin designated as a "BOMB" in his guide also included the following: American Gigolo , the Woody Allen -directed Anything Else , Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever , Battlefield Earth , The Benchwarmers , Best of the Best , Bobby Deerfield , The Bonfire of

5120-433: The public may ignore the reviews and concentrate more the star ratings alone. Star ratings are not often used to rate the quality of a video game but are rather used within certain games for varying purposes. One notable use of the star system is to grade a player's performance in completing a level with up to three stars, used in many modern multi-level games like Angry Birds . This three-star rating system challenges

5200-510: The quality of food and wine; the luxury level of the restaurant is rated separately, using a scale of one ("quite comfortable") to five ("luxury in the traditional style") crossed fork and spoon symbols. Hotel luxury is often denoted by stars. Other classifiers, such as the AAA Five Diamond Award , use diamonds instead of stars to express hotel rating levels. Hotels are assessed in traditional systems and rest heavily on

5280-468: The ratings but publishers don't. In the 31 July 1928 issue of the New York Daily News , the newspaper's film critic Irene Thirer began grading movies on a scale of zero to three stars. Three stars meant 'excellent,' two 'good,' and one star meant 'mediocre.' And no stars at all 'means the picture's right bad,'" wrote Thirer. Carl Bialik speculates that this may have been the first time

5360-421: The rise of home video and cable television saw an increase in sales of the book. In 2005, logistical problems of a single book prompted him to launch a companion volume, Leonard Maltin's Classic Movie Guide , restricted to films from 1960 and earlier, several of which no longer appear in the annual publication (some had been deleted over the years to make room for newer films, others removed at this point because

5440-567: The role of Danny Zuko in the stage version of Grease , a role he would later reprise in the 1990s. Scenes at Rydell High School were filmed at Excelsior High School , a recently closed high school in Norwalk, California . Filming took place throughout a 58-day shooting schedule during the autumn of 1981. According to director Birch, the script was still incomplete when filming commenced. Sequences that were filmed but cut during post-production include scenes in which Frenchy helps Michael become

5520-461: The role of Stephanie. Other actresses considered for the part included Lisa Hartman , Kristy McNichol , Andrea McArdle , and singer Pat Benatar . Pfeiffer was a wild card choice, but according to Birch, she won the part because she "has a quirky quality you don't expect." She later commented on being cast: That was really weird for me. I'd been taking singing lessons and I had taken dance, because I loved to dance, but I had never considered myself

5600-497: The scenes, and employs some sharp montage to give most of the songs and dances a fair amount of punch." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 2 stars out of 4, saying: "This movie just recycles Grease , without the stars, without the energy, without the freshness and without the grease." Pfeiffer received positive notices for her first major role. The New York Times review cited her performance as

5680-412: The script, and it has to be cleverly done." Newton-John died in 2022 before any such script was completed. In 2008, it was reported that Paramount was planning a new sequel to Grease that would debut straight to DVD . However, the project never came to fruition. In 2019, it was announced that a prequel to the original film entitled Summer Lovin' with John August attached to write the screenplay

5760-470: The story can't even masquerade as an excuse for stringing the songs together. Songs? What songs? The numbers in Grease ;2 are so hopelessly insubstantial that the cast is forced to burst into melody about pastimes like bowling." Variety commended the staging of the musical numbers, writing that Patricia Birch has come up with some unusual settings (a bowling alley, a bomb shelter) for some of

5840-421: The two getting married. Andy Gibb was screen tested to play the male lead but this proved unsatisfactory. At one stage Timothy Hutton was announced as the male lead, and Carr later claimed after Grease 2 was released "Hutton came, sang, and danced in my living room. He had done Guys and Dolls in college, and that’s who I wanted and preferred. But they didn’t consider him sexy enough.” Maxwell Caulfield

5920-412: Was a good experience for me. It taught me a valuable lesson. Before it even came out the hype had started. Maxwell and I were being thrust down the public's throat in huge full page advertisements. There was no way we could live up to any of that and we didn't. So the crash was very loud. But it did teach me not to have expectations. Barry Diller of Paramount said that the film "on no level is as good as

6000-456: Was an opponent of using symbols to summarize a review and wrote in 1992 that "When Globe editors first proposed the four-star system of rating movies about a year ago, the response from Globe critics was, to put it mildly, underwhelming." More recently, Mark Kermode has expressed a dislike of star ratings (assigned to his online reviews but not his print or radio reviews) on the grounds that his verdicts are sometimes too complex to be expressed as

6080-409: Was being hailed as the next Richard Gere or John Travolta . However, when Grease 2 flopped, nobody would touch me. It felt like a bucket of cold water had been thrown in my face. It took me 10 years to get over Grease 2 ." With only a few television roles and small film appearances, Michelle Pfeiffer , then aged 23, was a relatively unknown actress when she attended the casting call audition for

6160-536: Was cast after impressing producers off-Broadway in Entertaining Mr. Sloane . Having seen his performances, Allan Carr offered Caulfield the role of Michael over thousands of applicants. “They were all in love with Maxwell,” said Patricia Birch. “Robert and Allan saw him onstage without his clothes." Unlike co-star Pfeiffer, Caulfield's career following Grease 2 was damaged by the film's failure. He has been quoted as saying: "Before Grease 2 came out, I

6240-465: Was nominated for a 1983 Young Artist Award in the category of Best Young Motion Picture Actress. The film was nominated for a Stinkers Bad Movie Awards for Worst Picture. Later on, the Stinkers would unveil their picks for the 100 worst films of the 20th century with their "100 Years, 100 Stinkers" list. Grease 2 ranked in the listed bottom 20 at #13. The film was given a special screening at

6320-478: Was publisher of Film Fan Monthly . In spring 1968 a teacher introduced him to an editor at Signet Books , which wanted a competitor to Steven H. Scheuer 's Movies on TV ; impressed by Maltin's ideas for the book the editor hired him immediately, without telling others that he had hired a 17-year-old. The first edition of Maltin's book, originally called TV Movies , appeared in September 1969 featuring 8,000 of

6400-465: Was subtitled The Modern Era . Maltin announced in August 2014 that the 2015 edition, to be published in September 2014, would be the last: An entire generation has been raised to acquire all their information online from their mobile devices or computers. These are not the likely customers for a physical paperback reference book. Our sales have sharply declined in recent years. In addition to Maltin,

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