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CommonSense Media ratings integration

josh

josh

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I'd love to see Kaleidescape integrate the fantastic info on movies at Common Sense Media. While the info Kaleidescape's MovieGuide gives about why a movie is rated a certain way is often more helpful than just the simple "PG-13" or "R", it's not nearly enough to help parents really determine if a movie is appropriate for their kids.

CSM does a fantastic job of really explaining the sex, language, and violence that's in a movie, in great detail. My wife and I use it before selecting any movie for the kids. Definitely avoids those "uh oh" moments when you're watching a movie with the kids and suddenly the content turns inappropriate or deals with a subject you didn't expect.

Here's an example where they explain in great detail what to expect...
http://www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews/Nick-Norahs-Infinite-Playlist_3.html

Here's a little more on this great organization: http://www.commonsensemedia.org/about-us/our-mission

Sure would love to see that integrated right in to the UI. (Much the way Netflix has recently integrated CSM ratings).

--josh
 
Looks a bit cumbersome and verbose to include right on-screen. Besides, if you see that, doesn't it mean you already bought and imported the movie anyway? :)
 
not at all... I buy and import hundreds of movies, and many are for my wife and me to watch, but when it comes time to picking movies to watch with the kids, more information about the movies in my collection would be helpful.

As for it being too verbose for on-screen viewing, have you seen how much information is available in the music section? huge, long reviews of albums, biographies of the band itself, biographies of the individual members of the band, information on the genre, pictures, composer biographies... the movies metadata is incredibly sparse by comparison.
 
I think youre looking at an added cost to license the content at a time when people are not wanting added costs.

I see both your points because I usually won't buy content I don't know but, there are times that maybe I have forgotten about a certain moment in a movie. A good example is the movie Grease. My wife thought my two young (at the time 5 & 3) daughters would love this so she fired it up.

K's description says: A sweet exchange student and a smooth gang leader dance around the social obstacles to their love.

It doesn't mention some of the songs have pretty explicit language. Fortunately my girls didn't pick up on the language :)

It would be nice to have. A nice suggestion if doable.
 
Maybe, but I doubt the cost would be that high, (CSM is a nonprofit), and I bet it would get used a LOT more than other licensed content like biographies of composers and bands that K already integrates to make the user experience better.
 
Josh - thanks for the info - that site is great! I have a toddler and there is definitely a range even in G-rated movies that this helps out with tremendously (Why does Disney insist on killing family members all the time?) Things I never thought about until I started watching movies with him. (Through the eyes of a 2 1/2 year old, Finding Nemo is pretty scary, but Cars is just a lot of fun!)

Info like this would be great to have especially given how extensive the music info is (which I also like a lot), but I would imagine that it would still involve licensing and contracts and a lot of things that, even if cost is minimal, time and effort between the two groups to agree on how it is used and what kind of compensation would probably not be on someone's priority list.

But thanks for the info josh, I'll be using it for sure!!
 
I have young kids and I agree with your points about Nemo and Cars. I think many new movies that seem to be aimed at kids try too hard to entertain the theater ticket buying adults and as a result are too cynical or crass. Shreck is an example that comes to mind. I find Pixar as a rule has their heart in the right place- even Nemo has a good heart. If you want a good movie to watch with little kids, try some of the older fare- Lady and The Tramp and Mary Poppins are favorites in our home.
 
Renewing this call for a feature enhancement... come on Kaleidescape, this would be a great benefit to families that enjoy movies together on their Kaleidescape systems.

Netflix has done it... Time Warner Cable, Road Runner... and now the final insult. COMCAST has integrated Common Sense Media ratings into their guide! It's awfully hard to stomach Comcast beating Kaleidescape to the punch on this feature. If you care about parents who care about entertainment content for their children, then you should integrate the work of this great nonprofit organization.

The list goes on and on... Best Buy, Fancast, Cox, and DirectTV have ALL gotten this integrated. (source)

PLEASE, Kaleidescape? I suspect your target demographic will REALLY come to value this integration.

--josh
 
I thought they originally had that but turned it off. The reasoning I heard was that many of their owners did not like seeing that movies they enjoyed were not reviewed well, which could be read as telling them they don't have good taste. It also would not float well if you happened to be a movie star, owned a system, had your films on there and constantly had to see that it was not rated well.

I suppose that it would be possible to have a user override on a rating and that could cover it. Also to be able to turn that feature off via a system settings option. Each of these things does add to the complexity of the user interface, however.

I think it is still there in the background somewhere, as they will use something like that for the "recommended" titles that pop up in the web interface. I suppose a way to test it would be to put Battlefield Earth and Gigli onto a system with only about 30 films and keep hitting the refresh screen button and see if either of those ever make it to the list. If they don't, it would be safe to say that have some sort of hidden data they can filter to keep duds off the recommended list.
 
Common Sense Media aren't reviews... they're just a fact-based listing of things parents will want to know. It will say things like "full frontal nudity of a woman coming out of a shower" or "graphic depiction of a decapitation" or "F-word is used once and some discussion about sex, but no nudity"... things to help parents make a good decision.

Kaleidescape aims to be family-friendly, and this service does NOT weigh in on how good or bad the movie is, it just goes way beyond the MPAA rating to tell you exactly what to expect in sex, violence, commercialism, language, etc.

I also had heard Kaleidescape once had movie reviews, but the feature was removed because some stars or directors objected to the subjective "slams" on their movie. No idea if that's true or not (interesting aside is that, if true, there's a double-standard since Kaleidescape today does have music reviews that are highly subjective and comes right out and says that an album or band is terrible!).

But to be clear, CSM is not a review, it isn't really subjective, and shouldn't be at all controversial, even if you're the star, producer, or director of a movie. It just lists things you've put in the movie like nudity, adult language, or sex scenes with no subjective commentary about whether that's a good or bad thing.

--josh
 
Interesting that K uses some pretty critical reviews for music. Interesting points about CSM ratings Josh. I can see you are passionate about it. You should definitely pursue it with them.
 
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