16 July 2020

15 July 2020

actually saw NEOWISE Tuesday night

Waited until after twilight passed and took the dog for our after dinner stroll. We rode the elevator up to the top of a parking garage since it's probably the highest place I have access to and mostly gets me above the trees. The dog didn't care much for the elevator ride but that's probably because it was his first time. We had to maneuver around someone sleeping in whatever you would call the glass enclosure that protects the elevators. Didn't have any luck up finding the comet up there - might have been because I didn't know exactly where to look, but there was also a lot of light pollution between streetlights and the lights on the top of the parking structure.

A couple blocks to the north is a school with a couple blocks of sports fields. I wasn't sure if it would be worthwhile, but as we approached I saw a guy on the south side with two tripods set up. Bingo! It was pretty hard to pick out initially, but I saw what looked like a long, faint smudge, so I asked if I was looking in the right place. I was. He invited me to look through his binoculars and he showed a couple pix he'd grabbed. It was pretty cool and I'm glad I was able to see it.

We returned by the school nearest home but the view wasn't as good. Might have seen it there too, but it was really faint.

I really, really wish I had a place to go where I could enjoy the night sky. Can only see the brightest objects (like the big dipper or Jupiter or the ISS) from around here. If I wanted, I could walk for an hour or so ...

But then there's the walk back and it would be pretty late. Also, local highways lack sidewalks (even in the city). Gotta love ODOT.

13 July 2020

July 2020

So, lots changes and yet so much stays the same.

04 April 2015

Movie Reviews

Do you find movie reviews useful? If so, what kind - other than one's you agree with, of course?

I've given up reading about movies before watching them. Started the process some time ago and have completely given up. I prefer to watch a movie as 'cold' as possible. Yes, the heat is on or I'm under a blanket. By 'cold' I mean with virtually no knowledge of the film. I know the name, might know actors or director, and often know some general buzz about the film.

Okay, what's general buzz? For example, I know that Interstellar takes place in space. But that's
from http://www.jonathanmoya.net/2014/09/18/phase-2-of-poster-posse-interstellar-tribute/
really all I can tell you about it. Oh, other than it's on a number of lists, either as a best or most popular film.

And this is where I now get 99.99% of my film recommendations. For years I've been working through such well-known lists as the IMDb Top 250, the National Film Registry (US), Ebert's Great Movies, Empire 500, the Criterion Collection and FilmMovement catalogs. But since I've seen so many of the titles on these lists, I continued to search for other lists until I came across I Check Movies. As of today, they have 162 Official Lists and thousands of others, compiled by members of the site.

While some of the Official Lists might seem obscure, say Amos Vogel's Film as a Subversive Art or Yle News' Best Finnish Films of All Time, especially if you're not in art house cinema or from Europe, and maybe even if you are - or are based on someone's opinion, Spike Lee's Essential Film List or Halliwell's Top 1000, all can be argued as having a rationale for inclusion or exclusion of a given title. One might not agree that Movie X is one of the Top 1000 movies of all time, but really, like most art, qualifying cinema is quite subjective.

And this brings me back to why I don't pay any attention to reviews. I mentioned the late Roger Ebert earlier. While I occasionally disagreed with him, his opinions were reasoned, based less on emotion, and he had decades in the film industry, most of which was spent reviewing films for the Chicago Sun Times or on the syndicated TV show At The Movies. There are others, and thanks to the wonder of the Internet, we can actually see what Jonathan Rosenbaum or AO Scott thought of a given film they reviewed back when. But do you really look up reviews before adding a movie to your Netflix cue? (I don't use Netflix - I prefer my local library.)

No, most people either rely on one of three things:
  • Word of Mouth - "Hey, you have to see the latest Sandra Bullock picture." Um, need I say more? Unless I agree with this person that Sandra Bullock is the greatest actor working in Hollywood, chances are I'm going to be quite disappointed - not always, some of her work is worthwhile.
  • Current Reviews - These are largely found in various media outlets and may range in quality from serious critical commentary to sharing of studio press releases. These tend to be most helpful when one is trying to decide which of the sixteen movies to see at the local cinerama googaplex. Quality varies greatly and may depend on who owns the media outlet or how much advertising they buy.
  • Peer Review - What you find on something like IMDb. Needless to say, I find this a very mixed bag. So many reviews proclaimed The Lego Movie Oscar worthy. Ugh!
So just sorting through reviews takes time. Time I don't find very well spent. Occasionally I might read reviews after seeing a movie (sometimes even while watching it) to see if others have reacted in a similar fashion. Other than that, I don't find them useful at all.

What's a casual movie viewer to do?

Depends. If you think your time and money are being well-spent finding movies using your current method, keep doing it.

If not, then may I suggest finding a list of films that jibes with your interests. Like Martial Arts films? Check out Sohu.com's 100 Classic Martial Arts Films. Or maybe Cult movies are you thing. Try 500 Essential Cult Movies from the book by Jennifer Eiss et al or The New Cult Canon by Scott Tobias at the AV Club. There are probably almost as many lists of films as there are movies available online and on DVD.

Give a list a try.

13 July 2014

My Top (93) IMDb Ratings

Anyone who knows me knows I'm very much into something I called 'filmed entertainment.' Included in this expansive phrase are feature movies, short subject films, documentaries, TV series, made-for-TV movies, and TV mini-series. Of course I've watched all these things since I was a young kid; however; I grew more serious about cinema, especially international cinema, after 1995. My tastes run from popular TV programs to arthouse and experimental films.

In the early 2000's it was clear that I had to somehow keep track of what I've seen, what I want to see, and what I should see. After the fifth time I pulled the same item off the library shelf thinking hmmm, this looks interesting only to watch the first two minutes and think isn't this the one where he does....yeah, I've seen this already! So, I started tracking what I'd watched on IMDb and I also developed a very detailed, many paged spreadsheet. I rely on my spreadsheet so much now that I rarely walk up to the library shelf (other than their version of 'New Releases') -- I simply search for things on my various lists, place holds, and watch them as they arrive.

To date I have rated 5,995 titles on IMDb and have 6,222 items listed and 'seen' in my database. Why the difference in numbers? Well, 217 titlez in my spreadsheet aren't even cataloged in IMDb and even after downloading my IMDb data, comparing it to my spreadsheet, updating both, I still have managed to lose ten titles -- after completing my comparison the number was three, so roughly one title a month seems to fail to update on IMDb. Oh well.

Anyway, as I approach my 6,000 IMDb rated title, I thought it was time to provide some listings about something I seem to care so much about. To start off a series of posts, I decided to list all items I have rated 10 out 10 stars on IMDb. What does a 10 star rating mean? Are these the best movies of all time? Are they somehow the most important or simply my favorites? This is a very difficult question to answer mostly since there are no guidelines for how many stars one user assigns a movie. For instance, someone might give every movie with Ben Affleck in it a 10 and every movie with Matt Damon in it a 1 on principle. I have tried to develop a rating system that resembles how we were graded as students. In school, a C was considered average and minus a curve, a score of 70-79% (correct) was generally a C. This is where I start. I then add and subtract a star for things that stand out to me related to acting, cinematography, design, plot, stupidity, originality -- okay, I admit, it's a very inexact science. I also freely admit that my ratings are highly subjective and you will probably notice a difference between my rating and IMDb's weighted average.

One note, generally a really good/great movie will only score 9 stars on my rating -- to earn that tenth star, it has to have that something extra; it must move me emotionally. So, the movies and TV programs listed below are each examples of works that have touched me deeply.

I will make some more remarks over this series of posts related to ratings and such. Please, feel free to ask questions though I'm unlikely to 'discuss' (aka argue) a item's merits. If you haven't seen some of these movies and TV programs, I hope you will track them down. They may not touch you the same way they have touched me, but you'll see what does, in fact, touch me.

The Top 93 are not provided in an discernible order.

Enjoy!

Title
Year
Type
My Stars
AVG
Stars
# of Ratings
When I Rated Item
2009
Feature
10
6.8
782
11 months ago
1997
Documentary
10
7.7
1,546
28 Sep 2004
1995
Mini-Series
10
8.5
266
27 Sep 2004
1997
Feature
10
6.9
2,157
13 Dec 2008
2005
Documentary
10
8.2
1,382
16 Nov 2007
1997
TV Series
10
7.8
564
12 Aug 2007
2009
TV Series
10
8.9
645
28 Feb 2010
2002
Documentary
10
8.0
1,749
30 Jun 2005
2004
TV Series
10
8.5
229
02 Nov 2007
1974
Documentary
10
8.3
2,707
28 Oct 2009
1970
Feature
10
7.4
1,750
5 months ago
1990
Mini-Series
10
9.4
3,067
03 May 2008
1959
Feature
10
8.5
2,009
24 Oct 2011
2001
Mini-Series
10
9.3
3,530
16 Sep 2008
1961
Feature
10
8.7
1,527
24 Oct 2011
2003
Documentary
10
8.2
13,478
5 months ago
2001
Documentary
10
7.9
8,238
20 Mar 2009
1973
TV Series
10
9.6
3,571
12 Oct 2010
1985
Feature
10
7.8
3,373
02 Oct 2010
1945
Feature
10
7.9
3,626
10 months ago
1990
Mini-Series
10
8.9
1,947
31 Aug 2007
1951
Feature
10
8.2
11,040
06 Oct 2010
1998
Mini-Series
10
8.9
5,129
31 Aug 2004
1987
Feature
10
7.8
39,178
01 Apr 2001
1994
Feature
10
8.0
7,860
14 Dec 2007
2000
Mini-Series
10
8.6
1,994
30 Sep 2009
1952
Feature
10
8.2
10,903
20 Feb 2009
2008
Feature
10
8.1
19,444
16 Mar 2010
1987
TV Series
10
9.0
279
07 Mar 2008
2008
Documentary
10
8.2
840
11 Aug 2010
1959
Feature
10
8.5
1,510
24 Oct 2011
2008
TV Series
10
8.3
412
09 Aug 2008
2005
Short Film
10
7.4
1,169
05 Aug 2009
1998
Documentary
10
8.3
1,163
16 Nov 2007
2001
TV Series
10
8.4
719
21 Jun 2008
1972
Feature
10
7.8
24,300
20 Jan 2010
2004
Feature
10
7.3
18,714
21 Mar 2008
2006
Documentary
10
7.7
1,137
29 Mar 2008
1982
Documentary
10
8.2
16,432
19 Aug 2009
1961
Feature
10
8.3
22,099
05 Oct 2007
1982
TV Series
10
8.4
12,792
23 Feb 2007
2005
Feature
10
7.7
13,198
25 Jan 2008
2004
TV Series
10
8.1
175
12 Jul 2005
2003
Feature
10
6.9
490
28 Oct 2009
2001
Feature
10
8.8
622,990
04 Aug 2003
1972
Feature
10
9.2
618,844
04 Aug 2003
1993
Feature
10
7.2
9,678
6 months ago
2002
TV Series
10
9.5
75,968
19 Dec 2008
2002
Feature
10
8.7
279,246
11 Apr 2008
2011
Feature
10
8.1
116,371
4 weeks ago
1997
Documentary
10
8.7
451
03 May 2008
1983
TV Series
10
8.8
148
03 May 2008
2005
Feature
10
8.2
400,858
16 Mar 2007
2003
Feature
10
8.9
599,506
24 Aug 2004
1998
Feature
10
8.6
390,692
04 Aug 2003
2006
Feature
10
8.5
133,165
11 Apr 2008
2002
Feature
10
8.7
537,521
24 Aug 2004
1996
Feature
10
8.2
247,162
20 Feb 2009
2004
TV Series
10
9.0
29,947
18 Jan 2008
2010
Feature
10
8.2
210,741
24 Aug 2011
2002
Short Film
10
7.5
673
19 Aug 2009
1974
Feature
10
9.1
395,647
04 Aug 2003
2005
TV Series
10
9.0
44,281
21 Dec 2007
2001
TV Series
10
8.9
45,303
03 May 2008
2006
Feature
10
8.0
235,457
21 Mar 2008
2004
Short Film
10
7.1
436
28 Oct 2009
2004
Feature
10
8.1
242,661
12 Dec 2009
2008
Feature
10
7.6
104,084
15 Dec 2009
2004
Feature
10
8.2
147,159
02 Mar 2007
2002
Short Film
10
6.9
284
19 Aug 2009
2008
Feature
10
7.8
123,031
16 Jan 2010
1994
Feature
10
6.8
365
01 Apr 2001
1981
Feature
10
8.5
99,550
04 Aug 2003
2000
Feature
10
8.1
99,758
04 Aug 2003
1962
Feature
10
8.5
109,776
04 Aug 2003
1995
Feature
10
7.6
61,185
09 Mar 2007
1972
TV Series
10
8.4
16,676
30 Sep 2009
1990
Feature
10
8.0
108,178
03 May 2008
2003
Feature
10
8.1
32,861
22 Jun 2010
1988
Feature
10
8.4
59,064
02 Mar 2007
1989
Feature
10
7.9
72,640
04 Aug 2003
1985
Feature
10
7.7
38,499
17 Jun 2010
1983
Feature
10
8.0
66,237
04 Aug 2003
1999
Mini-Series
10
8.4
42
27 Aug 2004
1969
Documentary
10
6.7
53
02 Dec 2009
1960
Feature
10
8.4
57,689
04 Aug 2003
1996
Feature
10
8.0
51,216
04 Aug 2003
1991
Feature
10
7.4
32,810
17 Jun 2010
2004
Feature
10
8.0
39,354
12 Dec 2009
1956
Feature
10
7.8
29,401
04 Nov 2009
1955
Feature
10
8.2
37,232
02 Dec 2009
1997
Feature
10
7.4
14,946
12 Apr 2001
2003
Feature
10
7.6
41,316
16 Sep 2004