Head Tale

I came across a movie ranking web site called FlickChart last night.  The premise is very simple – it shows you posters of two movies side-by-side and you pick which movie you liked better (or you can get another choice if you haven’t seen one of the options presented.)   Eventually, after you rank enough movies, you get a quantified list of your Top 10 (and 20 and 50 and 100 and so on) movies.

You can also add specific movies to your FlickChart and then it will do that same comparison test to rank the movies you pick – although these ones aren’t as random and it keeps comparing your newly added movie to the ones already on your list – do you like the new movie you added better than the one you ranked #80?  #60? #40?  #50?  #45? #43? and so on until it slots in its proper place.

It’s fun but somewhat meaningless – how can you pick a “favourite” movie, especially when comparing different genres and even based on your own mood?  (They suggest asking yourself “Which of these two movies would I rather watch right this minute?” or “Which of these two movies would I rather watch for the rest of my life if I had to choose?”)

I know for myself, once I got past my Top 20 (see below), I was more interested in using this as a compilation of movies I’ve seen with only some regard given to how I ranked things.  And it’s a real toss-up – do I like “Reservoir Dogs” more than “Dead Poet’s Society” or does it just depend on the moment?  (Both are movies I’ve watched probably a dozen times.)

I was also somewhat careless – did I see “Maltese Falcon” in a long ago film class?  Or accidentally click that I hadn’t seen some films which I’m sure I have seen.  So it’s not a perfect history of my movie watching life.  (Oh, they also have a feature that shows how many hours of your life have been spent watching movies – I’m up to 31+ days and that’s not counting repeat viewings which would probably double this number easily!)

Anyhow, here’s where my Top 20 currently stands.  I had an easy cheat as I have a collection of downloaded movies I call “Jason’s All-Time Favourites” so that pretty much made populating my Top 20 easy (although ranking them was, as I said, a lot harder!) Anything else interesting?

• The release dates for my top three movies indicate that the age of 12-13 was pivotal for me in terms of movies that ended up meaning something to me – not a big surprise when you think about how important that age is to most people.)   
• I have a mix of movies with all the various MPAA ratings but go on a pretty good run of R-rated flicks from 12-19.
• Favourite directors – Rob Reiner (2), John Hughes (2), Quentin Tarantino (2), Christopher Nolan (2)
• Only a couple of my Top Ten are also in the Global Top 10 for the site – Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, Pulp Fiction, Return of the Jedi
• The lowest globally-ranked film to make my Top 20 is “Pump Up the Volume” at 1140 globally followed by Natural Born Killers (1054) and Love, Actually (1004)
• Star Wars is the earliest released film (1977) and The Dark Knight (2008) is the most recent (has our movie watching dropped off significantly since we had kids?  Maybe a bit but I think it’s more about a) not getting as involved in movies since we often watch at home, are interrupted, etc. and also b) I’m at a place in life where movies maybe don’t resonate with life-changing meaning anymore like a movie like “Stand By Me” or “The Breakfast Club” does when you’re young.

The site also has the “List of Shame” which compiles the highest rated movies on the site that you admit that you haven’t seen.  I actually think I have seen some of these but as I said, undergrad film classes were a long time ago and when I couldn’t remember for sure, I tried to err by saying “no” rather than “yes” for accuracy’s sake.  

One revelation that may hurt my geek cred – I didn’t watch “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy (or the multitudes of “Harry Potter” movies either) because I wanted to re-read the books before watching the movies and haven’t gotten around to it yet.

THE BEST MOVIES YOU HAVEN’T SEEN
— (AKA “YOUR LIST OF SHAME”)