Six Months of Movies

Starting on July 1, 2012 I began recording all the movies I saw on IMDB; you can create custom lists on the site and add movies as you see fit there, so I created a list called "Watched" and with the mobile app, I would quickly add a movie I just saw to that list. This was a natural evolution of a manual system I did a couple of years ago, where I recorded the film in an online spreadsheet. What I would find, though, is that I would often forget to add the title to the spreadsheet, and it became inaccurate over time to the point that I stopped recording the information.

I started doing this because my friend Art has kept ticket stubs to every single movie he's been to since the mid-90s. I've seen them: ziploc bags stuffed to capacity of receipts. My immediate thought was to digitize the data and have the ability to generate little reports and facts from the stubs. But, I don't think he had much interest in that, so I went ahead and did my own data accumulation. I went with IMDB simply because I myself always opening the app to take a look at the trivia and other details, so why not just add an extra step of adding it to the watched list?

So what are the numbers? From July to December (six months) I watched 61 movies, of which 21 of those were released in 2012. Now, it just so happens that I was recording my movie habits back in 2010 at the same time period, and in that year I took in 64 movies, which I find interesting. This past six months it has felt as though I've watched fewer movies, and I have, but as it turns out it's not nearly as big a drop as I had thought. I also have recorded the first six months of 2011, during time I watched 72 movies. Around mid-point 2011, I stopped recording movie data.

Here is some data:

Fig 1; July to December 2012

As you can see from the chart (fig 1, above), something horrible happened in October, and I'm not sure what it was. Only three movies consumed; August was a small dip as well, but it seems the average is about 12 to 13 movies per month. It will be interesting to see if I can maintain the high numbers of November and December.

Fig 2; 2010 to 2012 Comparison

Now, looking at the next chart (fig 2), we can see how 2010 corresponds to 2012 across the same period. It's interesting to note that a similar thing that happened in October of 2012 happened in August of 2010. In 2010, I would chalk that up to vacation and travel time, but I can't be completely certain. We finish the year off in December with the same number of movies watched, and a similar average of 12 per month (excluding the lowest month).

While I can't necessarily draw any conclusions from this, I look forward to doing more data crunching and analysis in the future. And since the movie information is coming from IMDB, there exists a great deal of metadata on the movie itself. For instance, I can rate movies and compare those ratings to the ones that the IMDB community have settled upon. While I do this at a quick glance, I can see that most of my ratings are lined up pretty well on par, with the biggest exception perhaps being Iron Sky, which I attributed a 3 out of 10, while on IMDB it has achieved a 6.1 out of 10. Perhaps I was being too harsh, but generally I don't put much important on my numerical rating as I do it infrequently and without standard.

I've upated my online Movie Log spreadsheet with the IMDB export, and can be found here: Movie Log

Monsters, Inc.

The third dimension seems to have failed at home, but it's still prominent in the theaters where it can truly be experienced. One of the nice bonuses of 3D being in theatres is the re-release of certain older, animated films such as Monsters, Inc. These animated movies benefit by being restructured for 3D without being mutilated in the regular film-based 2D to 3D conversion: since these movies exist digitally, they can be rendered again, with added cameras to form a "real" 3D experience. I can remember A Bug's Life being released on home video ages ago, and hearing about how they were able to render frames with elements being moved around to accommodate the dominant television aspect ratio of the time, 4:3. No cropping, or pan and scan required, and we end up with a better film experience depending on where we watch it. It was interesting to me then, and still is: these animated movies can evolve as time goes on in a way regular film can't.

Earlier last year, I was able to go see The Lion King in 3D, and it was generally a good experience. I had seen the film when I was a child, and hadn't seen it since. I was excited to see Monsters, Inc. in the theatre as I hold it as one of the better Pixar films. It also blew me away that it had originally come out in 2001. In any event, I had the perfect excuse to go see it now: my niece.

A while back I had brought my niece to see Gnomeo & Juliet. It was being played in an old theatre downtown (complete with stage) and was free: anybody could just walk in, and you kind of got what you paid for. My niece, being six years old, was eligible for a children's ticket to go see Monsters, yet the price of two tickets for us was above twenty dollars. 3D definitely charges a premium.

My niece loves going to the movies, and I have a feeling that most of the enjoyment comes from the food, and who can blame her? I've always loved the experience too and the popcorn has been a big part of that. But she wanted something else: pizza, and this still confounds me. So it was time to order food before going in, and I had been prepped. My father told me what they typically order, and I had it all memorized. Ordering all the different items was akin to fitting together Tetris pieces. As I persevered though, the slim, long piece came down and I was able to clear the whole order with ease. Getting it all into the theatre was a different story, as I questioned my nieces ability to not spill a small bucket of popcorn, her drink or what would be the most unfortunate accident: the fall of a slice of pizza. I wanted to carry it all - to be in control - but it was impossible, so she was in charge of her pizza, and I carried the rest in.

We went straight to the top, back row, to the extreme left (or right, depending on which way you are facing). There was a big bar in front of us, mounted on top of ledge - it's difficult to explain, but all you need to know is that it was hard to see over. I asked my niece if she could see the screen, and she shuffled to the front of the seat. She then stretched her neck as high it would go then meekly said "yeah." I wasn't buying it, so I had her move over a couple of seats. This may seem simple but we were already settled: popcorn, pizza, drinks and winter jackets, mitts and accessories were all involved. If you have children you can quickly relate as you become aware of how much stuff is involved with your little one. It's an effort.

Then, came the pizza. I had feared this, because I don't understand it. I worry about peperonis sliding off, or cheese dripping. The potential for a mess is gigantic, and I had forgot napkins. I quickly dashed back to concessions and grabbed a handful, and much to my delight my niece's pizza eating skills were hardened, and not a mess was made (short of some greasy fingers - unavoidable of course). The 3D glasses were on and we were enjoying the movie, and what a good movie it was. I'm not sure how much my niece enjoyed it as she seems rather indifferent to so many, but I got a real kick out of it. I'm not sure the third dimension really helped that much, but it didn't detract from the movie either. I never thought, eleven years ago, I would be rewatching a movie like Monsters, Inc with a niece or nephew, or even my own children. But I look forward to watching more of these "classics" with my niece and hopefully in the future, my own children. The local movie houses are showing more older films every year it seems, which gives us an opportunity to see movies we've never seen before, or share movies we enjoyed when we were younger with the next generation.