August 21st, 2010 by lafnlab
It’s been more than a day, but it seemed like a good idea (now that the blog is working again) to add some more info about the movies I’ve been watching over the past few years.
One of the things I try to note is where the film is set. Knowing a film is set in a certain location adds to the viewer’s appreciation, IMO. This isn’t always explicitly stated. It’s often easy to identify the country where a film is set, but not as easy to identify a town or city.
For film buffs, it sometimes interesting to note where the film was shot. In some cases, the setting of movie no longer exists as it once did. Case in point is Amadeus, which was set in 18th century Vienna. Vienna still exists, but it’s much more modern, so the film was shot mostly in Czechoslovakia (Also, Czechoslovakia no longer exists, having split up after the Cold War). If I know where a film was shot, sometimes I’ll include this if it seems interesting.
Sometimes it’s also interesting to note which country produced a film, or put up the money to get a film made. For example, Marie Antoinette was set in France and shot on location in France. It tells a story from French history, and even received some funding from the French government. However, it’s not a French film. The actors spoke English, and the director was an American, as were most of the cast members.
If a film is tagged United States, that could mean it is set in the United States, it was shot in the United States, or that it was produced by the United States. It might mean all three, or only one or two. There’s no way to easily differentiate between these. The reason I point this out is so you can take the following statistics with a grain of salt.
United States: 364
United Kingdom: 104
France: 86
Japan: 53
Italy: 52
China: 32
Germany: 23
Spain: 16
Thailand: 14
Canada: 12
Australia: 11
Mexico: 11
Sweden: 11
Russia: 9
Austria: 8
There are plenty more countries that I could list, but that’s enough get the ball rolling. Looking at the list makes me think of the importance of these countries with respect to the film industry.
The United States is easy to account for: I live in the United States, so most of the films that I can readily access are American. That’s not to say they are all great. I’ve seen a lot of mediocre American films, but if a mediocre film is made in the US, it’s easier to distribute in the US than elsewhere. I don’t think Titanic 2000 ever got subbed or dubbed into another language (and I would be very surprised if it did).
The United Kingdom is also easy to account for. They also have a large film industry and since they are the definitive anglophone nation, it’s easy to access British films. Like American films, it can’t be said that all British films are great, because they can turn out films as mediocre as some American films. Like mediocre American films, it’s easy for them to get distributed to other anglophone nations.
For the other countries I look on it as a reflection of how many films they make and how often those films find their way to the US. The US has large immigrant populations, so it’s easy to see how the films of many nations will wind up here, but I don’t know how many of those film end up at Netflix. Netflix has a very wide range of films, but they don’t carry everything.
A couple of other things to note: I have 27 films tagged as outer space. This probably just means I like sci-fi, but it’s also an indication of how many films are set in outer space. Even low-budget films can be set in outer space.
I also have 16 films tagged Paris and 11 tagged Hong Kong. Both cities have well established film industries, but I think they also serve as locations in films because they represent something to film goers. Paris is a romantic location while Hong Kong is an exotic location. We’re dealing with archetypes. It’s more about what they represent than what they actually are.
August 21st, 2010 by lafnlab
During the past week this website has been down for a database problem. It turns out some of the tables crucial to the running of WordPress required “repair”. Apparently, there is even a “REPAIR TABLE” command in MySQL. I’d never had to use it before, so I didn’t know it existed. Pretty handy thing to have. The tables are repaired and the blog is working again. I’m still not sure why it happened, but if it happens again, I’ll know what to do.
Now I have to clean out the spam queue.
August 3rd, 2010 by lafnlab
With 700 entries for Review Haiku, it would be easy to assume there are 700 haiku, but there aren’t. There are 737 haiku. On some entries, I created more than one haiku. It doesn’t necessarily mean that a movie was so good that it moved me to write extra haiku. It’s more to do with how I write haiku – coming up with phrases that are five syllables or seven syllables, and trying to put them into some sort of coherent order. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes I end up with extra lines that go into the extra haiku.
On top of the 737 haiku there are two tanka. A tanka is like a haiku, but a bit longer. The tanka were in “honor” of Branagh’s version of Hamlet, which was four hours and seemed worthy of something extra.
With this many entries, it’s interesting to take a look at them in different ways to see if there are any patterns. I’ll be doing some of that over the next few days, but here’s a start:
Almost all of the films are either three or four stars. These star ratings are based more or less on Netflix rating system:
- 5 stars = I loved it
- 4 stars = I really liked it
- 3 stars = I liked it
- 2 stars = I didn’t like it
- 1 star = I hated it
As I explained a little here, I normally see films I think I’ll like. Even with “bad” films, it’s possible to get some enjoyment out of them.
Before I ever see a film, I assume I’ll like it, so it’s more or less an automatic three stars. If a film surprises me and surpasses my expectations, it might get four or five stars. However, if a film fails to meet expectations, it might earn one or two stars. I haven’t met a film I’ve truly hated…yet, but it’s possible this may happen in the future.
A few days ago, I finished Showgirls, Teen Wolves, and Astro Zombies, which is subtitled A film critic’s year-long quest to find the worst movie ever made. The premise of the book is that the author (Michael Adams) viewed at least one “bad” movie each day for a year. Sadly, he doesn’t give us detailed reviews of each film, but highlights some of the films he saw each month. He has interviews with some directors, and provides some rationale for how he scored the films he saw, so the book is pretty entertaining. On my scoring system, it gets four stars.
The only fault I have with it is the lack of a list of all the movies he saw during that year. I’ve seen a few bad movies that he didn’t mention in the book, so I don’t know if he didn’t see them, or if they just weren’t mentioned.
Tomorrow: more statistics.
August 2nd, 2010 by lafnlab
There’s no Review Haiku today. However, if you’re really interested, you can hop over gottahavacuppamocha.mobi, where Review Haiku continues daily. The haiku over there aren’t new – they’re reruns, in a sense – but if you want a daily Review Haiku, that’s the way to go for now.
Still, on this site, there’s no Review Haiku today. It was bound to happen at one point or another. I usually watch 3 – 4 movies a week, so it’s hard too keep up a pace of daily Review Haiku. I’ve been able to stretch it a bit, but I’ve come to a good stopping point. It’s more like an intermission. The haiku will continue in the future, but this is a good time for a break.
As of yesterday, this site has 700 entries of Review Haiku. That’s quite a few. Since there will be no new haiku for awhile, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at some statistics regarding Review Haiku.
First off is the 700 entries. Almost all of these were DVDs from Netflix. Most of these were movies – the archetypical cinematic stories of the silver screen. A few were “concert films,” which sort of stretches the definition of “movies”. Some were television series or specials, proving that even the boob tube has some worthwhile stories on occasion.
As an aside, television series sort of stymied me at first. The Wallace and Gromit shorts were each around 30 minutes long, but I did a Review Haiku for each one. For most of the television series I watched, the individual shows were longer than 30 minutes, yet I only did one Review Haiku per series. I’m not sure why. I thought about doing different Review haiku for different seasons, but didn’t. Again, I’m not sure why.
Also, for the entries tagged “television,” sometimes television was part of the topic, rather than the medium of distribution.
Tomorrow, I’ll get into the more straightforward statistics.
August 1st, 2010 by lafnlab
She’s Rika the punk
Getting naked for money
Trying to save boss
Out of reform school
Five girls try for normal lives
Get revenge instead
Delinquent Girl Boss: Worthless to Confess at Grindhouse Database
Delinquent Girl Boss: Worthless to Confess at Rotten Tomatoes
Delinquent Girl Boss: Worthless to Confess at IMDB
Rating: 
August 1st, 2010 by admin
I’m working on a new theme. It’s sort of work-related, but mostly because I was getting tied of the old theme and couldn’t find one I really liked. Like cigarettes, rolling your own theme seems simple until you try it.
Calling it a beta version is giving it too much credit, but it’s a good experience.
July 30th, 2010 by lafnlab
The surfers’ delight
Follow summer around the globe
Looking for fresh waves
The Endless Summer at Rotten Tomatoes
The Endless Summer at IMDB
Rating:
Posted in:
Review Haiku
Tagged:
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australia,
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ghana,
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movie review,
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