Some Review Haiku statistics
Posted on August 3, 2010
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.
Related posts:
- Meta-blog
- Sequels and series
- Review Haiku statistics – places
- Review Haiku – Electronic Lover
- Review Haiku – Starz Inside: The Face is Familiar
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