Hello World

I don't rate movies based on what I think of them. I rate them based on whether I think I would like similar movies. I do this all the time, rating certain mediocre things as good and rating other mediocre things as awful. It basically comes down to this: I don't trust their ratings algorithm to accurately identify what I like from accurate ratings. Why? Because when I rate an objectively cheesy and dumb movie as good because it has some sort of ideosyncratic value to me, Netflix uses that information to recommend a bunch of terrible movies. And, similarly, when I rate an objectively good movie as bad because it just didn't quite work, Netflix removes dozens or hundreds of recommendations for things that, in all likelihood, I would enjoy.

Here's an example. I have been watching Undeclared, Judd Apatow's TV followup to the ill-fated but excellent Freaks and Geeks. My honest opinion of Undeclared is that it's just okay. I honestly find listening to the commentary tracks more entertaining than watching the regular shows. But because I like most of Apatow's other work (Anchorman, 40 Year Old Virgin, etc.), I gave it 4 stars on Netflix, so that it would recommend more Apatow-ish shows/movies to me.

I can't imagine I'm the only person who tries to anticipate what a recommendation engine will do and aims to game the system to get optimum results.

Obviously, this is relevant for any service that is based on a recommendation engine. I use Amazon's stars the same way, and there's lots of other similar stuff going on in other areas.

Bonus content:
Definition of the day: Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary defines "monopsony" as "an oligopsony limited to one buyer." Tremendously helpful, thank you MW.

Cross-posted from my other blog.

Reihan Salam reviews Netflix's Watch Now service in Slate. Basically, he sees it as a great concept with some serious technological and content problems to work out. Of course, he also says:

I will note here that my Netflix habits are unconventional. During my early days as a Netflix subscriber, I spent anywhere from 1 to 3 hours a night watching DVDs on fast forward with the subtitles on. Because I read fairly quickly, I was able to follow twists and turns at high speed, thus increasing my cultural literacy in record time. This is impossible with Watch Now. To fast-forward, you grab the slider and drag it to the right, then wait. It's more like teleporting than running at high speed.

Um, yeah. Most people rent movies to, you know, watch them--not just to get the Cliff's Notes version. (This also goes a long way to explain why he doesn't have a problem with the "sub-DVD" image quality--he isn't watching movies for anything but the dialogue and plot, so who cares how it looks?)

Read the rest in my other blog.

So I just created a Twitter account. Have you noticed that the site is incredibly slow? Like, absurdly slow? This is a site that's nothing but text. How can it take 30 seconds or more just to load a page? I thought this was the future, dammit!

In other news, I saw Ghostrider over the weekend and it was, well... Nicholas Cage was abysmal. I believe there's a place for Mr. Cage, and bad movies is definitely it, but this wasn't the bad movie for him. He is old and has fake hair and was not fun to watch. He was entertaining in Face/Off and Raising Arizona and Con Air, but this was not the vehicle for him. At this stage in his career, he should stick to movies where he doesn't have to make out with women under 40 or play a badass. When he was all CGI and on fire it was pretty fun, though. The villains were, for the most part, stupid and boring. The climactic scene was a huge letdown. The first scene where he turns into Ghostrider was the best part of the movie, except for when his dad--SPOILER--died.

Anyway: although the movie was put together with sequels in mind and it made enough money that I'm sure they're greenlighting one right now, I really hope that they decide to replace Cage with someone who can credibly play a man who doesn't have osteoporosis.

And that's my review of Ghostrider. Hey, they can't all be coherent.

Cross-posted from my other blog.

I'm sure at least a few of you will have already seen this, but for the sake of those who haven't I will refrain from describing this at all and simply encourage you to click on this ASAP, because this is hilarious. Although I should point out that this is not in particularly good taste and could offend some people. But, personally, I thought this was the funniest thing I've read in quite a while.

My eternal thanks to Catherine for this link!

Last night I saw a pre-release screening of Superman Returns. Here are my thoughts. (No significant spoilers ahead.)

Short review: the movie was well worth paying for. Go see it tomorrow.

Longer review:
Going into it, I was worried about this movie. Parts of the trailer seemed really cool, and Brian Singer (the director) did a great job with the X-Men franchise—you know, the one Brett Ratner just butchered? But, generally speaking, I find Superman to be an incredibly boring superhero. I mean, he’s basically invincible, except for some random substance they just made up so he could be put in peril. I enjoyed the first two Superman movies (with Christopher Reeve), but more for the depiction of Clark Kent than for Superman’s heroics. And Singer cast a no-name (Brandon Routh) in the lead role, a decision that would either make or break the film.

To read the rest of this Super post, click here.

This isn't very timely, but so be it.

I watched Match Point last night. It was pretty good, but I liked it better when it was called The Talented Mr. Ripley. Okay, it wasn't exactly the same, but it had some definite similarities (which I won't go into because they're essential to the two plots). Anyway, this movie had a little buzz when it came out last year, mostly because it turned out that Woody Allen managed to actually make a movie that wasn't a Woody Allen movie. Meaning it wasn't (completely) filled with cloying neuroses and whiny dialogue, and the usual Allen players were MIA*. Also, the camera moved around and there were some artful moments.

A couple of departures from Allen's standard made a huge difference: the setting is London, not Manhattan; and the superb soundtrack is opera, not jazz. It's like Woody suddenly realized that he didn't have to go through the motions and conventions that anchored just about all of his artistic endeavors up to this point. There were hints of this in Melinda and Melinda, which had a lot of Allen's typical ideosyncrasies but exhibited bursts of actual creativity. Though ultimately it wasn't a great movie, it was at least a novel disappointment.

The acting was very good, and the writing was solid, and the movie looked terrific. Although I certainly haven't seen all of Allen's movies, this was by a wide margin the most filmic--meaning polished, plotted, and professional--of those I have. Add an engaging (if somewhat slow-moving) plot and enough twists to keep the viewer guessing to the end, and Match Point is by a wide margin Allen's best effort in years.

* Although it's clear that Scarlett Johansson, who's also in Allen's upcoming Scoop (also set in London, interestingly--can we expect the next two decades of Allen films to be about Brits and ex-pats?), is the director's new muse--even though, if you ask me, she was the weakest actor in Match Point. But yeah, definitely the most attractive.

I used to defend Robin Williams, but at this point not only can I not stand him but I can't, even for the sake of argument, think of any reason anyone could give in his defense. I mean, what is wrong with this man? Does anyone find him funny anymore? Is there any chance of his resurrecting his career at some point? What's the deal???

One final datum on this subject, noted without editorial comment: Robin Williams made a guest appearance on Carlos Mencia's television program last week.

Movies that are just many years too late to be relevant (and look awful):

• Rent
  
• Aeon Flux

Artists whom I wish would release new albums soon, please:

• Ben Kweller (I know, I know...)
  
• The Gadgits (I think they probably broke up)
  
• The Old 97's (A live album is no substitute for a real one, guys. And it's cool that Rhett Miller's got a solo album coming out in February, but that's not the same.)
  
• Dan the Automator (any of your various projects would be satisfactory, thanks)
  
• The Streets
  
• The Shins
  
• The Breeders (I'm pretty sure they are definitely defunct, but I can dream)
  
• Ambulance LTD
  
• Ratatat (do you know these guys? THEY ARE AWESOME.)
  
• DJ Shadow
  
• Phantom Planet (I'm almost ready to take them seriously now)

Ideas I had to complete the "rule of three" for the final list:

• Books I have recently read that you should read
  
• Reasons why the bagel/coffee place near school sucks
  
• Close personal friends of mine who blog, all of whom started after me, not that I'm saying I inspired them or anything
  
• Some meta bullshit joke about making lists

I don't really care about the silent comedies of Harold Lloyd one way or another, but the picture the Post used in its article made me realize the clever tribute Robert Zemeckis made in Back to the Future, where it's Christopher Lloyd hanging from the hands of a clock.

That's pretty cool.

Related: Nike: sell Marty's shoes!

I was reading good old Slate and read this article about Star Wars: Star Wars: Episodes I-VI: The greatest postmodern art film ever. It's a fun read, but I've got to say that it suffers from the same problem that every single college paper I wrote about postmodernism had--it over-analyzes the relatively-shallow material, and the result is nice and plausible-sounding nonsense. I mean, come on, Lucas is a hack who got incredibly lucky with Star Wars and spent his whole career afterwards creating movies that would make good Disney World rides. But, you know, I love Star Wars, and I'll happily devour any fawning article about it.

Kevin Smith, I love you. But I think it's time to give up the ghost on Jay and Silent Bob. Jay is much too old to play such a nonce (even if he's still like that in real life, come on--he looks about 30!), and you're no longer some anonymous chubby guy with a beard. Also, we've all heard you speak so much now that the gimmick of Bob not talking seems merely contrived, and no longer clever.

But yes, I will still see Clerks 2.

A typographical review of Gangs of New York. I love fonts, but I sure don't have the eye that this guy has for them. Color me impressed.

the Next Great American Film: Snakes on a Plane.

I ask Agent the name of the project, what it's about, etc. He says: Snakes on a Plane. Holy shit, I'm thinking. It's a title. It's a concept. It's a poster and a logline and whatever else you need it to be. It's perfect. Perfect. It's the Everlasting Gobstopper of movie titles.

I say to Agent: "Tell me nothing else. Get me the script and put me on the phone with those lucky bastards at New Line Cinema!"

That is from the blog of one Josh Friedman, a screenwriter who is hilarious (Josh, if you check your stats, I'm available to consult on a movie about a blogger who... uh... okay, it needs a hook). Anyway, I have been going through the archives and it's pretty good stuff.

Secondary link: an interesting article in the Post about the Grand Theft Auto video game franchise

Tito is certain that "San Andreas" was designed by "gringos." "Don't we gotta be some sort of gang-bangin', PCP-sellin' Mexicans who like to shoot? Isn't that what people think?" he asks.

Brendan thinks that "a diverse group of guys, blacks and whites and Latinos" ("and some girls"), came up with "San Andreas." "It's gotta be made by people who know what they're talking about, right?"

With the help of a tattoo artist, a screenwriter and a rap photographer from Los Angeles, "San Andreas" was actually developed in Scotland.

As far as I'm concerned, this is just another reason that Scotland is awesome, but I suspect the Post is aiming to make a different point altogether.

Cross-posted from en-dash.com

Martin Scorsese has a new documentary about Bob Dylan, "No Direction Home." Scorsese made "The Last Waltz," a documentary/concert film about The Band's final performance--and generally considered one of the best, and one of the few good, documentaries about rock music. The Post's review of No Direction Home is very positive, which I would expect whether the documentary is actually any good or not; at any rate, it's a good reason to watch PBS--at least during Arrested Development's commercial breaks.

Unrelated: Josh and Donna are totally going to kiss at some point this season. Also, Santos is going to end up losing a close election to Alan Alda, and C.J. is going to get fired.

Cross-posted from en-dash.com

The Aristocrats was pretty hilarious. If you're unfamiliar with the reference, "The Aristocrats" is the name of a joke that comedians have been telling each other since the years of Vaudeville. It's a very basic framework that leaves lots of room for improvisation and comedic showmanship, and the basic point of the joke is to take it as far over the top as possible. Everything is fair game: scatological humor, incest, bestiality, and anything else you can think of, they're all on the table. The movie is just a series of interviews with dozens of comics, talking about this joke and telilng their versions of it.

I am desperately wishing I could tell you all the funny parts but a) that would be extremely rude and b) they wouldn't make sense out of context and without seeing them performed. At any rate, I'll just say this: the best renditions of the joke were not the most crude but rather the most surprising. And Bob Saget, who has a reputation as the bluest comedian out there, was pretty gross but underwhelming. Anyway, if you appreciate comedy (and especially if you appreciate the art of comedy) this is a must-see, if only because it's rated NC-17 for nothing but language--and believe me, it wasn't a close call.

Two thumbs way up [censored]!

I watched "Fade to Black," the documentary about Jay-Z's sold-out concert at Madison Square Garden. It's about 70% concert footage (featuring tons of cameos, including a pretty awesome performance of "Crazy in Love" with Beyoncé and the Tina Turner Dancers) and 30% a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the Black Album. I took a few things from watching it:

• A whole lot of people like Jay-Z. And they like him a lot. He sold out the Garden in four minutes. They screamed the whole show, knew all the words to every song (including everything from the Black Album, which had come out less than two weeks before the concert), and threw up their hands at any opportunity.
  
  
• Jay-Z has had one hell of a career. It's hard to believe how many huge hits (and I'm talking popular mainstream hits, not just hip-hop hits) he's had. "Can't Knock the Hustle," "Can I Get A," "Hard Knock Life," "Nigga What, Nigga Who," "Big Pimpin," "I Just Wanna Love U (Give it to Me)," "Izzo (H.O.V.A.)," "Crazy in Love," "Dirt Off Your Shoulder," "Encore," and "99 Problems." And those are just the ones he played in the concert! I mean, his longevity and prolificity are pretty astonishing--he's been the #1 guy in hip-hop (sorry, Dre, Snoop, Eminem) for most of a decade.
  
  
• Jay-Z is a really good rapper. He has such unusual flow. It's not that he raps quickly (although he can) or that he has a languid style like, say, Snoop Dogg (although he can)--it's that he can switch tempos, intentionally drop rhymes off-beat, go from cliché gang-banging brags to honest introspection in 2 lines, be irreverent and funny, and do it all in a way that seems organically-connected to the music. Which leads directly to...
  
  
• Jay-Z is a really good song-writer.You can see this process at work in "Fade to Black." He doesn't write his music, nor does he pretend to--all he does is recruit the best producers in the business and push them to do their best work for him (except Eminem, who is a shitty producer and couldn't come up with anything that doesn't sound exactly like his 8 Mile songs). He'll listen to three or four hooks from, say Timbaland, and will reject all but one of them (you see him turning down at least one or two that sound awesome before his eyes suddenly light up when he hears what will become "Dirt Off Your Shoulder"). And then, once they've done that, he gets started on the words. It's fascinating to watch him do this--he just sits, listening, and then his lips start moving. He writes the songs in his head, a verse at a time, and records them immediately. Rick Rubin, who produced "99 Problems" and is certifiably insane, says in the documentary that he's never seen anything like it (although Jay-Z learned it from Notorious B.I.G., his one-time mentor). It's pretty impressive seeing these songs spring full-grown from Jay-Z's head.
  
  
• Jay-Z is not retiring. Just since the Black Album, his supposed swan-song album, came out in 2003, he's come out with a duet album (and tour) with R. Kelly, as well as "Collision Course," a gimmicky (though enjoyable) "mash-up" album made in concert with Linkin Park. This guy loves drama and intrigue, and the Black Album was a part of that--expect a followup sometime in the not-too-distant future.

Anyway, the documentary (produced by Jay-Z, so not exactly a hard-hitting and objective piece) was fun to watch, and I recommend it to anyone who doesn't hate Jay-Z and/or all hip-hop.

Salon has an interview with Bruce Campbell, star of cheap horror classics Evil Dead, Evil Dead II, Army of Darkness, and Bubba Ho-Tep, as well as author of If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor and the new Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way. This guy is so awesome. He and Sam Raimi got sick of waiting for someone to pay for them to make Evil Dead, so they just did it themselves. Raimi helmed Spiderman and Spiderman 2, making sure Bruce got a cameo. Anyway, Campbell seems very happy with the niche he's carved out for himself, and is a funny and smart guy to boot. The interview is great.

You probably have to click through an ad to read it, but it's worth it, hombres.

Supercross: the Movie

Thank you God for this extremely necessary film, which is no way a cheap cash-in on a flash-in-the-pan cultural touchstone that will be forgotten by the time the DVD hits clearance racks.

My man, Neal Stephenson, wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times about how Star Wars has gotten a bad rap. Here it is. I got the link from the dependable BoingBoing.

Which reminds me. After seeing ROTS for the second time, I felt a strong need to watch the original three movies. So I did, and here are my impressions:

A New Hope
First of all, I had basically forgotten about the first 30 minutes or so of this one. I'm so used to running across this movie while channel-surfing and getting sucked in that I feel like I've got the last half memorized, but I've really only seen the beginning 2 or 3 times, total. So it was fun to watch the introduction of Ben Kenobi, and see how dumb and whiny Luke is at first (actually, for this whole movie, basically). Anyway, this movie is the simplest of them all, in a lot of ways, which works pretty well since its writer/director is barely competent enough to handle it and (as we know now) would choke horribly on anything more complex. Anyway, it's a good movie, except for Greedo firing first, which is total bullshit.

The Empire Strikes Back
This one's pretty awesome, except for Leia kissing Luke to make Han jealous (because later on in the next movie, when she finds out she's his sister, she says "somehow I've known all along"--WTF???). Mark Hamill, coming off of a near-fatal car accident, actually looks like the badass Luke is supposed to be--except for when he finds out Vader is his father and gets his hand cut off and lets loose with the cheesiest "nooooooooooooooo!" in the galaxy (a close second, of course, is Vader's own from 20-some years before). But, come on, this flick is good stuff. The dialogue is much better than in the other movies, there is some interesting moral conflict, Yoda shows up and fucks with Luke, Han and Leia get together, Vader gives Luke the beatdown he so richly deserves... There's a reason everyone calls this one the best of the series. A qualm, though: Luke is a total jerk. He tells Yoda that he's totally committed to his training, and will do whatever he says, but then as soon as his friends get in trouble he abandons his promise and heads off to get his ass kicked. What kind of lesson is this for the kids? At any rate, I love this movie--as long as you don't think too hard about it, it's very entertaining.

Return of the Jedi
This movie was so much better than I remembered. Except for the despicable Ewoks, this one's solid from beginning to end. Luke finally gets to kick ass, choke people from afar, stop whining, and wear a sexy jedi outfit. Yoda dies, with a typically cryptic note to Luke that he's got a sister (maybe you should have told him sooner, huh? Jedis sure can be obnoxious to padawans). Han is cooler blind and shivering than poor Billy Dee Williams could ever be. Jabba gets his. So does Boba Fett, who had a pretty rough life from beginning to end, when you think about it. Leia wears that hilarious metal bra. Speeders race through the forests of Endor. The Emperor is betrayed by Anakin, who dies with a Mona Lisa smile. People cheer all over the galaxy, even in the heart of the Empire (yeah, right--like they aren't buffetted with pro-Empire propaganda constantly--those people would be rioting/panicking/rending clothing). It's all happiness and love and peace. So, great ending, right? Well, not exactly. Vader killed millions (billions?) of people as the Emperor's right-hand man. One good act he makes in order to save his son's life is enough to get him back into the force's good graces, so much so that he gets to play backgammon with Obi Wan and Yoda in Jedi Heaven? I don't buy it, and I don't like it. It would have been better if he knew he was damned and still saved Luke. George Lucas is too much of a pansy to write that, though. Anyway, the cloyingly-sweet ending is lame but expected, and doesn't ruin the movie or the franchise.

I can tag posts now! Oooh, this is gonna be great.

Batman was pretty good, guys. Some of the dialogue was laughable (I laughed at it) but I think they picked the right guy to play Bruce Wayne. American Psycho did a good job. Katie Holmes was a complete waste of space, however, and the movie would have been better off without the romance plot. It was good to see Qui-Gon Jinn with a new padawan, even if he had a goofy Fu Man Chu 'stache. So you should go ahead and see it, because it is fun.