If you’re reading this as it’s posted, then you’ll know the Academy Awards are less than two weeks away. There is no host, four categories won’t be televised, and somehow it’ll still probably go over schedule as they invite Cirque du Soleil to pantomime the best documentary short subject nominees or some crap. A lot of people, myself included aren’t very excited about this year’s broadcast, or the group of nominees. If I had to make a bold statement I’d say that it’s probably the weakest group of nominees since 2008, the last year only 5 films were nominated for best picture. I’ll give you a quick second to look up the films nominated that year, do you remember any of them. Have you watched a single one in the past decade? Slumdog Millionaire was dated when it was released and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was a rather hilarious joke on The League.
However I’m not here today to talk about the Oscars. I still have some vague hope of offering an in depth preview that I’m sure you’re all dying to read, but alas I have a few films left to see. I am looking forward to approximately none of the films I have to watch, but the completionist in me is a masochist so bring on A Star is Born and Bohemian Rhapsody I guess. Today I’m here to bitch about something else, imdb*. You know that site that’s been around since you had AOL trial discs and people paid money to use Netscape. As someone who proudly still has a hotmail address I shouldn’t shit on imdb just for being around forever, but it kinda seems like this site jumped on board early and no one bothered to try harder. Sure we’d all like to go back using Myspace, but the internet evolves, yet somehow this site hasn’t.
 |
| Behold the King of the Dumpster Fire |
Before I get too in depth I should say that there are plenty of sites that have done a far better job than imdb at doing imdb like things. There are places you can read reviews, rate films, join forum discussions, but somehow none of these places has ever gotten the traffic the old fossil has. For this reason their ranking of the top 250 films has more or less become a benchmark for a lot of people. Young and impressionable film fans look at this as a valid source to investigate. “Hey according to imdb Shawshank Redemption is the greatest film of all time” and other blatant lies. Sure you’re telling me it’s a random list and only people like you obsess over lists and have a compulsion to check off everything on them. Well then this blog is for people like me, because frankly most of my blog is for people like me, so let me rail against the injustice of the internet.
The single thing that makes the imdb list seem credible is the same thing that makes it powerfully pointless. That is the fact that the list is voted on by users. Literally anyone can go on that site and rate a film. In my younger years I’m sure I rated quite a few myself. In fact you can log in right now and rate Baywatch 10/10, or let everyone know that Citizen Kane is an overrated turd so it deserves a 1/10 rating. This is entirely in your power, and no one can stop you. The fact that hundreds of thousands of people rate movies here does sort of balance the scales a bit, so that butthurt kid who didn’t “get” 8 1/2 won’t have too much influence. The problem is that these do tend to compound and grow over time. As more people voice their opinions certain things begin to be perceived as true. As long as I can remember Shawshank has inexplicably occupied the top spot, so for a growing generation of film fans this might as well be their Citizen Kane. Kane by the way is #120 on the list as of this writing, about 100 spots lower than Interstellar, and 40 spots lower than Green Book, Green Book. Does anyone on this planet actually think Green Book is better than Citizen Kane? If you do please don’t reproduce, you’re the reason Donald Trump is the president. You probably also think the fact that winter exists is proof global warming is a liberal hoax.
Now just as the power of democracy has led to really stupid people giving other stupid people the power to make really stupid decisions, so has this site propagated this for far too long. At least in the US you need to be over 18, a non-convicted felon, and a citizen to vote. So the idea is that at least theoretically you are a law-abiding citizen who gets to elect your oppressors. The popularity contest of the internet doesn’t require such things as being an informed adult. Not sure this list would be greatly affected if only non-felons could vote, but I’m positive it would look a lot different if you were over 18. Like democracy though you don’t really need to know anything in order to cast a vote. I could drunkenly show up to my polling place and flip a coin for every decision and my vote would be perfectly legal. Just like I could drunkenly log on to imdb and decide every Adam Sandler movie needs to be rated 10/10.
So you might be saying “so what?” Get over it Dave, nobody cares about the list, so why should you? If a bunch of ignoramus’s are running the show, pay it no mind. After all if I’m on a site like listchallenges.com and I see a random list of “the greatest movies” and after scrolling through a few see it’s utter dreck I move on. It’s fun to make lists, and it’s fun to share those lists. I know there are some people who probably looked at my last list in 2013 and thought I knew nothing. They probably also said “what the hell are some of these movies,” but that’s one person’s opinion. I did attempt with my essential cinema post several years ago to make a blueprint of cinema. A 100 film list that could set you on your way to becoming your very own film nerd.
The difference between that list and the imdb one is that it wasn’t compiled from knowledgeable people. I’ve seen thousands of movies, and gone through the work of watching way more than you have for the purposes of whittling this down. I offered what I thought were informed choices based on not just my opinion but hundreds of other critics and a lot of lists. You may recall Shawshank didn’t even end up on that list. In fact only about 8 of the top 20 were on my list. As a point of comparison They Shoot Pictures Don’t They’s top 20 featured 19 films on my list. The only reason Taxi Driver didn’t make my own Essential Cinema list is because I already included Raging Bull and Goodfellas. Now I’m not sure how much weight the imdb list does play into TSPDT’s rankings, but considering that site uses thousands of different lists to make their compilation, the guess is it wouldn’t factor too much.
Back it up a bit how does that work? If imdb is a “popularity contest” wouldn’t TSPDT’s list look similar? After all that site also takes lists from all over the world, and you’d think that the more popular films would show up on more lists and therefore would weigh heavier. This is where you have to check your source. The lists that make up TSPDT are from critics, sites, magazines, newspapers, etc. In other words they’re from professionals. Maybe a few reader poll lists were taken into account, but it’s not like you could go on that site and simply vote for which films belong. Trust me I would have bitched and moaned about anyone including Andy Warhol’s Empire on there.
Years ago when I first checked out imdb’s top 250 I found I had seen everything on it without trying. I knew the tastes of the masses and was well enough informed it wasn’t even a challenge. As you might expect from getting a little older and less interested in films that regular people like, I’ve slipped a bit. One of my New Year’s resolutions was to get myself up to speed on the soon to end decade’s best films. This led me to poke around at imdb as a potential reference point. I’m probably sitting somewhere around 230 or so of the current list. The problem isn’t that I’m shaking my fists that these damn kids are saying “yeet” and listening to their mumble rap too loud and need to get off my lawn, it’s more what I have seen. Due to the nature and traffic of imdb there are always going to be new people logging on and treating this list as some sort of gospel or at the very least a good place to start. To some extent this isn’t wrong, there are a lot of really good movies on the list in various places.
The numbering does present a problem. Of my own top 100 (not the Essential Cinema list) I share about 20 films in common with their top 100. This is slightly skewed because I included the first two Godfather films as one entry and the original Star Wars trilogy as another. This is a polite way of saying essentially I disagree with 80% of that list, at least the first 100. Again comparing this to TSPDT’s list I had 43 films in common with their top 100. For a quick analysis, this might just indicate that my tastes are more in line with professional film critics and I’ve lost touch with the common movie-goer. To which I would reply it just means my tastes are more correct. You ever take a film class in college and some 18-20 year old told you how awesome Donnie Darko was? I’m dating myself with this reference, but those are the people who flood imdb with their ratings. These people love Fincher, Nolan, and The Matrix, and can’t be bothered with Satyajit Ray, Mizoguchi, or Antonioni.
 |
| This man is extremely popular with the kids. |
The democratic system also bothers me in terms of the ratings. There are only a total of 4 films with a rating of 9.0 or better. Converting this to stars that’s essentially saying only 4 films ever are better than 4 1/2 stars. You don’t have to look far in this list to find some head scratching rankings. Feel free to browse at your leisure for your biggest personal offender. One potential positive of imdb vs. TSPDT is that there doesn’t seem to be any bias towards recent films. In fact more than a couple films released in the last twelve months are in the top 100, compared to only two films made after 2000 in TSPDT’s top 100. The bias in TSPDT’s list is a little more explanatory when you factor in how the votes are cast but if you’re looking for more recent recommendations they had to create a separate list of 21st century films.
Now while including more recent films might seem like a positive for imdb, it does have it’s drawbacks. There is no benefit of time to judge these films. Hell I loved Into the Spiderverse, but you are out of your mind if you think it is the 15th greatest film ever made (where it is currently ranked on imdb). Also you might get something like Adhadhun currently listed at #21. You never heard of that film? Neither has anyone else not from India. Yes it is nice to see some Bollywood films being in the discussion but it currently has the 3rd lowest number of votes on the list. Looking through some of the other least voted on films are a lot of foreign films and classics. This isn’t surprising, because it is somewhat a popularity contest, so modern users don’t particularly care to watch old black and white movies or read annoying subtitles. The other frightening possibility is that people are voting and rating movies that they haven’t even seen. After all nothing’s to stop you and verify you’ve actually seen the movie you’re trashing or praising. Keep in mind also that many people only vote when a film elicits a strong response in you whether good or bad.
So what’s the solution? Well I could just whine and cry and leave it at that but there are a few suggestions. Perhaps they can use more than simply user ratings to rank their top 250. Perhaps factoring in Metacritic or Rotten Tomatoes scores, although a “Certified Fresh” designation is the film equivalent of a participation trophy. At least it weighs it against other factors, and tries to at least acknowledge that professionals may agree. Raising the total number of ratings required for the list seems like a great way to make this list full of even more recent films, so that idea is out. Then there’s the old fashioned, simply rate films yourself. To walk the walk, I decided to rate every film I’ve seen on the top 250. Not sure my rankings will effect things too strongly either way and I can’t help but feel like this is the same as voting for the president when you’re not in a swing state #abolishtheelectoralcollege.
It’s hard to say that my own votes weren’t colored by the list itself. I actually didn’t rate Into the Spiderverse because frankly I thought it was too damn high and knew that my rating would only help it. Likewise I may have lowered an honest rating one or two notches for a film that I liked but found overrated by these rankings. So perhaps the best thing to do is to go back to what I’ve done for the last decade and a half, and ignore the site. Ignore the list, ignore the god awful layout, don’t bother with the forums and get my cinema news and reviews from another source.
*I am aware imdb would ordinarily be capitalized, but as a form of pointless petty protest I have opted to keep it lower case.
No comments:
Post a Comment