My Blog - Latest Comments

Re: Review: The Place Beyond the Pines

Pragya Jaiswal — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 07:08:15 -0000

good one

Re: Every Movie I’ve Ever Seen

Kester Smith — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 10:20:45 -0000

You ever consider organizing these into best-worst?

Re: Every Movie I’ve Ever Seen

Daniel Carlson — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 10:07:04 -0000

No, they're on there. You can do a Find for 2012 and tab through.

Re: Every Movie I’ve Ever Seen

Travis Leamons — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 10:05:26 -0000

Hmmm, this list seems a little short, Surely you've seen movies released in 2012. Or do those get added after the calendar year?

Re: The Asshole Quotient

Joey — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 18:40:41 -0000

Man, you are so right. I can barely even go to movies anymore because I'm nervous I'm going to either get in a fight with someone who wont stop talking or I'll have a nervous breakdown. It's not enjoyable and it makes me sad.

Re: Hate-Watching

Joey — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 18:34:53 -0000

Great thoughts, life is too short and too precious to sit in the back row and snicker at things we don't like instead of things we do. Or, heaven forbid, creating something and allowing people to see it. I was actually kind of relieved that Lindsay Lohan didn't turn up dead the morning after Liz & Dick. I can't imagine what it would be like to have a whole continent crapping all over me and my creative attempts.

I think hate watching makes it hard for most [people to even think about getting into politics, by the way.

Re: The Asshole Quotient

Rob Payne — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 19:53:41 -0000

To expand on my Facebook comment: Boom goes the dynamite.

Re: The Asshole Quotient

gp — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 18:04:57 -0000

plus, better snacks at home. and you can pause the movie if you have to pee.

Re: Every Movie I’ve Ever Seen

Daniel Carlson — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 17:24:44 -0000

Whoa. That's impressive. My ~1,675 feels tiny now.

Are you asking for ways to break out and organize the data? You could do directors who appear most, actors/actresses who appear most, decade from which you've seen the most movies, movies never released on home video, movies by language, movies by country of origin, running time; there are probably plenty more, but those are the ones that just occurred to me.

Re: Every Movie I’ve Ever Seen

Mike Eisenberg — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 17:16:38 -0000

Great list Daniel. I have over 6,000 movies I've seen, all separated by the year, with star-ranks, Top or Bottom 10, alphabetized, and I'm still looking for more to do with it. Can you recommend anything for me to do? Thanks again.

Re: There’s Something Very Familiar About All This

Kevin — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 08:51:02 -0000

That picture of Daniels....

Re: Hang In There Friends Forever, In Memory Far Away

melissa — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 10:18:04 -0000

My high school isn't there any more, either. The school moved to a new building shortly after I graduated, and a few years it was shut down completely. I don't feel any sadness over this, except for perhaps the fact that a few of my favorite teachers who were still there had to find jobs elsewhere. But they were good teachers in a crappy school, so they're probably better off now.

The strange part about your parents moving to another state is that it brings the idea that you can't go home again to a new level. Suddenly it's not just a new house you're coming back to, one to which you haven't years of memories connected, it's a new *place.* Different roads, different restaurants, and the usual hordes of aunts, uncles, and cousins hundreds of miles away instead of tens. It's not you coming home to visit, it's them being excited that someone has traveled all that way to visit *them.* I'm not sure I'll ever get past that strange feeling of displacement.

Re: Hang In There Friends Forever, In Memory Far Away

Kevin Longrie — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 00:08:45 -0000

This is a wonderful piece of writing, Dan. Thought of this as I was reading it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... (disregard the wolf photos)

Re: Hang In There Friends Forever, In Memory Far Away

Ryan English — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 23:28:39 -0000

Great post. Exactly.

Re: Rotten

Price — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 22:58:08 -0000

I didn't think you were attacking users maliciously, but if you attack the site I suppose by definition I thought you were attacking those who find the site useful. My point was not to disagree with anything you said, only to clarify it doesn't affect the site's usefulness for me and many others. That said, you've persuaded me to use metacritic. RT be damned.

Re: Rotten

danielwcarlson — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 22:04:05 -0000

I actually didn't see your Gchat status until after I drafted this. It was just a weird coincidence. I saw some replies to Snider, but since I'm filtering most Dark Knight words and tags, I had to click a couple times to find out what had actually happened. But I laughed when I saw what he'd done, largely because I've had some issues with RT for a while now, and his little prank put a nice point on it. I'm actually an approved RT critic, but I don't submit reviews or grades anymore because I was having a hard time coming down as "fresh" or "rotten" on stuff. Especially "rotten." Sure, I might not have been won over by a movie, but I didn't want to give it the same moldy ranking as something I really hated.

I think Metacritic is good because they do weighted averages. Basically, higher-profile critics or outlets are given more consideration when the overall score is calculated. Also, instead of just fresh/rotten, the review gets an actual score from 1-100, so a movie with middling results could be a 57 or a 71 or who knows. It just lets you be a little more precise. RT rounds up a bunch of often random outlets when they compute their score, whereas Metacritic is closer to what RT calls "Top Critics." For example, RT currently has Magic Mike at 79%, but when you click Top Critics, it jumps to 92%: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/...

I use Metacritic for my own personal gut check if I'm curious about a movie, whether it's in theaters or on DVD. I've been encouraged to check things out just by checking out the Metascore. I think it's stronger than RT, and I definitely recommend it.

Also, you're as far from a plebe or slack-jawed yokel as one can get. You actually think about why you like the stuff you like. If the tone of the post somehow came across as attacking users, not RT, that's on me.

Re: Rotten

Price — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 19:22:37 -0000

Hey Dan,

I'm going to post here because I feel like I'm the pleeb whose gchat status linking to the Rotten Tomatoes review of DKR might have prompted this. Allow me to briefly defend myself and the other slack-jawed yokels.

I totally understand your POV, and totally appreciate Rotten Tomatoes being an obscenely reduced measure for a movie's worth. The review is literally only positive or negative? That's it? Can you imagine applying these parameters to other areas? Your ipod would be filled with music you "kind of like" mostly because you don't hate it (Cold War Kids, TV on the Radio, the most recent Interpol album). How miserable would you eventually get with your shuffle?

That said, I think Rotten Tomatoes serves a great purpose. If I want just a quick gut check on a movie, seeing it at 75% vs. 25% gives me all I need to know. I may not want to read a detailed review, nor may I want any potential spoilers revealed. Maybe a movie I think might be alright ends up at 90% and encourages me to catch it in the theater. If I have genuine interest in a movie it's unlikely a RT grade will deter me from seeing it, but as long as I've used the site I can't think of many dramatic screw-ups from the grade to my general grade upon seeing it.

I have no doubt from a proper critique standpoint Rotten Tomatoes is useless, and almost offensive, as it basically devalues the review as a whole into just "yes or no." I totally respect your POV, and as a pro I see how people (me) referencing RT as some kind of measure of a movie must be maddening. I think I'm trying to defend the masses and say in many cases we know it's a reductionist viewpoint, but I'm not sure we care.

-Price (brother-in-law)

P.S. You must think Metacritic is a more valuable aggregate, per your links on the left. What does it do well that RT doesn't? Perhaps I can switch to that as my go-to.

Re: Every Movie I’ve Ever Seen

DeistBrawler — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 12:09:24 -0000

I'd call that dedication.

Re: Every Movie I’ve Ever Seen

danielwcarlson — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 12:05:25 -0000

I started it when I was a senior in college (2004). I spent weeks working through IMDb lists and archives adding things, and I'd also add titles as I remembered them. It was (and is) an ongoing process, and every now and then I'll realize I've seen something that's not on the list. Putting it together was an act of either obsession or commitment, depending on how forgiving you want to be.

Re: Every Movie I’ve Ever Seen

DeistBrawler — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 12:00:02 -0000

When did you start compiling this list? I don't think there's any way I can recall all the movies I've ever seen unless someone literally gives me a list of every movie ever made and I can cross them off. Then that would only work if I could remember the titles of everything I've seen.

Re: Timing Is Nothing

Alan Cerny — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 21:38:30 -0000

Well said, and thank you.

Re: Shock Value

Tammy — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 14:45:17 -0000

I'm so exhausted by this. And by the 250+ comments on Pajiba about this. No one seems to be talking about how **he wasn't telling a joke when he got called out.**

A joke has a set-up and a payoff. He just stated, without any craft of jokesmanship, that rape is always funny. And a lady called him out on it. And then he said it'd be funny if she got raped.
Lizz Winstead on Twitter pointed this out last night & I found it very astute: people keep ringing in with the tired excuse "Well, she went to a comedy club, what did she expect?" Winstead points out that she probably expected to hear a comedian tell JOKES, not pointlessly ramble about how he thinks rape is funny.

Aside from the relative humor value of rape-related topics - the dude wasn't doing his job. He was just being a dick, got called out for being a dick, and then acted like more of a dick. Comedians (and the rest of us) should be offended by him not because of what he says, but because he's a shitty comedian!

Re: Grown-Ups

janellest — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 14:34:55 -0000

Margin Call. I keep thinking about it.

Re: Self-Selecting

jptaylorsg — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 15:10:41 -0000

I looked at the Buzzfeed list, and it occurred to me that, like a lot of these types of lists, the person who hates *all* of those things is exponentially douchier than someone who likes one or more of them.

Re: Self-Selecting

Kristy — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 12:32:49 -0000

I got a chuckle out of the Buzzfeed link, but I definitely agree with you that the underlying premise is dangerous. What we really need to "unfriend" is the idea that "you are what you consume." Shunning people who don't wear the same shoes or watch the same tv as you? That was junior high. Time to grow up.