Movie Rankings: Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

If you are just joining us, this is article two in a series where I look at the movies that I have in my collection, and how they are rated from the Internet Movie Database (IMDb.com).  The first article in this series was posted on Monday July 8th and goes into my reasons for starting this grouping of posts about movies and ratings.  I should also mention that since ratings will sometimes change (When I first started researching this series a month+ ago, I've seen Blade Runner go from an 8.9 down to an 8.2), so these scores are current as of July 12th, 2019 (which I realize is now over a month ago).  So assuming that you all have now read why we are all here, let us get to it.

Top 5 Films (Hypothesized)

• Aliens (1986)
• Akira (1988)
• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
• Seven Samurai (1954)
• Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

IMDb Top 5 Films That I Own

1. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)            [8.9]
2. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)     [8.8]
3. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)                        [8.7]
4. Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)          [8.7]
5. The Matrix (1999)                                                                             [8.7]

Based on IMDb rankings, I have a couple of things I want to cover.

The first being that we apparently do not have any of movies that are ranked 9.0 or higher on IMDb.  By school standards, we only own B+ and lesser movies.  By that rational too, only four movies in all of cinema history have an A- or higher: The Shawshank Redeption (9.2), The Godfather (9.2), The Godfather, Part II (9.0), and The Dark Knight (9.0).  I guess I just did not realize how harsh (if that is the right word I am looking for) IMDb ratings could be.  That is not a bad thing mind you, but only four movies in all of cinema have a 9.0 or higher?  Yeesh.  Makes me feel a bit better about my poorly rated movies.

I am a little surprised that all three The Lord of the Rings movies made it to the top five, but at the same time, I'm not because I love 75% of that trilogy.  I'm not surprised though that Return of the King is currently the highest rated of the three, even though for me that was the entry that I liked the least for at least 14 different reasons (I sat down one afternoon and made a list of all of the things that bothered me while watching the movie).  I probably should have also considered The Matrix for a top spot, but I really thought that Seven Samurai would have been higher up on the list (it currently has an 8.6, right below The Matrix).

Bottom 5 Films (Hypothesized)

• Beowulf (2007)
• The Happening (2008)
• Jackhammer Massacre (2004)
• The Postman (1997)
• Waterworld (1995)

IMDb Bottom 5 Films That I Own

1. Your Highness (2011)                             [5.5]
2. Daredevil (2003)                                     [5.3]
3. Shrunken Heads (1994)                         [5.2]
4. The Happening (2008)                          [5.0]
5. The Jackhammer Massacre (2004)     [3.3]

This group of "bad" movies surprised me a bit too.  The main surprise was around Your Highness, which I thought was received a lot better than a (currently 5.5) by the general public.  Maybe I am wrong and a medieval stoner flick just wasn't and isn't what a good/entertaining movie "is."  I shouldn't also be surprised about Daredevil since I feel like the CGI doesn't hold up very well, not that it was great when the film first came out, but the extended cut (which I have and which is not technically rated) is so much better than the theatrical cut, but again.  Admittedly I have not seen Shrunken Heads as I received a copy of it when I put myself down for the "New Forbidden Zone DVD" tier for Richard Elfman's Indiegogo to fund Forbidden Zone 2.  It was a nice little bonus that I have yet to watch.  The Happening, yeah.  I own it.  @ me all you want.  I wasn't at all surprised about Jackhammer Massacre, mainly because it is a low budget indie slasher/horror indie film, but I know one of the actors in the movie and it's pretty amusing to watch.

I was very much surprised that The Postman did not make it to the IMDb list, but it is sitting strong with other 6.0 films apparently and just a bit higher was Beowulf sitting at 6.2.  Waterworld, for all of the crap I have heard/seen it get over the last 24 years, also received a 6.2.

So my hypothesized bottom five was somewhat correct (two out of five ain't bad), and considering I have a wide variety of tastes when it comes to movies, I think a 1.7 point jump between two of my worst rated films isn't too bad.

In the next article, we will look at the ratings from Rotten Tomatoes, a site that I typically stay away from since I think (thought?) that their ratings are much harsher and pompous than how I would normally regard movies.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Savin' It Up For Friday Night

MIDI Week Singles: "My Quiet Forest Home" - Octopath Traveler (NS)

"My Quiet Forest Home" from Octopath Traveler on the Nintendo Switch (2018)

Composer: Yasunori Nishiki

Album: Octopath Traveler (Original Soundtrack)

Label: Square Enix Music

Publisher: Square Enix

Developer: Square Enix Business Division 11

I do not know if this song crops up anywhere else in Octopath Traveler or if Duskbarrow is the only town/place where My Quiet Forest Home" plays, or maybe I was just in the right mind-space after running away from battle after battle in order to get through a forested region that was full of monsters 5-21 levels higher than my party members.  Whatever the reason was, this track hit me like a calming wave of contentment, and despite not actually being able to do or afford or do much in Duskbarrow, I wanted to stay.

Everything about this song is peaceful and serene, with no noticeable undercurrent of impending dread lurking around the corner.  From the opening theme-lette on the piano to the what I will call a cello bringing a soulful and heartfelt melody, I love everything about this song.  Maybe I am getting too sappy, but when the song loops back to the beginning and the piano is once again playing by itself, to me it is saying, just as the cello starts again, "Remember, this is why you're here."  I don't really know why that phrase pops into my head during this one specific section of the song, but it just does, and it makes me happy.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Across an Endless Horizon


P.S.  Now I need to listen to more of Yasunori Nishki's music to find out why I get massive Nobuo Uematsu and Yasunori Mitsuda vibes (unrelated to the fact that Octopath Traveler's visual style is reminiscent of Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger).

Movie Rankings: The Concept and Pitch

The idea for this upcoming series of articles arose a few weeks/months back when I picked up Waterworld: The Ulysses Cut, which then forced me to rearrange the movies on the bookcases as well as something else that got me thinking about the movies I've bought over the years and how they have been received by society at large.

So the idea is that I have a list of all of the movies we have on DVD/Blu-Ray, specifically movies and not taking into account documentaries, TV Shows, TV Movies, or live concerts.  I could have also included VHS, but I think those are still in cold storage somewhere.  Presumably I have these movies because I like them enough to either spend my own money on them, or have asked other people to spend their money to buy them for me.  I know that not all of the movies I have are class acts, or universally regarded as good, but that's all about personal taste.  I have these films because they bring happiness in my soul on some level.  Sure, I'm not going to sit down and watch Requiem for a Dream every weekend, but I think it is a damn good film and the special features (especially the commentary) are well produced.  And so I bought it.  I also bought Reefer Madness because I think it is a hilarious movie in that the moral of the movie is so genuinely believed by the creators that it borders on parody.

Now, once I got down to putting all of our movies in list format via Google Docs, I then listed what I thought would be my top five movies as well as the bottom five movies.  Again, these are not movies that I think are actually bad and deserve to be in the top/bottom five, but how I think any of the three sites will rate them; in that The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is my least favorite of the LotR trilogy, but I think it is many other people find it more highly regarded than the first two films.  I also did not take into account different versions of the same movie, as is the case with the Lord of the Rings movies.  I have the extended editions of the film, but not the theatrical release, but often times extended cuts will not be ranked on IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, or Metacritic, so I just went with what was listed; but I do try to point out the difference where applicable.  I also did not give separate top/bottom fives for each site although I wouldn't've been surprised if the top five for IMDb ended up being different from Metacritic.

So I pulled the ratings for all of my movies from IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, and Metacritic, for scoring, but will not be combining scores from all three, rather just tabulating scores from each site, then I sorted by site and will discuss the top and bottom five movies that I own.  To briefly clarify, I will only be listing and talking about the top and bottom five movies that I have as ranked by these sites, so you will not see The Godfather, or From Justin to Kelly because I do not own either of those two.

One really interesting thing I discovered was that there were some Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes scores did not exist for all of the movies that I have.  Rather surprising for titles such as Akira, Dragonheart, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, and Freaks.  There are plenty of other titles that were not listed, but I am not going to list everything, again, because that would be boring for all involved.

Oh, and I will not be putting up my list of all of the movies and ratings because that would be too cumbersome and let's just not go there. 

The upcoming articles will include (again) my top and bottom five as well as the top and bottom five for each site, but for the premier article, let us just start off with what my hypothesized top and bottom five movies will be.

Top 5 Films

• Aliens (1986)
• Akira (1988)
• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
• Seven Samurai (1954)
• Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Upon putting these films together, it seems like I believe that the Internet at large likes older films, seeing as how four of the five are 1988 and earlier, with three of those four in the 80s.  Maybe I am guessing that 80s nostalgia is rather high at the moment?  

Bottom 5 Films

• Beowulf (2007)
• The Happening (2008)
• Jackhammer Massacre (2004)
• The Postman (1997)
• Waterworld (1995)

In Friday's article, we will look at what the top and bottom five from the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) from the movies that I have and compare that list to my predictions here.  So if this has at all interested you, then you're in for a treat with a look into my brain, what movies entertain me, and what the voting Internet population thinks of the movies that I have purchased over the years.  If this does not interest you at all, well then just hang in there for a couple of weeks and we will return to our regularly scheduled broadcast.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

I Didn't Mean to Scare You

MIDI Week Singles: "Mission 02" - Top Gun: The Second Mission (NES)

"Mission 02" from Top Gun: The Second Mission on the Nintendo Entertainment System (1987)

Composers: Hidenori Maezawa, Yuichi Sakakura, Harumi Ueko

Album: No Official Release

Developer: Konami

Publisher: Konami

I was looking through my list of songs to use, and oddly enough, this was the most patriotic song that I could find that I would listen to outside of it being July 4th tomorrow.  That, and I did not feel like using the 3.47-second clip of the Star-Spangled Banner from Blades of Steel.

I did play Top Gun: The Second Mission a lot as a kid, probably because I watched Top Gun a lot, although I cannot remember if I bought the game for myself or received it as a gift, but that is beside the point.  The point is I never finished the game and could only make it to the second mission in the game before I finally died and then used up however many continues you were allotted.  I don't think I even ever made out of the tree dodging sequence, but I did try my darndest.

And by dardest, I mean that I played Mission 2 for hours upon unverified hours, which is probably why I have fond memories of this song despite my inability to actually get through this mission.

What I do like about the song itself is how much is going on and how many sections there are to it all.  Which then is one thing that I would change.  I feel that the first 9.6847 seconds of the song should not have repeated, that it should have been just an intro and then repeated at the 9.6848 mark when the song does repeat at the 54.5 second mark.  And holy damn that guitar-esque solo is something else.

On that note, have a happy 4th of July tomorrow.  Or don't.  Either way is fine with us.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Like Small Children We Play

Monthly Update: July 2019

Happy July everyone!  I am back.  Or I have been since Friday, June 28th, but that was our final travel day due to a snafu a few months back while making the original trip plans.  But Conklederp and I are now back stateside from my Grandmother's cruise of the Baltic and Scandinavian regions.

In June's Monthly Update article, I had mentioned that my posting was going to be sporadic, but it turned out that my postings turned out to be not.  Before heading out for the cruise ship, we were under the impression that I could at least log on to WiFi while on the ship as there was the "Unlimited Internet Access" that was a perk for all aboard, but there was a stipulation that was not initially made clear.  The ship we were on did have some computers with WiFi access, but those were four floors above us in a Library of sorts, but were limited to non-streaming internet browsing since the signal was not very strong.  The other limitation was that we were only allowed one device to connect to the WiFi per room at a time.  This turned out to be a big inconvenience for a people who just came from a hotel where the WiFi connection was great where I could be playing Fortnite on the Switch while Conklederp streamed a show on Netflix without any lag or intense buffering; This of course would have been early in the morning or late at night since most of our daytime activities (8 AM - 11:30 PM) were taken up by exploring Stockholm; this was also the case for our hotel in Copenhagen.  We then also found out that while on the boat, even after Conklederp logged out of the internet, that if I wanted to connect my computer to the WiFi, that we would have been charged a $9.99 fee per day to access a second device. 

So I decided that I would forgo attempting to find ways to log onto the Internet, and instead use most of my in-room time playing Octopath Traveler, and for a few days while we were in St. Petersburg, Russia, playing Papers, Please ; thankfully I was able to open Steam in Offline Mode.  Replaying Papers, Please came about after our first day in Russia because in order to enter the country from the cruise ship, we were required to go through border security showing our passport, our room key card, and in some cases, our buss pass.  The first time through border we were given a printed Migration Card that we had to keep with our passports and later gave back to the border guard officers when we returned upon our return.  It really felt like something out of Papers, Please.  I still have not completed a full run through of the story mode in Papers, Please for one of the various reasons: too many citations and fired, evicted from government building because I could not pay rent and fired, imprisoned for accepting bribes, and probably a couple of other reasons that I cannot think of at the moment.

Conklederp and I also picked up Elder Sign, a card game that takes place in the Arkham Horror universe, the same as Mansions of Madness.  This was because coming off of Himo and Folly's wedding on June 8th, we really wanted to play some kind of Lovecraftian horror game but knew that trying to bring the massive Mansions of Madness box on a cruise (where my luggage already weighed 50.5 lbs).  To date, we have once with Conklederp, The Kid, and myself, then once with Conklederp and myself, then once with The Kid and myself, and lastly I played by myself (since the game can be played with one to eight players) on Saturday and Sunday).  Each time we have played, we have figured out more and more of the rules, and I think after this last time playing by myself, I think we can finally play a single game sessions with all of the rules integrated correctly.  I also brought along Cards Against Humanity but due to other obligations that our cousins had, we only ended up playing twice and never with the cousins.

As for what to look forward to in July, you can probably expect an outdated E3 article from one or both of us, definitely at least me since I only tangentially heard about E3 happenings when I had access to WiFi, like while in Helsinki, Finland which had better city-wide WiFi than our entire boat.  I might even get around to watching some of the presentations too if I can find the time.  I will also be plodding merrily along through Octopath Traveler and possibly beat it by the end of the month?  I currently have all eight characters, am 64 hours in, and everyone has up through the second chapter in their own stories finished.  I am now working on their third chapters and really hoping that there is a fourth since there are still large portions of the map that have yet to be revealed.  The sad part is though that a number of my characters are already maxed out on what abilities they can learn (I think?) so aside from increasing their HP/SP (this game's version of MP), and revealing more of their story, I do not have any other character mechanic development to go which does make me a little sad.

Hokay, let us leave it there for now.  Plenty more of July to hash things out.  We'll see you then.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
On The Hidden Endless Road

MIDI Week Singles: "Catherine's Theme" - SOMA (PC)

"Catherine's Theme" from SOMA on the PC, iOS X, Linux, PlayStation 4, & XBox One (2015)

Composer: Mikko Tarmia

Album: SOMA (Original Video Game Soundtrack)

Label: Self Released (Bandcamp)

Publisher: Frictional Games

Developer: Frictional Games

Since I happen to find myself currently in Sweden for the next couple of days, I thought that posting a MIDI Week Single from a game that was developed in Sweden seemed appropriate.  Yes, composer Mikko Tarmia is actually Finnish, but we will not be in Finland until Tuesday.

SOMA is a game from Swedish developer Frictional Games and despite having played through the game a couple of years ago, we apparently have not featured any of Mikko Tarmia's music from this game (although we have used music that he has written for Amnesia: The Dark Descent, also by Frictional Games).  Now, if you have not played SOMA, I would first off highly recommend it is all about powerful storytelling, but I will not spoil anything for anyone who has not yet played the game.

I decided to use "Catherine's Theme" because I thought that it does a great job of encapsulating the overall feel of the game, where as the title music puts you in a science fiction mind set.  I do love how simple "Catherine's Theme" is, which is the exact opposite of the character in the game.  I also feel an overwhelming sadness here, which again, is not exactly how the character is either portrayed or acts in the game, but it works so well.  Maybe it is all hindsight.  But I find this track to be beautiful and a perfect example of showing so much emotion with so little.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Unholy Recourse

Game EXP: Jack Lumber (PC)

It has been a loooooooong time since I last played Jack Lumber on my PC through Steam, but posting about Dustoff Heli Rescue II and the Three Star grading system implemented in that game got me thinking again about this game.  I think I did purchase it during a sale as opposed to it being bundled with a Humble Bundle.  And honestly, I like the concept behind the game, I like the artwork, I love the sound effects of the logs splitting, I like the humor, and even the story is absurd to the point of hilarity (Jack's grandmother is killed by a tree and he vows his revenge on trees, convinced that there is an evil overlord of trees out there.  Just watch the trailer.

I played Jack Lumber for a grand total of 2 hours until I reached the point where I had to stop.  Not really stop out of choice, but I stopped for the most damaging and saddening reason when it comes to video games.  Jack Lumber stopped being fun.

Jack Lumber works brilliantly as a touch screen game a la iPad or other large touch screen devices larger than a cellphone.  It even works pretty well with keyboard and mouse controls, and had I necessary tools I think it would work just as well (or better) with an artists stylus, or even Apple's Magic Trackpad might work really well; I never tried the game with trackpad, and I'm note even sure if it would be compatible with a gamepad.

Jack Lumber requires accuracy and timing, something that I have somewhat struggled with when using a mouse.  And if you are finished laughing at me, let me further explain.  What makes accuracy and timing important in Jack Lumber is that it is part puzzle game too, as you try to quickly figure out the quickest path to take before your timer runs out and the logs go back to their breakneck speed of spinning.  You gain bonus points for making cuts through multiple logs without turning, which can be difficult if you do not slow down the spinning logs at the right time or wait too long trying to cut a log that requires multiple cuts.  Even using the various types of syrups requires quick thinking lest you waste one requiring you  to save up a bit more money to buy more syrups.  This will often require additional playthroughs of previously cleared levels.

And that is where my lack of fun comes into play.  Like so many games, Jack Lumber uses the score and Three Star system for overall rankings in levels.  And this three star ranking is not for individual stages, but how you do overall across 10 individual stages.  This means that if you mess up on stage 6 out of 10, then you can either scrap all of your progress knowing you will not earn that coveted third star, or you can play through to earn more money to buy more items only to come back and try the level all over again.  Granted each stage lasts only a few seconds, as that is the amount of time you are granted with timed slowed down, but maybe that makes it even worse?

There was some point during the middle of the second area that I decided I would not try for three stars in every level, but instead move ahead after earning either one or two.  By the third area, Widowmaker's Peak, I hit a roadblock.  I was required to have more stars to play the next area than I currently had, halting my progress.  I looked back at the levels that I had only one star on and knew that it would require a lot of playing to either earn two stars or possibly even a third for the levels where I already had two stars.  But I did retry a number of those levels, earning a couple here and there, but still not enough to proceed through the next level which would have then required me to go back and earn yet more stars.

Playing Jack Lumber for me got to the point where if I made a mistake, I would esc out of the entire level, forgoing all progress regardless of what stage out of 10 I was on, only to restart it from the beginning; think Mario Kart when you are trying to beat the best time and you make one small mistake that you know will end up costing you 0.05876 seconds, so you quickly hit start-press down-restart-A button as if you have tucked the movement deep into muscle memory.  You know.

And this made me sad.  I wanted to love Jack Lumber far more than I ended up, and because of my inability (or focus?) to earn ever increasing Integrity Star Points, I will probably never finish this game.  Fare thee well sweet lumberjack, may you eventually fell the mighty evil tree that brought about your wrath.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
I Feel The Anger  Pulse Again