2016 Films in Review

Posted on by grahams

Top Films of 2016 (in Alphabetical Order):

Honorable Mention: 

Bottom 5 Films of 2016:

Most Disappointing:

Best Reissue:

Most Unnecessary Remake/Reworking:

Best Movie I Finally Saw: Room

Best Director: The Daniels (Swiss Army Man)

Best Ensemble: Don’t Think Twice

Best Original Screenplay: The Daniels for Swiss Army Man

Best Adapted Screenplay: Amy Jump for High-Rise

Best Cinematography: Chung-hoon Chung for The Handmaiden

Best Soundtrack: Swiss Army Man

Most Memorable Lines:

  • Swiss Army Man
    • Hank: If you don’t know Jurassic Park, you don’t know shit.
  • High-Rise
    • Laing: You know, Toby, when I was your age, I was always covered in something. Mud, jam, failure… My father never associated himself with anything dirty. Or real.Toby: My father’s up there.Laing: You mean, in heaven?Toby: Heaven isn’t real, stupid.
  • The Witch
    • Jonas, Mercy: [singing] Black Phillip, Black Phillip, a crown grows out his head. Black Phillip, Black Phillip, to nanny queen is wed. Jump to the fence post. Running in the stall. Black Phillip, Black Phillip, king of all.

The Movies I Saw in 2016

Posted on by grahams

I saw even fewer feature films in 2016, but it was a rather busy year for me. My final total was 141, which was 7 fewer than 2015. The big thing I alluded to last year, that may depress this total, was buying a new house. That happened, so it’s possible that may explain the reduced number. Or, perhaps, I’ve settled into a new normal.

If you are interested in the technical guts of these graphs, look here.

The graphs, as well as the list itself, are behind the jump below…

Continue reading “The Movies I Saw in 2016” →

The Death of Print (or: My Adventures with the Boston Globe)

Posted on by grahams

Update 20161122:  Since writing the text below, I’ve been contacted by several staffers at the Globe via many channels.  They not only assure me that my discrete issues have been addressed, but that they’ve had meetings to pick apart what went wrong based on the notes I wrote up below.  Hopefully my experience will (ultimately) make things better in the future.

—

Setting the stage: I’ve been a digital subscriber to The Boston Globe for years now.  Corinna decided she would like to try getting the Sunday edition in print.  Here are the things I needed to do to accomplish this:

  1. Log into my account on their website, to find there was no easy way to simply add ANY print subscription to my account.  You’d think they’d want to make this braindead simple.
  2. Call their phone line (1-888-MY-GLOBE) to find out they were only open until noon on the weekend.
  3. Remember on Tuesday that I wanted to do this, and call the phone line again, waiting on hold for a few minutes to talk to a representative.  I state that I want to add Sunday delivery to my existing digital account.  I’m told the only way to accomplish this is to close out my existing subscription and add a new one.  The existing subscription will be terminated as of Thursday, but my new subscription won’t be in effect until Sunday.  So I’ll have no digital access for those few days.  That seems ridiculous, but I accept it.
  4. Wake up this morning, excited to fetch my paper, to find nothing.  Try to attach my new account number to my bostonglobe.com login, but meet no success.
  5. Call their support line, wait on hold for 5 minutes until a robot tells me i’m 22 in the queue.  I hang up and run to their online chat.
  6. After about 5 minutes a chat rep. appears, I explain my plight, and she straightens everything out.  She tells me my subscription has no digital access, and would I like to add it?  I told her that I was supposed to have digital access, that the rep on Tuesday told me I would have it as of Sunday, but apparently that rep messed something up.  She schedules a redelivery before 2pm and gives me gratis digital access until my ‘repaired’ subscription kicks in on Tuesday and we end our chat.  I have no idea why it takes them several days to activate a digital subscription.
  7. Just before noon, I learn they have a Customer Service iPhone app. The sign-in screen asks for my name, email, phone # or acccount #, and house #.  After lots of trial and error, i find that the address and phone number were out of date on my account.  I can’t remember if the phone rep asked for updated information or not, but she clearly should have.  As someone who’s never had print delivery, to assume that the address is correct on my account seems unwise.
  8. I reenter chat (with 10 minutes to spare before they shut down at noon) and explain that the address is wrong on my account, and that is probably why I didn’t get a paper this morning.  I give the rep my account number, which is attached to an address in Wellesley.  I can’t tell you if the original phone rep transposed numbers or I did, but the whole time I was using the incorrect account number.  So some person in Wellesley probably just had digital access added to their account.  I give the rep my current info, and she updates my account, crediting me for today’s paper and suggesting that I will receive a paper at my ‘new’ address starting next Sunday.
  9. I log into the Globe site, attaching the new account number to my Globe login, and notice that while my billing address has been updated, my delivery address is still incorrect. There is no clear way for me to change this myself. My plan is to check back in a few days and see if it is fixed, otherwise I see another chat in my future.

It is maddening to me that this process was so painful.

  • Why can I not add a print subscription myself, online, without involving a customer service rep?
  • Why can I not update the address on my account myself?
  • Why wasn’t I able to add print delivery without losing my digital access for several days?
  • Why didn’t the phone rep verify my delivery address?
  • Why didn’t the chat rep, once I complained of a missing delivery, verify my delivery address?
  • Why is the process to attach my subscription to my bostonglobe.com login a manual process?  Why can’t the customer service reps do it for me?

The Movies I Saw in 2015

Posted on by grahams

I saw fewer films in 2015, but it was a rather busy year for me. My final total was 148, which was 11 fewer than 2014. There are some things conspiring that could depress the total in 2016, but we’ll have to wait and see if that ends up happening.

If you are interested in the technical guts of these graphs, look here.

The graphs, as well as the list itself, are behind the jump below…

Continue reading “The Movies I Saw in 2015” →

The Movies I Saw in 2014

Posted on by grahams

I saw one more film in 2014 than 2013, but strangely, I apparently didn’t see any short film or, more likely, I didn’t record seeing them. With so much short-form video content available online it is difficult to figure out where to ‘draw the line’ in my recordkeeping.

After deciding last year that ~160 features a year was unsustainable, in 2014 I watched 158 159 features, so perhaps it is..

If you are interested in the technical guts of these graphs, look here.

The graphs, as well as the list itself, are behind the jump below…

Continue reading “The Movies I Saw in 2014” →

2013 Films in Review

Posted on by grahams

The Movies I Saw in 2013

Posted on by grahams

As regular readers know, I keep a list of all of the movies I see each year. Breaking a trend, I saw fewer features (146) than I had in the previous year (160). I don’t really have any insight into this other than a strong suspicion that ~160 isn’t terribly sustainable for me.

I never actually got around to writing my “Best Of” 2012 post… As you may remember, I decided to stop waiting until the Oscars and instead just judge the movies I saw in the calendar year. I may be backtracking on this for 2013. I haven’t made up my mind yet.

This year, You’ll see some pretty graphs that I spent entirely too much time on. If you are interested in the technical guts of these graphs, look here. Luckily, all of the time I spent on writing the code for this year will make posting these graphs in the future a no-brainer. (I might even go back and spruce up the past few years with the new graphs).

The graphs, as well as the list itself, are behind the jump below.

Continue reading “The Movies I Saw in 2013” →

The Movies I Saw in 2012

Posted on by grahams

As regular readers know, I keep a list of all of the movies I see each year.  For the second year in a row I saw more feature films (160) than I had in the previous year (155), setting a new benchmark.  

I’m planning on putting together my “Best Of” list in a few days.  As per my recent policy, I’m basing the list on movies I saw in 2012 (as opposed to waiting until The Oscars).  This means I’m missing some movies that came out in late 2012 (I still haven’t seen Django Unchained for instance).  Oh well…  All of the data porno is after the jump

Continue reading “The Movies I Saw in 2012” →

The Princess Bride at 25

Posted on by grahams

The Princess Bride turns 25 today.  Reading about this reminded me of a funny story from when I was a kid.

My father rented The Princess Bride and brought it home, announcing that he thought it would be fun to watch as a family.  I protested, saying I didn’t want to watch a girls movie, and stayed in my bedroom.  After about 25 minutes of hearing my family thoroughly enjoying the film, I sheepishly joined them in the living room.

I don’t remember if I watched the beginning of the movie immediately after the first viewing ended, or if it waited until later, but I definitely remember when I finally did see the beginning and being completely embarrassed yet amused at how my reaction to the title of the film paralleled the character of Fred Savage in the movie.

If it wasn’t such a perfect story I’d probably still find it embarrassing.