Improvements in the review archives!
I am pleased to announce that the archive of my movie reviews (now well north of 2,300 entries) has been revamped to be more searchable, sortable, and time-waste-able than ever before!
You access the Archives under the Movie Reviews tab, and there you’ll find four columns: Movie Title, Rating, Grade, and Date. (That’s the date it was released, not the date I reviewed it.) The default setting is to list them alphabetically by title, but you can click any of the other three labels to sort them that way. Click the label again and it’ll list them in reverse order.
The new improvement is that if you mouse-over a heading, a little arrow will appear at the right-hand side of the column. Click that arrow and new options will be presented to you.
Under Movie Title, you can type in a particular word and have the database call up only the titles that contain that word. Under Rating, you can select one or more ratings (G, PG, etc.) and have it only show those films; the Grade filter does the same thing for the grades (A-F) that I give. Under Date, you can have it show only films released in the last 30 days, or from any of the years 1999-2008, or from pre-1999. And then, of course, you can re-sort the results however you like by clicking the appropriate column.
Furthermore, you can narrow down the results even more by selecting additional options from the other labels. After bringing up, say, only the films released in 2006, you can go under Rating and ask to only see those rated PG or G, and then of those see only the ones that got a B+ or better. Or you could ask how many films from 2004-2007 had the word “Girl” in the title. Or you could see how many F grades I’ve given to R-rated films since 2001. The possibilities are endless!
Thanks to my webbrother Jeff for implementing the new system. A similar scheme has been set up with the “Snide Remarks” columns, and with the individual actor and director pages that you get when you click on a person’s name in a movie review.
Finally, as a matter of housekeeping, I recently went through and fixed the release dates, where necessary, so that they reflect when the films were first released in the United States. In the old days, I went by when the films opened where I lived (Salt Lake City until mid-2005, Portland after that); that system was left over from when I wrote the reviews for a newspaper and we published them when they opened locally, which (in the case of independent, art house, and Oscar-bait films) was often a few weeks after they opened in New York and L.A. Now that I exist only on the Internet, there’s no reason to provide “local” release dates, so I’ve retrofitted the reviews appropriately. None of this matters to you, probably, but I wanted it on the record.
December 15th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Very awesome. Did you know that you’ve only given 4 PG films A’s? Interesting!
December 16th, 2008 at 4:14 am
I always wanted to search your archives based on grades that you gave. This is sure to help me waste more time and continue to live an unproductive life…….thanks a lot!
December 16th, 2008 at 11:46 am
Christina D’s comment made me curious, so just for the time-wastiness of it, I used Excel to help calculate the percentages of movies with each rating that received an A grade. If I did not mess up, the results are:
13.2% of all G-rated films
1.4% of PG films
3.7% of PG13 films
3.9% of R films
0% of NC17 films
1.9% of not-rated films
December 16th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
Organizing for increased time wasting potential! How can we all not appretiate that?
December 16th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
One feature that I liked about the old way was that you could click on a letter of the alphabet and it would bring up all the titles that begin with that letter. I was actually on the site last night looking for “Wicker Park” (b/c I watched The Postal Service video) and I had to just guess which of the 24 pages it would be on. The new system is good for the things mentioned above, but, unless I’m missing something, it’s hard to find a specific movie title.
December 16th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
The alphabet might be a good thing to reinstate. In the meantime, under the Movie Title options, you can type in a particular word (like “Wicker”) and have the database call up only the titles that contain that word.
December 16th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Does anyone have a clue why it isn’t working for me? I’m on BYU campus and have tried several computer labs now. Weep.
December 16th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
It’s simple, Jacques. BYU hates Eric because he is a godless, liberal, traitor hippie. He abandoned the prosperous lands of Utah for the village of sin that is Portland. That is why it won’t work on campus.
December 17th, 2008 at 6:41 am
The archives page isnt’ working for me, either. It just won’t load. And I don’t have a BYU-mandated firewall. I’m using a home computer. Any suggestions?
December 17th, 2008 at 9:43 am
Thank you Jeff and Eric! Very useful for my favorite place to go for reviews. Wish you got money every time I read a review (at no charge to me of course).
December 17th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Sadly, I can’t see it either. I’m using IE7.0.
December 17th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Jeff reports that the only reason he can imagine it wouldn’t load would be if you don’t have Javascript enabled in your browser. So enable that Javascript and see what happens.
December 17th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Also, if you already have JS turned on, try clearing your cache.
December 18th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Ardent Christina D
and
Assiduous Argus Skyhawk:
About the As
This is because PG movies are terrible.
If it is truly FAMILY FRIENDLY, it is G. If it contains some TRUE GRIT, it is PG-13. (If it contains some UNPLEASANT GRIT, like that in your SWIMTRUNKS after the BEACH, it is NC-17).
PG is the little lost category, where bad TWEEN movies and UNFUNNY COMEDIES lay gasping.
That is all.
PS where did you get this picture of the archives? I like it.
PPS Above commentary does not apply to movies made before PG-13 came into being.
December 27th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
Yes, please reinstate the alphabet.
January 11th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
Yes, please reinstate the alphabet.