The Great MovieFest Survey 2013
Results
Part Two
Like last time, this is going to be a much shorter list. First we'll take a look at how the points match up based on proposer then we'll break the points down and do a year-by-year final analysis. I won't be doing genre results again because that was dumb as fuck.
| Proposer | # of Films | ++ Pts | -- Pts | TOTAL | AVG | 2009 Total | 2009 Avg |
| Snobhunter | 17 | +52.42 | -16.5 | 35.9 | 2.112 | 15.95 | 1.45 |
| The Man | 45 | +164.8 | -85.3 | 79.48 | 1.766 | 55.95 | 1.929 |
| Alaay | 31 | +63.08 | -40.2 | 22.92 | 0.739 | 18.25 | 0.830 |
| Eladamri | 24 | +52.24 | -42.4 | 12.84 | 0.535 | 12.35 | 0.618 |
| TheBluePlayer | 12 | +19.32 | -21.1 | -1.8 | -0.15 | 6.25 | 0.625 |
| Houdini | 9 | +17.5 | -24.6 | -7.14 | -0.71 | 3.7 | 0.617 |
| Phil | 21 | +30.8 | -58.3 | -27.5 | -1.37 | -14.95 | -0.879 |
| MagicManZach | 32 | +41.96 | -123 | -81.2 | -2.54 | -77.15 | -5.143 |
Rather than talk about this as one collective jumble, I'm going to address each attendee individually.
All hail the new king! While The Man may have more total points than Snobhunter, it took him nearly three times as many films to get to that point. And with MMZ holding such a tight grip in the red zone, quantity is generally all anyone needs to generate a large number of positive points. Snobhunter has a very solid average of nearly 2pts per film, and, as I'll discuss below, a lot of that has to do with doing an excellent job of avoiding the stinkers.
But first: what he got right. The two obvious answers are our #2 and #3 films: Black Dynamite (12.48pts) and Drive (11.66pts). Those two alone will go a long way towards forgiving any past wrongs. Virgin Suicides (8.72, 12th) may have fallen off a bit, but it's still an excellent film on his resume, and Mysterious Skin (4.56, 32nd) had a nice uptick to help boost his final numbers.
Snobby's worst film was The Bucket List (-4.32, 169th) with Observe and Report (-2.6, 146th) and Dredd (-2, 140th) pretty far behind. All three came in the last four years, which definitely doesn't help his long-term projections, but you also have to keep in mind that he had Black Dynamite and Drive to counter that loss. Snobhunter uses his selections sparingly, and his uncanny ability to stay out of the reds has definitely paid off well in the long run. Because his average is so low, however, one big stinker could significantly hurt him, but for now this writer has plenty of faith in our local hunter of snobs.
Calling The Man a loser isn't really fair, of course, as he is still all over the top of the list including From Dusk Till Dawn (13.36, 1st), Dark City (11.64, 4th), The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (11.28, 5th), Cube (10.74, 7th) and Crank (10.04, 8th), as well as eight other films in the top twenty five. It is, of course, worth noting that many of those films are from pre-2009, with only his troll-theme films and Primer (5.16, 28th) doing much to help him in the last four years. His 164.8 positive points give him a 100pt cushion on his closest competitor, Alaay. With 45 films under his belt there's a reason he manages to be all over these lists, but it takes more than brute numbers to make an impact, so we can definitely give TM some respect where respect is due.
He does, however, have a few stinkers at the tail end of the list, including new inductee The Six Wives of Henry LaFey (-6.8, 187th) along with Cat Ballou (-5.76, 184th) and Very Bad Things (-5.4, 181st). Along with Henry LaFey, he had the Worst Film of the Year in Year 11 with Rubber (-4.52, 170th), so the past four years haven't been entirely generous to the previous champ.
Though, to be fair, his average hasn't really changed much since 2009, dropping from 1.929 to 1.766, but still well ahead of the 0 mark. It was mostly a matter of Snobhunter leaping ahead of him, and with Snobby's excellent run of films it's hard to do much to combat that. The Man continues putting out steady hits, but he'll have to keep an eye on some of his more questionable entries and try to get those Worst Film titles off of his back as we enter Year 14.
Alaay was another guy who didn't really go much of anywhere in the last four years. With the improvement of MMZ (see his entry below), mostly everyone got pulled back a bit, and so his drop from 0.830 to 0.739 isn't anyhing to lose any sleep over.
Alaay largely just shuffled films around in the last four years, with Let the Right One In (8.64, 13th) supplanting 11:14 (5.6, 26th) and Princess Mononoke (6.56, 22nd) and Sad Movie (5.8, 24th) taking over for Run, Lola, Run (4.16, 36rd) and PCU (3.8, 37th). He hasn't had much success in the past four years - his highest film is Unstoppable (2.8, 42nd) - but he also hasn't really needed to save himself either.
Ronin (-4.84, 176th), the Worst Film of Year 2, continues to be his white whale, but you have to look twenty five more places before you get to his next bomb, Ghost Rider (-3, 151st). This isn't too dissimilar to the 2009 poll, where Ronin held the gutter and The Wrath of Khan (-2, 136th) and Everyone Says I Love You (-1.2, 116th) previously rounded his bottom. Alaay might not produce the gems, but just like last time he has good instincts when it comes to avoiding any true disasters. Part of this is admittedly his strategy of waiting until the morning, where films are more easily forgotten. We'll see if his strategy can hold up in the coming years and if he'll ever get a film into the Top Ten.
Elad only proposed four films in the past four years, and so it's no surprise his numbers are relatively the same as 2009. Leprechaun in the Hood (10.9, 6th) continues as his cash cow with more serious flicks like He Got Game (7.1, 19th), Pieces of April, (6.88, 20th), Elephant (5.52, 27th), and The Squid and the Whale (4.16, 35th) rounding up the rest of his hits. Elad has a knack for bringing the quality dramas, which is why it's a shame he spends so much time supporting the most ironic, trashy films he possible can.
Elad's big problem is his two disasters: Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood (-8.88, 191st) and The Story of the Weeping Camel (-7.5, 189th). You have to go twenty three places until you get to his next stinker, The Guru (-4, 165th), and then another eleven until Anywhere But Here (-3.32, 154th). There's not much Elad can do to rub out the impact of Lep 2 and the Camel, but focusing on the dramas like he's done could really boost Elad's standing in the years to come and give him the momentum he needs to pass by Alaay once and for all.
Of course Koenigs doesn't give a single shit about the rankings, so I've got a feeling I have nothing to worry about.
So what happened to TheBluePlayer to drag him into the red? With only twelve films to his credit there isn't much you can discuss, of course, but I think a lot of it has to do with the fall of Battle Royale (10.0, 9th), which is basically TBP's only hit. You have to go all the way down to L.A. Confidential (2.0, 54th) before TheBluePlayer has another film, and with a performance like that it's not surprising to see his average taking a tumble.
Cougar Club (-5.2, 179th) didn't help things much, joining Who Made the Potato Salad? (-4.76, 174th) in the gutter to remove all of Battle Royale's gain. With only twelve films under his belt all it will take is one more big hit from TheBluePlayer to skyrocket in the averages, but for the time being we'll have to consider Battle Royale as an exception to the rule.
Houdini continues to not have many films for me to analyze, though his new entries, scarce as they are, definitely made an impact. Goon (8.24, 14th) shoves its way into the top 20 with The King of Kong (4.82, 30th) eyeing the top 25. Add in South Park (2.44, 51st) and that's about all the positive films Houdini has to his credit.
Even with the new hits, Houdini suffered from this new survey on two counts: the first is Bitch Slap (-4.96, 178th) taking Worst Film of Year 10, but even more surprising is the strange revision to Lil' Pimp (-6.36, 185th), which dragged it down into the bottom twenty and helped wipe away much of Houdini's gains. I, however, continue to view the Lil' Pimp hatred as an anomoly, and so long as Houdini continues pulling out gems like Goon and King of Kong it won't be long until he's back in the green again.
I don't even feel like it's fair to criticize Phil since he basically lives in his own analytical world. His highest film is Man of the House (3.52, 39th), which is without a doubt the lowest showing for any contestant. He has some other meager hits like The Break-up Artist (2.64, 43rd) and National Lampoon's: Blackball (2.6, 44th), but for the most part Phil is short on what the other seven participants would consider the classics. I guess that's what happens when you haven't been to selection since 2003.
Down in the gutter he has Out On Parole (-8.2, 190th), which actually gained ground since 2009, and then the double block of Malibooty (-4.8, 175th) and Malibu's Most Wanted (-4.68, 173rd) - in fact, his entire bottom five is composed of blackspoitation films. Whereas Elad found a hit in Lep in the Hood and Snobby in Black Dynamite, Phil is still struggling for his big black breakthrough, and only time will tell if he can produce a film that appeals to anyone's taste other than his own.
The comeback kid! It might be premature to cheer on the guy who is distantly in last place, but shifting from a -5.143 average per film to -2.54 in four years is a hell of an improvement that deserves some definite praise. Part of MMZ's strategy came through brute force, as he doubled his film total from 16 in 2009 to 32 in 2013. Just by avoiding many bombs, he helped level out his numbers and creep ever closer to that improbable green zone.
We of course have to give some credit to In Bruges (9.14, 10th) breaking into the Top Ten and really helping the MagicMan's point total. His biggest hit from the 2009 survey was 2 Days in Paris (3.36, 40th), placing 29th at the time, so In Bruges made some definite gains. He also had two other big hits in the past four years in Kaboom (5.08, 29th) and Timecrimes (4.6, 31st), not to mention an extra few points from Side Effects (3, 41st), and The Tuxedo (2.64, 43rd). All in all some pretty steady improvement for MMZ since the last time around.
...however, he does have his share of albatrosses, including the entire bottom four of Gia (-18.7, 195th), Divorce: Italian Style (-13.1, 194th), Coffee and Cigarettes (-12.3, 193rd), and Liberal Arts (-10.04, 192nd), the only films to score double digits in the negatives. Add another nine films in the bottom fifty and you can see why the MagicMan is still clearly serving as our caboose. He actually had pretty good showings in Year 10 (lowest film was Van Wilder (-1.98, 135th)), Year 11 (lowest film was I Love You, Philip Morriss (-2.6, 136th), and Year 12 (lowest film was Truck Turner (-3.92, 163rd), but Year 13 didn't do him any favors, adding Liberal Arts and Give My Regards to Broad Street (-5.32, 180th). Hopefully the MagicMan can bounce back from this past year, however, and keep the surprise hits coming, if only for the sake of parity. We're rooting for you! (Kinda.)
Some of you might have thought I bashed on The Man unfairly in Part I, what with him obviously having a considerable numbers of hits, and so why shouldn't he vote for himself? On the surface it makes sense that people would vote up their own movies. They were the most excited to see them and usually paid the most attention. It's simply human nature.
But because I love me some numbers, I decided to see what the results would look like if you factored out some of that self bias. I wondered, for instance, what the final results would look like if I took out all of The Man's votes; how much would his numbers shift compared to if you removed all of mine or TBP's? The question I had was simple: which voter gave himself the most love?
| Proposer | Regular Results | Without Their Votes | Difference | ||||||
| Pts | Avg | Avg/8 | Pts | Avg | Avg/8 | Pts | Avg/8 | O/U | |
| Snobhunter | 35.9 | 2.112 | 4.488 | 25.5 | 1.50 | 3.188 | 10.4 | 1.3 | 7.212 |
| The Man | 79.48 | 1.766 | 9.935 | 45.58 | 1.013 | 5.698 | 33.9 | 4.237 | 28.2 |
| Alaay | 22.92 | 0.739 | 2.865 | 20.92 | 0.675 | 2.615 | 2.0 | 0.25 | -0.61 |
| Eladamri | 12.84 | 0.535 | 1.605 | 1.98 | 0.083 | 0.248 | 10.86 | 1.358 | 10.61 |
| TheBluePlayer | -1.8 | -0.15 | -0.23 | -2.0 | -0.17 | -0.25 | 0.02 | 0.025 | 0.45 |
| Houdini | -7.14 | -0.71 | -0.89 | -9.94 | -0.99 | -1.24 | 2.8 | 0.35 | 4.043 |
| Phil | -27.5 | -1.37 | -3.43 | -44.3 | -2.22 | -5.54 | 16.8 | 2.105 | 22.34 |
| MagicManZach | -81.2 | -2.54 | -10.1 | -83.6 | -2.61 | -10.5 | 2.4 | 0.302 | 12.9 |
So this'll take some explaining.
The regular results features the basic, untouched information. Avg/8 is a new field that takes your total points scored and divides it by 8 (the number of participants in the survey) to find how many points each person scored on average from each attendee. Snobhunter, for instance, had a +35.9 gain from the survey; split eight ways that means on average each person gave him +4.488 points. The reverse is true for MMZ, with -81.2 points total, each person cast, on average, -10.1pts against him. The reason I set up Avg/8 is for comparison later.
The second field strips the participants own votes from the survey. We'll use Snobhunter again. With his votes removed, he only gained 25.5pts. That comes out to 1.5pts per film he proposed and 3.188 per attendee, which is obviously a drop from his 4.488 standing in the regular results.
The third column set is just basic subtraction showing the difference in point totals and Avg/8. Again with Snobhunter: 35.9pts in the regular results minus 25.5pts in the survey without his votes comes out to a 10.4pt difference, which means that Snobhunter cast 10.4pts for himself in his survey, which is well above the 3.188 average everyone else cast for him. The second column in the Difference section simply shows the increase between the Avg/8 in the regular results and the altered results. In Snobby's case when his results were factored in, it results in a 1.3pt increase in his Avg/8. Or, to put that another way, his own votes pushed his average per attendee up by 1.3pts for each person.
And the last colum - O/U - is the Over/Under, which shows how much more (or, in one case, less) that person valued their films than the Avg/8. In Snobhunter's case, everyone else cast a total +3.188pts for him on average, while he himself cast +10.4pts for himself; or, to put it another way, he cast 7.212pts for himself over the average. I use Over/Under because if a person received a lot of points it only makes sense that they would likewise cast a lot of points for themself; the over/under, then, shows how much more they valued their picks than the rest of the field.
By what does this data mean? Pretty basic. We'll take a look at our friend TM and discover that when his own results are factored out, his point total plummets down to 45.58, resulting in a 1.013 average per film and 5.698 average points per voter. This means that +33.9pts from his survey came from himself, which is laughably higher than the 5.698 average everyone else cast for him, giving him the highest over in the survey at 28.2pts. If you take his results out his average per film is still pretty strong at 1.013 - so we can't entirely rag on The Man - but it is markedly lower than that 1.766 suggestions. It is also lower than Snobhunter's adjusted 1.5 average, so even with the bias taken out, Snobby still reigns supreme.
The other big offender is Phil, largely because he's the only one who seems to like his type of movies. Taking his results out, everone else gave him on average -5.54 points, whereas Phil cast 16.8pts for himself, giving him an over of 22.34. His average per atendee leapt 2.105pts from -5.54 for everyone else's average to -3.43 when his own votes are factored in, so Phil was another case of a voter doing his damndest to improve his own stats.
MagicMan might not look that bad on the surface: he went from -81.2pts to -83.6 with his results taken out, which isn't much of a tumble. His average per film would have only ticked from -2.54 to -2.61 - again, a modest amount - but because everyone else cast on average -10.5pts against him, the 2.42pt differential in his score actually meant he was 12.87 points over the average. When everyone is maligning your picks, it's pretty suspicious for you to put yourself in the green.
Elad is an interesting case, in that his average per film drops to 0.083 when his own votes are factored out, nearly putting him into the red. Considering that everyone else cast 0.248 points for him, his over of 10.61 is the only other double-digit result in the survey.
Houdini threw himself a bit more love than the others, largely on account of his appreciation of South Park, but it's not nearly as eggregious as the likes of TM or Phil. And, like I mentioned above, it's only natural that folks would vote for themselves to a modest degree.
TheBluePlayer barely had any bias at all, as his point total shifts from -1.8 to -2 when you take his votes out, leading to 0.2pts he cast for himself. On average everyone else gave him a -0.25, so his over stands at 0.45, but that's essentially a few third place votes switching to fourths to bring him back to 0, so TBP has nothing to be ashamed of.
And then there's me. When I started culling these results I assumed I would be the lowest since I generally try to spread the love to other voters, and the numbers definitely bear me out. I've generally seen my own films before, so they don't have the same impact during the festival as someone else's surprise hit. I obviously love The Silence of the Lambs and Princess Mononoke in real life, but during the fest they didn't have the same impact as a Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys or Mysterious Skin, and so it only makes sense for me to treat them a bit harsher. My score goes from 20.92 to 22.92 when you count me in - meaning that I cast 2pts for myself - but the avg/8 without my results is actually 2.615, meaning that I cast fewer points for myself that everyone else on average, giving me the only under of the list at -0.615. It's hard for me to consider myself modest since I basically wrote a whole article talking about how modest I am, and so rather than consider how selfless I was with my voting, let's all instead gang up on The Man and make him feel bad for taking pride in his generally excellent string of hits.
After all, guys, it's all about the love.
| Y e a r | + + P t s | - - P t s | T o t a l | R a n k |
| 0 1 | + 3 4 . 5 0 | - 2 5 . 9 6 | + 0 8 . 5 8 | 4 t h |
| 0 2 | + 4 7 . 3 0 | - 2 7 . 3 2 | + 1 9 . 9 8 | 2 n d |
| 0 3 | + 3 1 . 5 2 | - 4 2 . 2 0 | - 1 0 . 6 8 | 1 2 t h |
| 0 4 | + 3 5 . 0 0 | - 3 4 . 2 6 | + 0 0 . 7 4 | 5 t h |
| 0 5 | + 2 8 . 1 6 | - 3 9 . 1 4 | - 1 0 . 9 8 | 1 3 t h |
| 0 6 | + 2 8 . 5 8 | - 2 9 . 8 0 | - 0 1 . 2 2 | 6 t h |
| 0 7 | + 3 2 . 2 4 | - 3 7 . 6 4 | - 0 5 . 4 0 | 8 t h |
| 0 8 | + 3 2 . 6 8 | - 3 5 . 3 8 | - 0 2 . 7 0 | 7 t h |
| 0 9 | + 3 3 . 5 8 | - 3 2 . 1 4 | + 0 1 . 4 4 | 4 t h |
| 1 0 | + 5 7 . 6 2 | - 2 7 . 5 0 | + 3 0 . 1 2 | 1 s t |
| 1 1 | + 2 0 . 8 8 | - 2 9 . 3 4 | - 0 8 . 4 6 | 1 0 t h |
| 1 2 | + 4 1 . 5 4 | - 2 7 . 9 2 | + 1 3 . 6 2 | 3 r d |
| 1 3 | + 2 4 . 9 2 | - 3 5 . 4 8 | - 1 0 . 5 6 | 1 1 t h |
So the past four years have definitely shaken things up a bit, taking home the 1st, 3rd, 10th, and 11th ranked years with a ridiculous zig-zag style split. It's not at all a surprise to see Year 10 take the crown with Black Dynamite, In Bruges, Troll 2, He Got Game, Primer, and The King of Kong all in the top 30. Considering its worst-ranked film was Bitch Slap at 178th and you can see why Year 10 reigns supreme.
Year 2 is an obvious 2nd place with Dark City, Leprechaun in the Hood, and Donnie Darko, and I can even see Year 12 with Drive, Troll Huner, and Kaboom being a reasonable third. Year 9 - with Let the Right One In, Dr. Horrible, and The Fall - was a sensible fourth place, and the kick-off of Year 1 brought us Cube and Con Air, so again I can see that +8.58 making plenty of sense. After that, however, it's pretty much all negatives.
Year 5 is in the cellar with Divorce and Out On Parole simply overwaying the mighty The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys, and the Gia-dominated Year 3 is a close second. It's fascinating that the year with the overall best film - From Dusk Till Dawn has the second-fewest points, but that's what happens when you have a year without much quality and the shittest film of the past thirteen years. The same holds true for the tepid Years 13 and 10, with Year 13 edging out Year 10 in large part because of Liberal Arts, the fourth-worst film on the list.
With its overwhelming point total I don't see anyone from this pack challenging Year 10 any time soon, but that doesn't mean Year 14 can't come out with a bang and steal away the decade marker's title. Year 10, after all, was the following up year to my first survey, so who knows if maybe all this pointless data has some kind of short-term benefit.
Or, more likely, I just spent three goddamn days of my life talking way too much about irrelevent, ever-shifting numbers....
Anyway, I think I've combed through enough data for one survey. Thanks for reading, everyone. I'll see you bastards again in 2017!
-Alaay-