In a surprise to absolutely no one, our scores pretty much match up with iMDB's rankings. Wow, what interesting data!

The big one for me is seeing how much of a drop exists between 4-5 rated films and 5-6 ones, as well as the funny data set of the absolute lowest-rated iMDB movies being in the positives. Don't get too excited, though, as that comes from only three films: Cats (2.8 iMDB, -2.34 MF), The Star Wars Holiday Special (2.2 iMDB, -2.23 MF), and Troll 2 (2.9 iMDB, 7.72 MF). So without Troll 2 to boost the numbers, we'd pretty much be seeing what we'd expect to see.

The inverse, the 8-9 point range, isn't actually litered with MovieFest classics. Instead it has a lot of mid-range films like Oldboy (8.4 iMDB, 5.26 MF) and Dr. Horrible (8.40 iMDB, 5.26 MF), and Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (8.0 iMDB, 1.29 MF). The highest-rated iMDB movie we ever watched was way back in Year 1 with Pulp Fiction (8.9 iMDB, 3.03 MF) and the lowest was the previously mentioned Star Wars Holiday Special.

In fact, that's a fun data point. Let's take a second to break down each iMDB score range and show OUR highest- and lowest-rated movie compared to the general iMDB audience.

We already covered the 2's, so in the 3's there is Leprechaun 5: In the Hood (3.7 iMDB, 8.47 MF) on one end with another lep movie - Leprechaun: Origins (3.2 iMDB, -6.28 MF) - on the other. I'm actually a little disappointed Origins took that spot, as right behind it was Leprechaun 6: Back 2 Tha Hood (3.9 iMDB, -5.88 MF), and seeing the two "Hood" movies at the bookends would have been funny. Also, the fuck were iMDB voters smoking when they ranked the first Lep Hood movie lower than the second one? For shame.

Our most favorite of iMDB's 4's was Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance (4.2 iMDB, 6.29 MF) with almost no competition. Only 5 of the 26 4-star movies were in the positives, and the few that were barely eked by. So note to self: steer clear of the 4-star flicks. The worst is Farce of the Penguins (4.0 iMDB, -12.06 MF).

The 5's are similarly underwhelming with Staten Island Summer (5.6 iMDB, 8.15 MF) taking the crown and honestly, fuck iMDB users for rating Staten Island Summer sub-6. That movie was great. Teen Beach Movie (5.9 iMDB, 7.12 MF) was also up there as was Kaboom! (5.4 iMDB, 7.88 MF) so Staten Island Summer wasn't iMDB users only mistake. What they got right, however, was Chi-Raq (5.8 iMDB, -7.54), though frankly it's a little too close to the 6's for our comfort.

Speaking of the 6's, it's where the bulk of MovieFest movies fall, which isn't surprising as it's also where the bulk of iMDB movies fall. Plus One (6.6 iMDB, 10.42 MF) won this particular crown with Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (6.9 iMDB, 9.9 MF) and Primer (6.8 iMDB, 9.00 MF) in close pursuit, so I guess we "overvalue" these movies as compared to the general, dumb populace. This is also where iMDB users begin to make some big mistakes, such as being OK with garbage trash like Liberal Arts (6.7 iMDB, -10.53 MF) and Creep (6.3 iMDB, -9.24 MF), though the biggest divergence come in our least-favorite film: Gia (6.9 iMDB, -12.44 MF). A 6.9? The fuck are you thinking, general audience goers?

Moving on to iMDB's above-average films, this is where we see a lot of agreement. Dark City (7.6 iMDB, 11.04 MF), In Bruges (7.9 iMDB, 10.13 MF), and From Dusk Till Dawn (7.2 iMDB, 8.97 MF) all hang around this tier, though we would argue that Black Dynamite (7.3 iMDB, 12.55 MF) should probably be higher than a meager 7.3. On the opposite end, we had huge disagreements with Coffee and Cigarettes (7.0 iMDB, -8.44 MF) and The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (7.1 iMDB, -8.29 MF), so it's not all hunky dory, even if for the most part we see eye to eye.

Finally, at the absolute top tier, is Kung Fury (8.0 iMDB, 9.52 MF) and Portrait of a Lady on Fire (8.1 iMDB, 9.34), two films that we and the larger movie-going audience agree are all-time classics. What we don't agree on, and haven't for a long time, is Academy Award Winning Divorce: Italian Style (8.0 iMDB, -6.76 MF), and frankly that's on them. That movie sucked.

With one weird data expiriment out of the way, let's move on to talk about an even dumber one... comparing MovieFest films to their MPA Rating!

This data wasn't even worth exploring. I'm disappointed I wasted precious time out of my life tabulating it and putting it into this article.

The numbers are so close together that ultimately this can only teach us in broad strokes that we prefer R/Not Rated films over anything PG-13 or lower, but obviously there are still tons of outliers. Are we to turn off an Invisible Sister (3.78) just because it's G-rated? Or Pieces of April (7.24) because it dares to be PG? Both Gia and Farce of the Penguins were R-Rated, so it's hardly like the rating system saved us from them. No, the one interesting datapoint here is that we've watched only one NC-17 film: Shame (0.27). So instead of wasting further breath on this failed data point, let's move along to an ever dumber one.

What can we learn from my dumb insistence on ranking films based on the decade in which they were released? First and foremost is that we are not big fans of the classics. The oldest film was The Mystery of the Leaping Fish, released in 1916, and you have to go 37 more years until you get to 1953's Roman Holiday. It makes sense why we don't watch older films since they tend to do badly, but how about that surprising negative score for the 2000's? MovieFest of course starting in 2000 so it's no wonder that's the decade with the most films to date, and when you remember that the earlier years ranked lower in our list, it might explain why the 2000's movies - which were predominantly watched in the earlier years - did so badly.

Anyway, this was a dumb category and the data basically speaks for itself. So far my iMDB experiment is a huge bust, so let's finally move on to something that wasn't.

Finally some fun data!

Before we dive into it, a disclaimer: iMDB ranks each film with up to 3 genres. In some cases, their judgment is bullshit. Because most films have multiple genre tags and a lot of overlap, the above list will include the same film in multiple genre categories. I don't actually have an issue with that, I just thought I'd mention it.

More importantly is that I really need to emphasize how wacky their genre tags are. We're putting this up because it's fun to analyze, but I think next time around I'll re-label the genres myself to be more accurate.

Sports claims the title of "Best Genre", though with only 7 films to its credit I'm tossing a big asterisk there. This is a perfect example as to why their genre tags are kinda sucky because He Got Game counts as a sports movie. Which, while sure, technically it's true, it's a far cry from Goon or Rad. Other weird outliers include both One Day in September and King of Kong, so take that "Sport" tag with a grain of salt. Still, though, you can see from these names alone why it was the leading genre, and with not a single negative film to its credit, Sport is - technically - our Best Genre.

I'm not going to go through every genre - that's tedious, and you can see the data yourself - but I'll mention a few key points. Fantasy includes all of the Lep movies, which definitely boosts its score, but it still did well for itself. Mystery being so high makes more sense when you realize that films like Palm Springs, Donnie Darko, and Kaboom were tagged as Mysteries, and the genre would plummet if they weren't included. The other weird one was Crime, which basically gets slapped on every film where a character commits a crime. Seriously: Elephant, Run, Lola, Run, and Crank were all "Crime" films. And if you're thinking "well, I mean, I guess I can kinda--" don't, because Crime also applied to Riptide, Exit Through the Gift Shop, and, get this, Happiest Season. Because being gay is illegal, I guess.

So instead of talking about these rankings, I'm going to discuss each individual person and which genres they like and dislike the most. For the sake of interesting numbers, I'm restricting it to genres that had at least 10 or more films, as otherwise "Sports" would be on the top of basically all of our lists and that's just boring.

Starting with me, Alaay, my top genre is - not surprisingly - Drama, with Mystery and Music right behind it. Music is my biggest outlier, as I'm the only attendee who has Music in positive points, though it's worth pointing out that Coffee and Cigarettes was tagged as Music, which definitely hurt its overall score. I was also above average on Romance and Family, even if they didn't make my Top 3. On the inverse, my bottom three were Crime, Horror, and Documentaries, to the shock of absolutely nobody.

TheBluePlayer was mostly in line with the group's consesus except for a few outliers (such as being a huge "Biography" fan). His top three genres were Mystery, Drama, and Adventures, in that order, with Music, Documentaries, and Horror at the bottom. Of those, he savaged the Horror genre, rating it well below the group average, though Horror in general was a weird one. It was easily the most contested genre, ranking either very high or very low of each person's individual lists, which ultimately is what put it closer to the middle. Worth mentioning that even though it didn't make his Top Three, TBP liked the Romance genre more than any other attendee.

Speaking of horror, it made Elad's top three, coming in third place behind Documentaries and Fantasy. Horror might seem an odd pick for Elad until you remember the Lep films were all labeled both Fantasy and Horror, and Elad tends to be above average where the Lep films matter. (He was, in fact, the biggest "Fantasy" fan on the survey.) He technically has the largest divergence in the rankings in the Western genre thanks to his hatred of Cat Ballou, but as there's only two Western films (that and From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter) it's not much of a stat. We've always known Elad hates Action films, so it's no surprise it's his least-favorite genre, with Romance and Documentary following close behind.

Even though I just talked about Horror being divisive, it surprisingly didn't show up on Houdini's top genres, even if he was an above-average fan. Instead he had Action, Fantasy, and Crime, in that order, and Action in particular was a big one. Houdini ranked it WAY higher than any other attendee. He was also an above-average fan of the Thriller tag. On the other end, his hated three, in order, are Music then Romance then Documentaries. He actually liked Documentaries less than any other attendee.

So far we've seen three people with Documentaries as among their least favorite, yet you'll notice it'll solidly upper-half of the overall Genre rankings. That's thanks in part to MMZ, who liked Docs far, far more than anyone else. The big boost is almost certainly from that lone Top Films vote for One Day in September, but it was enough to shoot the genre to the top of his rankings, right ahead of Drama and Mystery. His bottom three was Fantasy then Adventure then Horror. Like Elad, he was also usually quite Lep-positive, so the tanking of the Fantasy and Horror was even more striking. In fact, the Lep movies were the only Super Likes he cast for any movie that had either a Fantasy or Horror tag, with the vast, vast majority receiving Dislikes or Super Dislikes.

The Man, not surprisingly, was a huge fan of Sci-Fi. Of Sci-Fi's 33.50 point, he cast +18.37 himself, which is even more notable when you factor in that only two contestants had the genre in the negatives (MMZ at -2.18 and Houdini at -1.51), meaning he was basically half its score. He was simiarly well above average in liking Mystery and Horror to round out his top three. In the bottom, he was basically the inverse of Alaay in strongly disliking Family then Music and at the very bottom: Romance, a genre he hated more than any other contestant. Mrs The Man is a lucky woman.

As much as I talked about Crime being a nebulous, bizarre category, it somehow topped Phil's list. He was actually very close to the group's averages on most categories, so it only took some slight bumps to form his top three, which also included Documentaries and Action films. In the botton was Fantasy then Family then Horror, and in Phil's case it at least makes sense since he was much, much harder on the Lep films than any other attendee.

Any finally: Snobhunter was basically lock-step with The Man in his favorites, he just wasn't as strongly opinionated. Sci-Fi, Mystery, and Fantasy top his genres (the only divergence between he and The Man is Fantasy taking the place of Horror), and their bottom three is identical and in an identical order: Family then Music then Romance. The only points worth noting with Snobby were two that I wasn't tracking because they had fewer than ten films. Both Spots and Biographies were WAY low in his rankings, considerably farther than any other contestant, though in Sport's case he still had it slightly in the positives.

The one War movie, in case you're wondering, was Saving Private Ryan, way back in Year 1.

There were, when I did the results, way more two-time MovieFest directors than I expected. And thankfully for the sake of my HTML table, we've never had a three-time MovieFest director, so all the data gets to fit nice and easy and I don't need a pointless "Average" column that just divides by 2.

Céline Sciamma absolutely crushed the competition. Even without point scaling - which she benefited from significantly - she'd still had been the top director, albeit by a much narrower margin. Not surprising when you've got two films in the Top 20 that you'd take the Best Director award. We'll see if Sciamma's standings get challenged in the future and if her next French, probably gay flick does as well as the others.

Similar kudos to Gregg Araki, who definitely has a distinct voice. Mysterious Skin and Kaboom have a haunting quality that have made them both classics, and while Mysterious Skin's shine may have fallen off over the years, it was still high enough to give Araki a solid second place.

Some of these directors feel like cheats: the guys who directed both Crash movies, both Dead Snow movies, both Teen Beach movies, etc, though discounting them would take Tommy Wirkola off the hook for being our official Worst Director of MovieFest winner. He can thank The Man for pushing him through both times.

A lot of big name directors would up more towards the bottom in Noah Baumbach, Steven Soderberg, Chan-Wook Park, and Spike Lee, but considering a lot of their bigger, more popular movies were likely blackballed, it's not a surprise that their less famous films did much poorer, even if that both Oldboy and He Got Game were well received. Yorgos Lanthimos and Sofia Coppola were the story of two auteurs with a clear vision that was fine the first time around and bugged us the second, and we'll see if either can recover in the future.

Most interestingly of all, however, is the fact that the guy who did Goon also did Take Me Home Tonight. These are the raw, keen observations you get from me extending this survey to a comically stupid.

A few notes: first off, iMDB only counts the three top-billed stars, so these rankings aren't going to be completely accurate. It actually almost caused a huge snafu because Colin Farrel wasn't in the top three billing for Killing of the Sacred Deer, which means I initially only ranked him on In Bruges and The Lobster. With only those two films, he would have easily been our top-ranking actor, but factoring in Sacred Deer was enough to knock him off that top spot. Also worth noting that there were WAY too many actors to list them all, so instead I just put the top and bottom five.

Congrats to The Man's high school crush, Jena Malone, for taking the Best Actor of MovieFest award for the sheer dumb luck of being in two really great films. Even so, she was serviceable in both and this award is a total joke anway, so we might as well give it to a complete Hollywood nobody.

Speaking of Hollywood nobodies, who the fuck is Beck Bennett, who managed to land in third place thanks to being the non-Dennis Quaid character in Plus One? I considered taking Amy Smart off the list because it's kind of bullshit she made it #2 thanks to only being in the Crank movies, but that would have only moved Beck Bennett up even further and fuck that. For those wondering why Amy Smart made the cut and Jason Statham didn't, Statham made the poor decision of starring in The Expendables, which pulled his average down to a 2.70 (compared to Amy's much higher 6.36).

It's actually amazing how mediocre the top actors are when you look at the bottom list and see huge names like Peter Dinklage, Natalie Portman, and Scarlett Johansson, but all three of them starred in three movies and - except for Anywhere But Here - all of those movies were solidly in the negatives, so maybe make better career choices, you three. The Other Boleyn Girl and Knights of Badassdom were particularly responsible for featuring four of the bottom five actors, and Alyson Hannigan only has herself to blame for agreeing to be in the mess that was Farce of the Penguins. Better luck next time, Willow.

For those wondering, the three actors who made the most appearances are Samuel L Jackson with five films and a -3.35 average, Nicholas Cage with six films and a -3.04 average, and Warwick Davis, with six films and a 0.87 average. So big ups to Warwick Davis, who is now officially and mathematically a better actor than both Nick Cage and Samuel L Jackson. You can't argue with science.

And there we have it, folks. Another half-decade, another MovieFest survey. We'll see what other wacky, dumb statistics I throw at you next time, or if maybe I learn my goddamn lesson and trim this thing back to a length that a normal human being can be expected to read.

Probably the former.

-Alaay-