Welcome to the final blog for 52 Films, 52 Portraits! At least for now and in its current form. Who knows what the future will bring. It has been such an incredible experience getting to share all of these films with the participants, as well as all of you. Thank you so much to everyone who contributed their time and energy to this blog. It has really meant a lot to me!
For this final blog, I am going to combine one of my other loves with my love of film: statistics! I have basically analyzed lots of different facts and figures from the past year and I’m going to summarize them here! I’m just gonna put it all out in sections without any real rhyme or reason as to the order. So buckle up! It’s time for some nerdy goodness!
- The first thing that we will look at is the general genre breakdown of the films that were chosen by my participants. I basically split each film into either the Comedy camp, or the Drama camp. I do realize that not every film neatly fits into one or the other, but I just made the best choices I could. In the end, these were the results:
It was interesting to see how evenly split the films were! Of the 52 films, 27 were Dramas, and 25 were Comedies.
- The next thing I want to look at is film scores. I looked at IMDB ratings, as well as both the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer and Rotten Tomatoes Audience Scores for all 52 films. I was going to just average the scores and post the top and bottom few from that, but the results ranged so much, I decided that I will post the results from each individual source as well.
- IMDB Scores
- Top 5:
- 1) The Shawshank Redemption – 9.3
- 2) The Dark Knight – 9
- 3) Pulp Fiction – 8.9
- 3) The Good, the Bad and the Ugly – 8.9
- 5) Inception – 8.8
- Bottom 5:
- 1) Eat Pray Love – 5.7
- 2) Legally Blonde – 6.2
- 3) Sister Act – 6.3
- 4) Mars Attacks! – 6.3
- 5) You’ve Got Mail – 6.6
- Top 5:
- Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer
- Top 5:
- 1) The Wizard of Oz – 99
- 2) The Princess Bride – 97
- 3) Monty Python and the Holy Grail – 97
- 3) The Good, the Bad and the Ugly – 97
- 5) Groundhog Day –-96
- Bottom 5:
- 1) I Am Sam – 34
- 2) Eat Pray Love – 36
- 3) Newsies – 39
- 4) The Holiday – 47
- 5) Mars Attacks! – 52
- Top 5:
- Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score
- Top 5:
- 1) The Shawshank Redemption – 98
- 2) The Good, the Bad and the Ugly – 97
- 3) Pulp Fiction – 96
- 4) The Princess Bride – 95
- 4) Monty Python and the Holy Grail – 95
- Bottom 5:
- 1) Eat Pray Love – 42
- 2) Mars Attacks! – 53
- 3) Sister Act – 65
- 4) Love Actually – 72
- 4) Legally Blonde – 72
- Top 5:
- Composite Score
- Top 5:
- 1) The Good, the Bad and the Ugly – 94.33
- 2) The Shawshank Redemption – 94
- 3) Pulp Fiction – 93
- 4) The Dark Knight – 92.67
- 5) Monty Python and the Holy Grail – 91.67
- Bottom 5:
- 1) Eat Pray Love – 45
- 2) Mars Attacks! – 56
- 3) The Holiday – 65.33
- 4) I Am Sam – 65.67
- 4) Newsies – 65.67
- Top 5:
- I really found a lot of these scores to be surprising, especially some of the lower ones. The films that I enjoyed the least weren’t on these lists at all. Maybe I just have different tastes than others. Who knows.
- IMDB Scores
- Another thing that I really enjoyed studying about the films was how spread out they were in terms of initial release date. In looking at these, I tried to always use the US premiere date, just to keep it even. In some cases, other dates may have been used, but it should be fairly consistent. These are the results: I love the way the films are spread out. The 1950s is the only decade since the 1930s that I didn’t have a single film representing. It is also interesting to note that the vast majority of the films came from the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. This makes a lot of sense, seeing as the majority of the participants were “90s Kids” who would have developed their tastes and chosen many of their favorite films during this time. Also of note: The oldest film on the list was The Wizard of Oz (8/25/1939) and the most recent film on the list (not counting my film from last week) was The Cabin in the Woods (4/13/2012). So, 72 years, 7 months, and 19 days passed between the release of the first film on the list and the last.
- Now let’s look at film length! There was a wide range of run-times in this project, but many were on the long side.
- Longest:
- 1) Gone With the Wind – 238 minutes
- 2) The Green Mile – 189 minutes
- 3) The Good, the Bad and the Ugly – 178 minutes
- 4) Scarface – 170 minutes
- 5) Pulp Fiction – 154 minutes
- Shortest:
- 1) Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein – 83 minutes
- 2) The Muppet Christmas Carol – 85 minutes
- 3) Mulan – 88 minutes
- 3) The Lion King – 88 minutes
- 5) Best in Show – 90 minutes
- Stats!
- Average Length: 117.8 minutes
- Sum: 6,299 minutes
- Or…
- 104.98 Hours
- 4.37 Days
- ~1.2% of my entire year was spent watching films for this project!
- Or…
- Longest:
- Film ratings! I was also interested in looking at the distribution of ratings that all of the films received. Three of the films were not assigned ratings that we use in the modern era of film (instead, their ratings were things like “Passed” and “Not rated”). For these, I used an ‘Other’ category. Also, it’s important to note that the rating system has undergone a number of changes in the last century, so these films were not all graded on the same curve. Still, it’s fun to look at! Not surprisingly, a large number of people chose films that were rated R. Still, it’s not a bad distribution!
- Next, let’s dig a little deeper into the films. I was very interested in seeing whether there were common threads in the movies chosen, so I looked at how many directors and actors were involved in multiple films on the list. I found that there were five directors that directed more than one film, and ten actors that appeared in three or more films.
- Directors:
- Rob Reiner (The only director with three films on the list!)
- A Few Good Men, The Princess Bride, and When Harry Met Sally…
- Frank Durabont
- The Green Mile and The Shawshank Redemption (Both Stephen King adaptations!)
- Baz Luhrman
- Moulin Rouge! and Strictly Ballroom
- Christopher Nolan
- The Dark Knight and Inception
- Harold Ramis
- Caddyshack and Groundhog Day (Two of my first three films for the project!)
- Rob Reiner (The only director with three films on the list!)
- Actors:
- Greg Bronson (The only actor with four films on the list! However, none of the roles were main characters)
- Almost Famous, I Am Sam, Mars Attacks!, and Thirteen Days
- Michael Caine
- The Dark Knight, Inception, and The Muppet Christmas Carol
- Billy Crudup
- Almost Famous, Eat Pray Love, and Princess Mononoke (voice)
- Jeffrey DeMunn
- The Green Mile, Newsies, and The Shawshank Redemption
- Christopher Guest
- Best in Show, A Few Good Men, and The Princess Bride
- Tim Kelleher
- The Birdcage, Inception, and Thirteen Days
- Frank Oz
- The Blues Brothers, Labyrinth (voice), and The Muppet Christmas Carol (voice)
- Meg Ryan
- Top Gun, When Harry Met Sally…, and You’ve Got Mail
- Tom Skerritt
- A River Runs Through It, Steel Magnolias, and Top Gun
- Frank Welker
- The Lion King (voice), Mars Attacks! (voice), and Mulan (voice)
- Greg Bronson (The only actor with four films on the list! However, none of the roles were main characters)
- Directors:
- As readers of this blog know, when I spoke with each participant, I asked them whether they had considered choosing any other films before they settled on one. I ended up compiling all of their answers, and finding the films that were most often named as films that participants either chose, almost chose, or wanted to choose, but they were already taken. In the end, I found that there were five films that were named at least three times. Interestingly, one of the five was not ultimately chosen by anyone.
- Named 3 times
- Casablanca
- Named by: Carrie, Lacey, and Murray
- Chosen by: None
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail
- Named by: Ashleigh, Brian, and Carrie
- Chosen by: Carrie (First) and Brian (Had to go with second choice)
- Casablanca
- Named 4 times
- The Dark Knight
- Named by: Nia, Raph, Samuel, and Wil
- Chosen by: Samuel
- The Dark Knight
- Named 5 times
- The Shawshank Redemption
- Named by: Bob, Dan, George, Lauren, and Marc
- Chosen by: Dan (First), Bob, and George (Bob and George had to go with second choices)
- The Shawshank Redemption
- Named 6 times
- The Princess Bride
- Named by: Amber, Ashley, Blair, Drew, John, and Lacey
- Chosen by: Ashley
- The Princess Bride
- Named 3 times
- I’d like to take this bullet to name the three participants who went the most above and beyond in answering all of my questions and engaging with this project. These three definitely deserve my thanks and major kudos:
- Blair – Week 41 – To Kill a Mockingbird
- Brian – Week 25 – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
- Nia – Week 34 – I Am Sam
- Next, I decided that since so many people have asked me what movies I enjoyed the most, I would put some of them down here. I decided to make separate lists for films that I enjoyed seeing for the first time the most, and films that I enjoyed rewatching through the lens of this project the most. I really enjoyed so many films in this project, and it was hard to narrow them down, but here is what I was able to get it down to (in alphabetical order):
- My Top 7 Rewatches
- Elf – I just always loved this film, and I loved getting to watch it so close to Christmas and with Chris’s thoughts in mind.
- The Holiday – I had only seen it once before, I believe, and I had forgotten how much I loved it. I just think it’s a great, feel-good film. Like a warm bowl of soup.
- To Kill a Mockingbird – Obviously, being from Alabama, this one is gonna mean something to me. And I know how much it means to Blair, so it was great watching it with her (very comprehensive) notes in mind.
- Little Miss Sunshine – I think that I just wasn’t old enough to really appreciate this one the first time around. I think I got a lot more out of it this time.
- Moulin Rouge! – Another that has always been a favorite, but it had been years since I watched it. It definitely holds up.
- Mulan – I am currently on a Disney kick, and I think watching this a little less than a year ago may have been one of the mitigating factors for that.
- The Princess Bride – Another one that I think I was too young for the first times around. I always enjoyed it, but there was so much more to enjoy this time around.
- My Top 7 First-Timers
- Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein – I just loved that this was something so different than the films I usually watch. It was so much fun and I’m so glad it was chosen.
- A Few Good Men – I had seen the play, but not the film. It was just so well done, from writing to direction to performances. And I loved watching it with Colleen.
- The Green Mile – Actually, I watched this one with Colleen, too! I was worried about this one because it’s so long, but I ended up loving it. Such a great story and so well done.
- Labyrinth – This one was just so fun. Of all the films, it might be the one that I want to rewatch the most.
- The Shawshank Redemption – Awesome, awesome story. Definitely a similar feeling to The Green Mile, but also its own thing.
- Steel Magnolias – I just liked this one, because I felt like I knew the characters. They were people I grew up with and went to church and school with. It was very relatable. But so sad!
- You’ve Got Mail – What can I say? I’m a sucker for an old-fashioned rom-com, and this one just hit the spot perfectly. So 90s. So Awesome.
- My Top 7 Rewatches
- Finally, for this last section I am just going to name the top 12 most-viewed blogs as of this posting. I think it’s pretty interesting to see which films attracted the most viewers.
- Cabin in the Woods
- To Kill a Mockingbird
- Steel Magnolias
- Almost Famous
- Pulp Fiction
- Best in Show
- A River Runs Through It
- A Clockwork Orange
- Newsies
- Eat Pray Love
- Gone With the Wind
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Okay! That’s it for 52 Films, 52 Portaits! Thanks again to everyone who participated and everyone who read along with me! I appreciate the support so much! Please leave any thoughts, comments, feelings, etc. below and let me know all about it! And please still follow the blog, because you never know what I’ll do next!
Thanks again,
Drew