Dear Apple, All I want for Christmas this year...

Let me start by saying that, yes, I know Apple is a polarizing and potentially controversial company to bring up in a blog post. Additionally, full disclosure, I switched from Windows to Macs 5 years ago and my only regret is not doing it sooner. I'm officially in Apple's walled garden, I own Macs, iDevices, Apple TV's, and iTunes is my main conduit to media consumption.

So, I have a small request for Tim Cook and the other fine folks at Apple. It's the only thing on my Christmas list this year, and any and all subsequent years. Are we ready for this?

iTunes Productions Studios

That's right. I want Apple to open a new division of iTunes dedicated to the production and distribution of original media.

Why?

Why not?

• Apple's got cash reserves in excess of $150 billion sitting around doing nothing. They just bought Beats for $3 BILLION and it barely made a scratch.
• Netflix and Amaxon are getting into the original content game, Apple should keep pace.
• iTunes is already a nearly perfect and ubiquitous distribution channel. (Global reach, huge install base, user familiarity, streaming capacities, existing accounts, and so on.)
• Apple is the company that loves music and movies, and reminds us of it every chance they get. It just seems like a good fit.
• Hollywood just doesn't get it. UltraViolet is a disaster and piracy/DRM is a major issue, STILL. It'd be easier for a tech company to make movies than a movie company to make tech.
• It'd be great for consumers. In addition to Netflix, Crackle, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant and the other streaming services, imagine an iTunes Originals streaming service. More choices means more competition which means better products at lower prices.
• It'd be great for content creators. Think of all the scripts that would get optioned. Think of all the Hollywood outsiders that could break into the business if a hands-off production company funded their production and handled global digital distribution with such low overhead that it was practically guaranteed to be profitable!
• Apple tried and failed to make iTunes "social", but this would be their second chance. Take on Kickstarter by allowing iTunes users to watch pitches for movies and television series. If a user likes the pitch, they can pre-order the finished product (contingent upon it being completed) rather than simply "donating" an unspecified amount. This would allow "iProds" to evaluate market demand and better determine the appropriate budgeting of different projects. All while embracing a social atmosphere and competing with Kickstarter and other crowd funding operations.
• There's literally no overhead for Apple. iTunes already exists, it's already hugely profitable, and it requires very little in the way of future advancements. Depending on how Hollywoodlike Apple wanted to be, they could simply fund filmmakers and distribute the finished projects or operate like a traditional studio. Either way is good. A mixture of both is ideal. So, whether it's writing a check to fund a $15 million production or putting a $250 million blockbuster epic together from scratch... The money is meaningless to Apple. Remember, $150 BILLION in cash reserves. A $5 Billion entertainment division is literally a drop in the bucket.
• Because of low overhead, the margins would be high! Apple loves profit margins. It's what they do. Now, say they gave an indie filmmaker $10 million to make a movie. Then, selling the thing on iTunes for $10 means it only needs to be bought 1 million times to break even. iTunes has over 800 million accounts worldwide. So to turn out a break even indie film, 1 out of every 800 iTunes users would have to plunk down their $10. Seems doable. But they'd actually sell it for $15 or $20, so there's that. Plus revenues from rentals...
• Lastly, doesn't Apple pride itself on making the tools of choice of professional filmmakers and musicians? Logic Pro, Final Cut Pro, Mac Pros, MainStage, Motion, etc. If iProds existed it could be a showplace of all these technologies, because we'd all know that Apple software was utilized every step of the way. Apple loves cross-promotion almost as much as profit margins.

And to be perfectly clear, this all applies to all forms of media. Music, movies, television, etc. Seems to be working for Sony with their different hardware, software, and entertainment divisions.

Now, like Apple or not, this is a great idea that should be happening right now! I will say this though, Google is more than welcome to give it a shot too. It's not quite as seamless as with iTunes, but Google could definitely pull it off if they wanted to. If Apple and Google both try it, we all know that Facebook with try and fail at it too. This is all good for the industry, the consumers, and competition in general.

So that's my Christmas Wish. Don't let me down.

P.S. - If it's not too much trouble, Apple, could you also either a) displace Final Draft as the screenwriting industry standard by inventing something superior, or b) (and this is more likely) just buy Final Draft and lower the price of the software. $200 for 46 MB of code is a travesty. Plus, it'd be another feather in your iProds cap. Thanks! See you at the movies!

The Problem With Populism, Part Two

In a previous post, I discussed the IMDB Top 250 List, and why it's essentially meaningless and not a useful tool for comparing movies to each other. In short, the problem with it is populism, everyone gets a say, no matter how wrong they are about it. Additionally, films that predate the internet face a massive handicap in terms of exposure and the number of rankings they achieve. Populism is a complex, multi-faceted problem, but one way to simplify things is to simply adopt clearly defined terms for the adjudication of films, terms that put everyone on the same page. This would eliminate 100 people with 100 different favorite films from shouting at each other.

Now, perhaps I've been unfair and the IMDB list deserves to be defended. It is based on a weighted ranking system that accounts for varying numbers of votes,after all. As IMDB discloses...

The formula for calculating the Top Rated 250 Titles gives a true Bayesian estimate:

weighted rating (WR) = (v ÷ (v+m)) × R + (m ÷ (v+m)) × C
Where:
R = average for the movie (mean) = (Rating)
v = number of votes for the movie = (votes)
m = minimum votes required to be listed in the Top 250 (currently 25000)
C = the mean vote across the whole report (currently 7.0)
For the Top 250, only votes from regular voters are considered.

So let's compare the math between The Shawshank Redemption (#1, 9.3/10) and Citizen Kane (#63, 8.5/10).

So, this isn't a math blog, but I did do all the calculations, per IMDB's disclosure, and my result was not 9.3, but rather 9.06 (-0.24).

Likewise, for Citizen Kane (the most frequently cited "best film ever made"), the result, factoring for 233,777 votes - less than 1/5 of the votes of Shawshank - was not 8.5 but rather 8.08 (-0.42). So both movies dropped, but the movie with significantly fewer votes dropped more. I'm intrigued. Let's look at another set of movies with a similar disparity.

The Dark Knight is #4 on the list, with a 9.0 rating and the second highest number of votes. Do the math and the 9.0 rating falls to 8.86 (-0.14). That's not much of a drop.

The Third Man though, #98 with an 8.4 rating has only managed to get 88,061 votes. The math shows a weighted average of 8.01, a drop of 0.39 points.

I think I'm seeing a trend here. But why? Is it a conspiracy? Not really. The idea is just that the fewer votes a film has, the closer it gets pushed toward the report mean, in this case, 7.0. The more votes a film gets, the closer the weighted average gets pushed toward the actual mean rating for that particular movie. For The Dark Knight the mean rating is 8.9.

What does it all mean? Well, it comes back around to the fact that populism is inherently unfair and is no way to decide the merits of art or commercial products, let alone things that are in fact a combination of both of those things. Just for fun, I scaled The Third Man to see what would happen if it had the same number of votes as Shawshank (while maintaining the same proportional distribution) and the equation works out to 8.23 instead of 8.01. That's a hefty difference when the only thing that changed is the volume of votes.

This is all rather pointless though. If you've been paying attention you'll have noted that none of the results I've gotten have matched the stated average ratings. There's a problem somewhere, and IMDB is aware of it. They put it there.

IMDb publishes weighted vote averages rather than raw data averages. Various filters are applied to the raw data in order to eliminate and reduce attempts at 'vote stuffing' by individuals more interested in changing the current rating of a movie than giving their true opinion of it. The exact methods we use will not be disclosed. This should ensure that the policy remains effective. The result is a more accurate vote average.

So they basically just hide the way they actually figure the ratings out. Lest you think I'm just making this up, CLICK HERE.

This is all so very Don Quixote of me, I'm well aware. My quixotic screaming into the internet demanding justice for old movies is just a modern way of tipping at windmills. I won't get IMDB to change anything. But, maybe, just maybe, I can get more people to watch and then rate these old movies and restore their glory that way. Or, on a much less ambitious note, perhaps I can just get a few kids to realize the difference between popularity and merit, and understand that the IMDB Top 250 List is deeply flawed and shouldn't be taken too seriously. I'm willing to settle for that.

My Favorite Super-cut

Just a real quick post to share with all of you one of my favorite super-cuts. There are supposedly over 1,200 different films featured in this 10 minute video...

I took that as a challenge. After watching it multiple times, for all intents and purposes frame by frame, I've been able to positively identify 310 different movies. It's harder than it seems.

I regret nothing. Enjoy!

NSFW- LANGUAGE, CENSORED NUDITY AND BLOOD/GORE

MAYBE SPOILERS, TOO... A LOT HAPPENS QUICKLY

The Problem With Populism, Part One

I love rankings and lists... Usually. The one list that I really can't stand is the IMDB Top 250, because it's such a ridiculous case of populism trumping merit. For those that aren't aware, just because a movie set a box office record doesn't mean that it was the best movie ever made. It just means that it had the most appeal. Think of the movies as potential dates. There are some that are extremely attractive, just sexy beyond belief. Those are the summer tent-poles. Now, while it's not impossible for a summer blockbuster to be great (Jaws, Star Wars, Inception, etc.), the odds are pretty good that the sexy package is going to be lacking something, and more often than not, they lack brains or some other merit. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with dumb popcorn flicks. But they shouldn't be ranked among the the best films ever made. That's what makes the IMDB Top 250 so infuriating.

The medium of film has been around for nearly 120 years. 120 years, let that sink in. Before there was a Ford Model T, there was film. Before the world population reached 2 Billion, there was film. Before 240-some-odd wars could be fought, there was film. So why is it that on the IMDB Top 250 list, 126 (of the 250) films were released in the past 25 years? Were the first 95 years of filmmaking just a warm up for this explosion of groundbreaking work that many of us have seen within our own lifetimes? NO. It wasn't. The problem with the IMDB Top 250 list is that it depends on the people, the uneducated, ill informed masses to rate movies with no pre-qualifications. Anyone can rate The Dark Knight Rises (#50, 8.5/10) an 8 or 9, without ever having seen Sunset Blvd. (#41, 8.5/10) which is, when judged on its artistic (not commercial) merits, a vastly superior film.

I hate saying this, but TDKR was terrible. I paid my $20 to own it, I've watched it dozens of times, I love the trilogy, I love Christopher Nolan... But TDKR was a pile of garbage. Was it slick? Sure. Did it have star power? Yep. Was it riding a wave of anticipation? Of course. Was it a good movie? NO! It's just the truth. TDKR shouldn't be rated any higher than 7.5 for no other reason than the massive plot holes. That would remove it from the Top 250 list entirely, which would be great. It just doesn't deserve to be there. But because it has the 11th most ratings (because practically everyone has seen it) and most people aren't qualified to judge the merits of films, there it is, at #50 on the list. (Speaking of number of ratings, there are only 3 films in the top 50 most rated that were released before Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope in 1977. Those three films are the Godfather, The Godfather Part II, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. All released in the 70's. That means that not a single film from the first HALF of the film age ranks in the Top 50 when it comes to number of ratings. But I digress... ) TDKR is ranked higher than 77 of the films on the AFI's 100 Years, 100 Movies Tenth Anniversary List, which only includes American productions. Do we really want to say that TDKR is the 24th best American film ever made? Is that okay with you? Because it makes me nauseous.

So, I've identified a problem, but what's the solution? Well, for starters, we need to agree on the different ways of comparing films (and other commercial/artistic endeavors). The IMDB list, in its populist glory, should bear very little actual consideration. Box Office returns are the industry standard for measuring the popularity of films. How many butts ended up in the seats? That's what matters to the studios and the bean counters therein. Given my own predilection for the old and dusty things in life, I'm especially fond of accounting for the Box Office Grosses when adjusted for inflation. Once inflation is taken into account, a little old 3 hour 40 minute long Civil War epic from 1939 sits at #1 all time, with more than a half a billion dollar cushion between itself and Avatar at #2. That's right, commercially, Gone With the Wind and Avatar put the most butts in seats and earned the biggest (relative) box office grosses. That's a fact, there's no debating it. On the flip side though, what is there to say about the artistry of these films?

Gone With the Wind is seemingly a lock in the top ten of any list to be made (except the IMDB Top 250 where it's #155!) because of its iconic status, enormous legacy, and let's not forget the 13 Oscar nominations and 8 wins.

Avatar on the other hand, is not as beloved. It won't have a profound legacy in 70 years. It's a rehashed story full of tropes and verges on the unoriginal at times. It was nominated for 9 Oscars, but only won 3. It was a tremendously important film from a technical standpoint though, as James Cameron pushed the technological envelope to the max in making it, and those breakthroughs will pervade Hollywood forever.

Two epic movies. Two massively popular movies. One reliant on grandeur and old Hollywood glitz and glamour, the other created virtually around actors in an empty soundstage. The art of filmmaking and storytelling and the art of technological achievement, side by side. This is an apples to oranges comparison.

A lack of any defined parameters for the measuring of a thing's goodness is the single biggest problem with populism.

Class is in Session

Welcome, everyone, to The Internet School of Pop Culture for Millennials and Hipsters!

This will be my forum to encourage younger generations, and the hipsters that just can't be bothered, to experience the pop culture of decades and eras gone by. "Why is this worth doing?", you may ask. Well, I believe that, for the most part, the current pop culture offerings are vastly inferior and we are all being ripped off every single time we visit a cinema or sit down in front of the television. All is not lost though, there are bright spots, that I will champion.

As evidence that we live in a bleak and dismal pop culture vacuum, as I'm writing this entry, the daily Google Trends ranking features "Jon Snow" (#4) from "Game of Thrones", Rik Mayall (#2) of Drop Dead Fred fame, dead at 56, and Carole King (#6) who performed at the Tony Awards over the weekend. The top spot belongs to the E3 Conference, which, while not outside of the purview of this blog, represents what I'd consider to be a very niche segment of pop culture.

These are dire times. The Geico Gecko commercials are more entertaining than many entire television series. The Marvel Cinematic Universe (which I love) is going to be the juggernaut that eventually cripples Hollywood because it's just easier to make all the money on two or three big movies a year instead of making hundreds of small movies a year like they used to. Between constant touring to remain in the collective consciousness, and the preponderance of EP's and singles, bands will no longer be bands in the traditional sense. There won't be many more great albums, except those made by artists who revere the history of music and eschew the business of music.

My thoughts and opinions will be varied, sometimes extreme and iconoclastic, sometimes wishful, and other times I'll sound like a corporate shill. They will all be my honest thoughts on a variety of matters though.