
PopGap #17: Movie Slot Machine v2
Written by dorrk | 30 April 2016 |
The Movie Slot Machine: 12 Random Movies, One Specific Viewer
"May has 31 days… May has 31 days... May has 31 days... May has 31 days..."
That's been my mantra since pulling up the newly re-tooled Movie Slot Machine's selections for May. Out of the 12 movies it has chosen for me to watch this month, three of them combine for a longer running time than the other nine put together. I was tempted to monkey with the results, but after April's flu-riddled, lazy final week, I figure a movie-workout might help me clean out the remaining toxins. It's certainly a compelling and provocative schedule, and evidence that my engineers have successfully fixed the Movie Slot Machine's earlier predilection for spewing out uninspiring choices.
May's Movie Slot Machine Selections
- Spellbound (1945)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock - Fish Tank (2009)
Dir.: Andrea Arnold
List: Cannes Jury Prize - Point Break (1991)
Dir.: Kathryn Bigelow
Flickcharter: Ben Shoemaker - Le bonheur (1965)
Director: Agnès Varda - The Best of Youth (2003)
Dir.: Marco Tullio Giordana
Cannes Prix Un Certain Regard - Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988)
Director: Terence Davies - A Face in the Crowd (1957)
Dir.: Elia Kazan
Actor: Lee Remick - Shoah (1985)
Dir.: Claude Lanzmann
List: Paste Magazine's 100 Best Documentaries of All Time - The Great Divide (1929)
Dir.: Reginald Barker
Actor: Dorothy Mackaill - Lifeboat (1944)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock - Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974)
Dir.: Jacques Rivette
Actor: Bulle Ogier - Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid (1973)
Dir.: Sam Peckinpah
List: Time Out: London's 50 Greatest Westerns
Here's how I changed the Movie Slot Machine prior to May's selections:
- Previously, I had four separate criteria for choosing movies: my personal watchlist of interesting movies, a crowd-sourced roster of notable actors, a crowd-sourced roster of notable directors, and a variety of curated movie lists from sources such as film festivals, awards organizations, prominent critics and other groups.
- I combined all of these previously separated criteria — as well as adding in 20 Flickcharts from last year's Peer Review project — into one long list of 230 film-filtering rules.
- I ran this one omnibus list through Random.org twelve times, each time assigning the top rule to one of the twelve slots in May's schedule.
- Once a rule was assigned to each of the 12 slots, I located the highest-ranked movie that I hadn't seen (usually according to Flickchart's global rankings, with a couple of exceptions) which fit that rule.
Here are the rules and movies that were allotted to each of May's 12 slots:
- Director: Alfred Hitchcock / Spellbound (1945) — I watched a lot of Hitchcock's classics in the late 1980s and have been slowly revisiting them. I can't recall anything about Spellbound, which is the highest ranked Hitchcock on Flickchart that's not on my own chart.
- List: Cannes Jury Prize / Fish Tank (2009), Dir.: Andrea Arnold — This movie has come up in conversation a few times recently, and made its way onto my informal Watchlist just last month.
- Flickcharter: Ben Shoemaker / Point Break (1991), Dir.: Kathryn Bigelow — Point Break is ranked #49 on Ben's chart, his highest position for a movie that I haven't seen before.
- Director: Agnès Varda / Le bonheur (1965) — Earlier this year, as part of a "movie exchange" with another Flickcharter, I watched Varda's Cleo from 5 to 7, which was very nice. I'm looking forward to see what she does with color.
- List: Cannes Prix Un Certain Regard / The Best of Youth (2003), Dir.: Marco Tullio Giordana — I had never heard of this movie prior to its selection for May. I'm surprised to find that it is six hours long, but will try not to look at it as a chore.
- Director: Terence Davies / Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988) — Davies is frequently praised by the BBC's great critic Mark Kermode. It's about time I've seen one of his movies.
- Actor: Lee Remick / A Face in the Crowd (1957), Dir.: Elia Kazan — Lee Remick is great. This is her highest ranked movie on Flickchart that I haven't seen.
- List: Paste Magazine's 100 Best Documentaries of All Time / Shoah (1985), Dir.: Claude Lanzmann — Another long one, this documentary (#2 on Paste's list behind the great Hoop Dreams), runs eight-and-a-half hours. And I hear there's not a single laugh.
- Actor: Dorothy Mackaill / The Great Divide (1929), Dir.: Reginald Barker — When I asked for help compiling my actors and directors lists, some eccentric hipster put this Silent Era starlet into the mix. This is her highest ranked movie on Flickchart. No idea what to expect.
- Director: Alfred Hitchcock / Lifeboat (1944) — Hitchcock came up twice. of all of his classic-era movies, this one sounds the least interesting to me.
- Actor: Bulle Ogier / Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974), Dir.: Jacques Rivette — I saw this once back in a college film history course. A friend of mine complained about it endlessly. It's three hours of French weirdness, but I have since become entranced by actress Bulle Ogier, so I'm looking forward to it this time.
- List: Time Out: London's 50 Greatest Westerns / Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973), Dir.: Sam Peckinpah — #2 on Time Out's list behind the great McCabe & Mrs Miller. I've seen far too little from Peckinpah, so this will scratch a needed itch.
Trailers for May's Watchlist

THE BEST MOVIES I HAVEN'T SEEN... YET!
More info
Full list of all criteria loaded into the Movie Slot Machine for May:
View Movie Selection Rules
I post reviews for all the movies on this blog, and live-tweet most viewings here:
https://twitter.com/popgap
This list is posted to Letterboxd, here:
https://letterboxd.com/dorrk/list/popgap-2016-05-movie-slot-machine/
You can keep track of my Flickchart here:
http://www.flickchart.com/Charts.aspx?user=dorrk
Movie Slot Machine Rules
- Actor: Angela Winkler
- Actor: Anna Karina
- Actor: Anne Baxter
- Actor: Anne Parillaud
- Actor: Anouk Aimée
- Actor: Bulle Ogier
- Actor: Catherine Deneuve
- Actor: Celia Johnson
- Actor: Dorothy Mackaill
- Actor: Franco Nero
- Actor: Humphrey Bogart
- Actor: Ingrid Bergman
- Actor: Irène Jacob
- Actor: Jack Hawkins
- Actor: Jean Gabin
- Actor: Jean Simmons
- Actor: Jean-Louis Trintignant
- Actor: Jeanne Crain
- Actor: Jeffrey Wright
- Actor: Lee Remick
- Actor: Mads Mikkelsen
- Actor: Margaret O'Brien
- Actor: Marie Prevost
- Actor: Marion Cotillard
- Actor: Mary Elizabeth Winstead
- Actor: Mathieu Amalric
- Actor: Max Von Sydow
- Actor: Miriam Hopkins
- Actor: Monica Vitti
- Actor: Patricia Neal
- Actor: Paul Giamatti
- Actor: Robert Ryan
- Actor: Klaus Kinksi
- Actor: Tahar Rahim
- Actor: Taraji P. Henson
- Actor: Teresa Wright
- Actor: Trevor Howard
- Actor: Ursula Andress
- Actor: Viggo Mortensen
- Actor: William Bendix
- Actor: Yasuaki Kurata
- Actor: Daniel Auteiul
- Actor: Michael Shannon
- Actor: Nastassja Kinski
- Actor: Emmanuelle Beart
- Actor: Stéphane Audran
- Actor: Setsuko Hara
- Actor: Isabella Rossellini
- Director: Abbas Kiarostami
- Director: Alfred Hitchcock
- Director: Anthony Mann
- Director: Asghar Farhadi
- Director: Bertrand Tavernier
- Director: Carol Reed
- Director: David Gordon Green
- Director: Don Siegel
- Director: Douglas Sirk
- Director: Eric Rohmer
- Director: Francois Truffaut
- Director: George Sluizer
- Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot
- Director: Hiroshi Teshigahara
- Director: Jacques Audiard
- Director: Jacques Demy
- Director: Jean-Jacques Annaund
- Director: Jean-Luc Godard
- Director: Joe Swanberg
- Director: John Hillcoat
- Director: Joseph Losey
- Director: Jules Dassin
- Director: Kinji Fukasaku
- Director: Kenji Mizoguchi
- Director: Kon Ichikawa
- Director: Leos Carax
- Director: Louis Malle
- Director: Lynn Shelton
- Director: Marcel Carné
- Director: Masaki Kobayashi
- Director: Mathieu Kassovitz
- Director: Max Ophuls
- Director: Michael Winterbottom
- Director: Mike Leigh
- Director: Mikio Naruse
- Director: Paolo Sorrentino
- Director: Ramin Bahrani
- Director: René Clément
- Director: Robert Aldrich
- Director: Robert Bresson
- Director: Roberto Rossellini
- Director: Rouben Mamoulian
- Director: Shane Meadows
- Director: Shion Sono
- Director: Takashi Miike
- Director: Takeshi Kitano
- Director: Terence Davies
- Director: Tobe Hooper
- Director: William A. Wellman
- Director: Agnès Varda
- Director: Jacques Rivette
- Director: Guy Maddin
- Director: Preson Sturges
- Director: Claude Pinoteau
- Watchlist: Random pick from Top 20
- Watchlist: Random pick from Bottom 20
- Watchlist: Random pick from Oldest 20
- Watchlist: Random pick from Newest 20
- Watchlist: Random pick
- Flickchart: 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
- Flickchart: A.V. Club's the New Cult Canon
- Flickchart: Alamo Drafthouse 100
- Flickchart: Artificial Eye
- Flickchart: BBC's 100 Greatest American Films
- Flickchart: Cahiers du cinéma: Top 10 Lists
- Flickchart: Cannes Caméra d'Or Winning
- Flickchart: Cannes Grand Prix
- Flickchart: Cannes Grand Prix du Festival International du Film
- Flickchart: Cannes Jury Prize
- Flickchart: Cannes Palme d'Or Winning
- Flickchart: Cannes Prix du scénario
- Flickchart: Cannes Prix Un Certain Regard
- Flickchart: Cannon Films
- Flickchart: Complex's 100 Best Movies of the Complex Decade
- Flickchart: Complex's 50 Indie Movies You Need to See Before You Die
- Flickchart: Criterion Eclipse
- Flickchart: David di Donatello Award for Best Film Winning
- Flickchart: Elder's Best Film You've Never Seen
- Flickchart: Elder's Film That Changed My Life
- Flickchart: Empire Magazine's 100 Best Films of World Cinema
- Flickchart: European Film Award for Best Film Nominated
- Flickchart: Facets Video
- Flickchart: Film Comment Selects
- Flickchart: French Syndicate of Cinema Critics Prix Léon Moussinac
- Flickchart: French Syndicate of Cinema Critics Prix Méliès Winning
- Flickchart: Gold Hugo Winning
- Flickchart: Golden Bear for Best Film Winning
- Flickchart: Golden Lion Winning
- Flickchart: Hammer Film Productions
- Flickchart: Independent Spirit Award for Best Film Nominated
- Flickchart: Independent Spirit Award for Best Foreign Film Nominated
- Flickchart: Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award Winning
- Flickchart: Kino International
- Flickchart: Kino Lorber Studio Classics
- Flickchart: L.A. Noire 'Golden Film Reels' Collection
- Flickchart: Leonard Maltin's 151 Best Movies You've Never Seen
- Flickchart: Little White Lies's 100 Great Movies By Female Directors
- Flickchart: London Film Critics' Circle Award for Film of the Year
- Flickchart: London Film Critics' Circle British Film of the Year Winning
- Flickchart: London Film Critics' Circle Foreign Language Film of the Year Winning
- Flickchart: Lux Prize Nominated
- Flickchart: Masters of Cinema
- Flickchart: Moscow International Film Festival Top Prize Winning
- Flickchart: National Board of Review Award for Best Film Winning
- Flickchart: National Film Registry
- Flickchart: National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Film Winning
- Flickchart: New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Film Winning
- Flickchart: Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Picture Winning
- Flickchart: Paste Magazine's 100 Best "B Movies" of All Time
- Flickchart: Paste Magazine's 100 Best Documentaries of All Time
- Flickchart: Paste Magazine's 100 Best Film Noirs of All Time
- Flickchart: Paste Magazine's 100 Best Martial Arts Movies of All Time
- Flickchart: Paste Magazine's 100 Best Silent Films of All Time
- Flickchart: Paste Magazine's 40 Best Films from the Netherlands
- Flickchart: Quentin Tarantino's Cinematic Influences
- Flickchart: RKO Pictures
- Flickchart: Roger Ebert's Great Movies
- Flickchart: Rolling Thunder Pictures
- Flickchart: Rue Morgue's 200 Alternative Horror Films You Need To See
- Flickchart: Saturn Award for Best Horror or Thriller Film Nominated
- Flickchart: Saturn Award for Best International Film Nominated
- Flickchart: Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film Nominated
- Flickchart: Screamfest Best Picture Winning
- Flickchart: Shaw Brothers Studios
- Flickchart: Shôchiku
- Flickchart: Shout! Factory
- Flickchart: Sight & Sound's Greatest Films of All Time Poll
- Flickchart: Silver Bear Jury Grand Prix Winning
- Flickchart: Slant Magazine's 'Best of the Aughts'
- Flickchart: Slant Magzine's 100 Best Films of the 1990s
- Flickchart: Slant Magzine's 100 Essential Films
- Flickchart: Sony Pictures Classics
- Flickchart: Spike Lee's Essential Film List
- Flickchart: Strand Releasing
- Flickchart: Studio Ghibli
- Flickchart: Sundance Selects
- Flickchart: TCM Underground
- Flickchart: the Cinema Guild
TL/DR
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Movie:THE BEST MOVIES I HAVEN'T SEEN... YET!
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