Comments: Stepping Up Your Game

Chad Hoolihan

Having no affiliation with any spiritual or philosophical movements, Chad instead attempts to find meaning through watching movies.  He also enjoys  watching birds fight over food in supermarket parking lots.

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11 Responses

  1. Nathan Chase says:

    I’ve considered the conundrum many times… Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull vs. Beaches, Koyaanisqatsi vs. Explorers, The Monster Squad vs. Psycho, Primer vs. Jurassic Park, Three Kings vs. Three Amigos!… all tough and strange decisions to make.

    I agree wholeheartedly that finding the nuance of merit between films can open up some of the most peculiar recesses of the mind – of memories and observations. It’s nice to see that many are coming to the same realizations – and enjoying the process at the same time.

  2. johnmason says:

    As the guy with the most comments on Flickchart, I love this post, and it brings me around to the one thing I really wish Flickchart had: an honest-to-god discussion board. Because I love discussing some of these matchups. There are certain ones that I feel compelled to go back and check, just so I can see what someone else has added to the discussion.

    Apparently, I have a lot to say about my Flickcharting. Either that, or I’m just an obnoxious blowhard.

  3. Nathan Chase says:

    Well, one reason we don’t have a forum is we want the matchup discussions to happen in one centralized location on the site, instead of strewn amongst hundreds of forum threads.

    That being said, I think it would be a cool feature to be able to see if any matchup discussions that you’ve commented on have had new comments posted. Perhaps we can create a notification system to let you know when these new comments arrive.

    Another great idea – we’ll add it to the pile!

  4. Charlie Johnson says:

    Great article. I love the discussions and like you, I love trying to find connections between perhaps quite dissimilar films. When I’m feeling a little tired of just plain ranking films, I challenge myself to find some new connection and add a discussion.

    My other two reasons for writing comments are adding to any previously commented on match-ups if I come across them, just to add my thoughts to the debate, and if there’s an obvious connection between the films (same director or lead actor, comparing original to remake etc.)

    Now you mention it, adding a discussion to ‘get the gears in your brain working’ seems like something I should be doing more of. When I spend an hour with a comparison in the back of my mind and with the flickchart tab in Firefox waiting for a decision, writing a comment could help me speed up the process…

  5. KingofPain says:

    @johnmason
    I think that would make the site more participatory if discussions were easier to access.

    @Nathan Chase
    I’d like some kind of index that shows all the matchups that have been commented on. Like, so I could look up Soylent Green, for example, and see all the matchups with that movie that have a comment. Because there are so many possible combinations, some matchups may only occur very rarely, so no one else may ever get a chance to add more comments.

    @Charlie Johnson
    With movies that I feel roughly the same about, it does help to think of something to say for each movie in the matchup. I don’t always go for some left-field connection, but at least taking time to write something makes the decision process easier. A person should have at least one specific rationale for liking or disliking every movie, even if their reason is trivial. If I really can’t think of anything to say for a movie, I don’t rank it.

    Sometimes I comment on a matchup just because it’s an obscure combination that might not come up again. Even if I don’t have anything interesting to say, at least the matchup will be there later if I do think of something.

  6. Nathan Chase says:

    @KingOfPain
    Agreed – and it’s one of many things we plan to add to a revamp of the movie info pages so you can can see the top matchups for any given movie, or its most recently commented-on matchups. It’s coming!

  7. You’re not an obnoxious blowhard, John, but if I hear one more time about how you don’t like Pulp Fiction … ;-)

    Great post. I consider myself quite a heavy ranker, but quite a light commenter. I find it interesting to see that other people consider it an actual obligation to comment. I guess I assumed that the comments were primarily there so you could make jokes. The only time I really think to comment is when the choices are absurdly similar, like two movies in which Anne Hathaway plays a princess (Ella Enchanted vs. The Princess Diaries 2, I believe it was. And yes, I’ve seen both of them, which does not make me a bad person.) After this post I think I will step up my game a bit.

  8. Nathan Chase says:

    @Derek – you definitely should comment more – you’re the professional, after all…

  9. Oops, I just realized I said I needed to step up my game, and that’s what the story was called. I knew there was a reason I had that phrasing in my head!

    @Nathan – Challenge accepted!

  10. johnmason says:

    @Nathan: I like your suggestion, and King’s as well. Would be cool stuff! I have often wanted a way to directly access discussions for a certain movie.

    @Derek: I’ll try to restrain myself. ;)
    To be honest, I’ve been wanting to give Pulp Fiction another try, but after Inglourious Basterds failed to “wow” me (I do consider it my favorite Tarantino film, though), it just seems more and more unlikely that I’ll get back to it.

    I do suppose I should really see The Godfather, though….

  11. johnmason says:

    Oh, and I have definitely added my share of bad jokes to the comments sections….