It has been a few weeks and I have been quite slow at progressing overall. I have a few small things I want to talk about in this post though. My thoughts for this post mostly revolve around ratings and some thoughts on concentration.

Albums

I ticked off quite a few albums from my album list due to walking to work and then spending some time working from home. I have already shifted to how I think about these albums quite a bit, which I will discuss when I talk about ratings.

Some personal highlights from this stint were James Brown’s live Sex Machine album, and Bill Wither’s “Just as I Am”. There was a lot of R&B which I didn’t think was bad, just that it didn’t particularly vibe with me. Also, the talking heads album was great and I am glad I listened to the whole album (though Once in a lifetime is still my favourite song).

Fiction

I have made very little progress and this current book is definitely a marathon more than a sprint. Not a complaint of the book’s content but translated Russian is very verbose and I struggle to distinguish names. I am sure it will settle but I have struggled to get by teeth into this one.

Video Games

RDR2 continues, I am still enjoying it but I have not had much time to play it recently

Movies

The only film I have actually watched over the last two weeks is not actually on the list which seems odd but I did go to the cinema to watch Project Hail Mary.

I find space films (films set in space rather than sci-fi) to be depressing about 80% of the time. The cold, unforgiving vastness of space is a pretty strong backdrop to have for a film which wants you to root for the protagonist. A few films avoid this feeling of hopelessness while keeping tension high, the Martian is one which comes to mind.

These films also have to lean heavily on their lead too as most of the dialogue is pretty much a monologue to the camera. I feel Ryan Gosling did this incredibly well, might even be close to his best role in my eyes.

I also felt like the practical effects added to the film a lot, especially Rocky. I think a seamless relationship between CGI and practical effects works incredibly well in this film and others, and I do want more films to embrace it.

All in all, a great watch, and definitely benefited from being seen in the cinema. It was also my first rating on a newish system which I would like to spend some time discussing.

Thoughts on reviewing and “ranking” media

In my first post, I expressed concerns with ranking any media. How can you bring media down to a numerical score? Do you express it with a binary scoring, enjoyed or not enjoyed? I have thought on this for a while and as I have now watched 1 movie (albeit not on the list), I did want to give it a rating.

Rating movies

So I wanted to use letterboxd still, so I was going to use the 1-5 system. I have previously stated that no film is a 5, I am now retracting this statement. Films can be enjoyed and a 5 is indicative, to me, of being enjoyed on 2 dimensions.

So I built a sort of matrix to reflect this:

That is the fuzzy matrix I am building in my head. It is based on two dimensions, one did I enjoy it, two was is it a good film in my opinion (emphasis on the “my opinion” as I have no formal education in film-making). There is some movement between the scores, for example I believe a good film can be a 3/3.5 and I did not enjoy it. Or a film can be a 2 but I still enjoyed it. Letterboxd solves this with a “I liked this” button but I felt like that does have an effect on the score so I combined them.

Rating Albums

My list has been taken from the rolling stones magazine’s top 500 list which is in an actual order. I will not be ranking the albums. I find music even harder to rank as it is so personal. Instead, I will be listening through and identifying songs I enjoy from the albums. This is a good indication of my enjoyment of the albums. Potentially when I get to the end, I might build a personal top 10 or so, currently uncertain.

Rating Books

This one was also hard. I have temporarily introduced a star rating of 1-5 including half stars to this site to rank books. With literature, I can feel myself wanting to rank based on personal impact again. Do I think about the book post-reading etc.? I There are 150 books in this list but I would also like to write a small review of each one but we will see.

Rating Video Games

This one will almost definitely culminate in a top 10 (or more). I have seen how others have approached this problem as much as movies (IGN, etc.). One of my favourite youtubers (Grayfruit shout out) has also approached this problem, and I think I will be replicating his approach. His review spreadsheet works by assigning a rating out of 10 (including half points) and a recommended or not. Very similar to the movies in honesty so I will be using the same mechanism. As a side note, I think I will be using his “Recommend?” list as my next list of games as we have quite similar tastes.

A Brief Aside on Focus

I have been very unfocused with a few of these things and I think that is having a small impact. One, the albums are not always listened to in isolation. Sometimes, I listen to them while working or doing something which means I lose some focus with it. Interestingly, with the movie I have actually started (“Monster”), I have not managed to finish but have thought about constantly since starting it, which is almost made it more interesting to me. I am hoping an improved focus will come from undertaken this project.

What’s Next

Even though I am 1.4% through this task, I have been thinking about other things I would like to do. The one high up my list was NYT’s top 100 recipes. That seemed really fun, the other was approaching Grayfruit’s review list for his recommended games.