MeFi's Perfect Movie Channel

November 17, 2012 8:27 AM

Now that activity in it has ceased, can someone go through the Best Movie Channel thread and work out which movies are MeFi's favourites?

I tried to do it, but my frequency analysis skills (pasting the entire thread into Wordle) didn't work well enough. I tried doing it by hand but I got bored about a quarter of the way through and there must be an easier way of doing it.

posted by alby to MetaFilter-Related at 8:27 AM (20 comments total)

Pasting the thread into a frequency analyzer after stripping out datestamps and favorite counts gives me The Fifth Element as MeFi's favorite movie, appearing 12 times. Princess Bride is right behind it at 11, Star Wars and Dirty Dancing tie at 10, and GalaxyQuest was named 9 times.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:42 AM on November 17, 2012 [3 favorites]

Clearly if we just set The Princess Bride in the future with some dance numbers we'll have an unstoppable hit.
posted by The Whelk at 9:08 AM on November 17, 2012 [5 favorites]

Somehow, there needs to be a way to factor favorites into this.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:22 AM on November 17, 2012 [5 favorites]

Aliens, Lebowski, Dune. Stalker.
posted by laconic skeuomorph at 10:00 AM on November 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

That can't be right--I don't like that movie at all.
posted by box at 10:26 AM on November 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

consider the option that you may be a replicant.
posted by The Whelk at 10:28 AM on November 17, 2012 [2 favorites]

I'll create a GUI Interface with Visual Basic and get back to you.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 10:52 AM on November 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

I just saw The Fifth Element again in the theater this summer. If you cut the last ten minutes off, it's definitely one of my favorite movies ever.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 12:08 PM on November 17, 2012 [2 favorites]

But I like the bit where his mum talks to the president.
posted by Brocktoon at 1:11 PM on November 17, 2012 [2 favorites]

I'm throwing my hands up here, how could Big Trouble in Little China not be on that list.
posted by Brocktoon at 1:13 PM on November 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

A small point, but: they're not our favorite movies, or the ones we think are the best; they're the ones that draw us in, sometimes against our will!
posted by Greg Nog at 1:38 PM on November 17, 2012 [4 favorites]

True that, Greg Nog. I also factored in "likely to be caught showing on television."
posted by maggieb at 2:16 PM on November 17, 2012

Yeah, exactly. My list was not comprised of "favorite movies", but movies I come across on TV regularly and get sucked into. My list of favorites would be pretty different, and (don't worry, Brocktoon) would probably include Big Trouble in Little China.
posted by brundlefly at 2:36 PM on November 17, 2012

Doing "What are Metafilter's Favorite Movies?" (or music, or books...) as a formal poll might be fun.
posted by bubukaba at 2:59 PM on November 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

I find I mostly hit right with MeFi on movie love but I feel like y'all aren't as big a fan of Friday as I am.
posted by laconic skeuomorph at 4:44 PM on November 17, 2012

Song of the South?
posted by buzzman at 6:10 PM on November 17, 2012

Laconic, you are not alone in your love of Friday.
posted by roboton666 at 6:16 PM on November 17, 2012

I thought the whole point was they may or may not be favorite movies, but ones you would always watch if they were on.
posted by bongo_x at 10:44 PM on November 17, 2012

I figured it would be either JFK or Nixon, given the political leanings of the site.

Or maybe that Dr Who movie from the 80s!
posted by marienbad at 7:45 AM on November 18, 2012

Again, yeah, not favorites, but stuff that draws you in. To some extent, I see this as being a kind of sister post to all the horrible/amazing 90s music that was recently MeTa'd.
posted by maryr at 10:48 AM on November 18, 2012