John Seavey’s first attempt to try and instill a true nerd/geek/whatever film canon was a good idea, but suffered from obvious operational flaws: namely, the ability of people to add and veto in unlimited amounts. The first is problematic because it means people will add things of which they have fond memories but which aren’t really all-time favorites. The second is problematic because of the jerk factor and because it means people can dismiss films with no cost, which is sort of the opposite of “consensus,” because a consensus usually involves a degree of compromise in the agreement.
Thus, a suggestion. Start the Geek Consensus list over from scratch, but this time, the rules are simple: you can add up to three movies and veto up to two, with no blanket vetoes like “all Pixar films.” (And you can save adds or vetos for a second post if you’re of the “this list will not have Sex and the City 2 on it” variety, with which I can sympathize.) This means that the consensus list will gradually grow, but only films to which people have a serious objection on an individual basis will be removed. I think this removes most of the problems with the first experiment.
Thus, I kick it off with:
Back To The Future
Big Trouble In Little China
Zulu
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I add:
Army of Darkness
WALL-E
The Matrix
Add:
The Lion in Winter*
The Fifth Element
Princess Mononoke
Veto:
Nothing at this point
* – the Peter O’Toole/Katherine Hepburn 1968 version, not the abomination from a couple years ago. My all-time favorite movie.
I add:
– Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade
– The Princess Bride
And save my last add.
(PS: Very happy to see Back to the Future there. Hope no one vetoes it)
Add: Some Like it Hot
Ghostbusters
Spinal Tap
Oh, come on: SPACEBALLS!
Add: Blazing Saddles
Okay, see, this seems like it’s improving, but I think the problem is that there is veto power in only one person. That means if one person doesn’t like a film that everyone else does, it’s still gone.
I think to truly fix this, you should make it a point that a film will be removed after like, five vetoes or something, to fix this problem.
Which was the whole point of the original thread: to find films that everyone can agree on.
Add:
The Incredibles
(saving two adds, two vetoes)
The thing I find interesting about this process is that vetoes are irreversible. On the one hand, great, because it prevents endless futile wrangling trying to overturn individual decisions. On the other, not so great, because it takes only one vote to kill a movie’s chances forever. And that makes me loath to add a movie I really love, because doing so early on will expose it to the maximum number of unused vetoes.
The list will have to grow, due to MGK’s rebalancing of the add/veto ratio. I wonder if what we’ll end up with is a pile of so-so movies added by the last people to show, while all of us early users have used up our vetoes earlier on in the process.
Add
The Silence of the Lambs
Iron Giant
Alien
Well, I see more problems:
1. Saving veto for later. Once a movie has been nominated by a bunch of people, one person gets to jerk-snipe it. And when vetoes are used up, nominations can one with impunity. It becomes about timing, and not consensus.
2. Solo veto. This becomes about unanimity and not consensus.
3. Jerkiness. Some people don’t care about consensus; they want to grief. Anonymous forums are subject to trolling. And we can’t control a troll.
Can I get a ruling on the count for Three/Four Musketeers (the Salkind’s version from the 70’s) which was filmed as a single movie, then split into 2?
And I’ll add Buckaroo Banzai
Matt: well the nature of compromise and consensus is that no one gets what they want.
Add: Once Upon A Time in the West
Save: two adds & two vetoes for later
I like that I don’t have to add my more mainstream favourites, since someone else will do that.
I add:
Transformers: The Movie (1986)
Zombieland
Saving the last add.
I veto:
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (terrible movie, a waste of Sean Connery, a clear cash grab. The last good Indy film was Temple of Doom)
Saving the last veto.
Add:
The dark crystal
Blade Runner
Jurassic park
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead
Naked
The above is an add by the way
veto
Starship troupers
I’ll add Amelie and Melody and One, Two, Three yet again, and pray that they don’t get instantly vetoed.
This is supposed to be films you can watch over and over without getting bored with them, and these are among the few that work for me.
-I would like to add Empire Strikes Back.
(Really, no one has added any from The Trilogy yet? I thought if there was any universal geek movies, the original Trilogy would be it.)
-I would also like to add the original Matrix.
I am saving my vetos, probably wont bother, but consider this, if you have young children, or a roommate who does, or a best friend who does, how taxing it gets to watch the same animated (Pixar/Dreamworks) movies every. single. day. for a week. or a month. or whenever you allow your kid/kids to pick the movie to watch without constantly overriding them and feeling like a heartless bastard every time you do.
And then I learned to read and someone nominated The Matrix already. So nevermind that.
I was about to point that out about Star Wars, uberwookie.
add: Monty Python and the Holy Grail
I purposely left out Star Wars in order to nominate it later, should the rest of you forget to do so. And once the whole original trilogy is up, I can add something less well known.
Also, why did peter lawn veto Starship Troopers when no one nominated it?
I guess you can pre-emptively veto something, which makes a certain amount of sense…
I nominate Shaun of the Dead, The Prestige, and Little Shop of Horrors (Rick Moranis version).
Holding my vetos. I may not use them.
Add:
Star Wars
Galaxy Quest
Veto:
Zulu
Life of Brian
The Big Lebowski
Yojimbo
Oops, those are adds
add Local Hero
Another issue is the whole issue of director’s cuts and whatnot. For example, I’d totally veto the version of Blade Runner I saw, but I’m told there’s a better cut out there (I saw the Director’s Cut, but not the Definitive Cut or whatever the Official Ridley Scott Approved ™ version is called) Another example is DareDevil, a film that sucked in cinema but was quite good in the Director’s Cut. So do we specify what version we’re using in cases like that?
The Thing
They Live
Add:Phantasm
Abominable Doctor Phibes
The Howling
Veto: Spaceballs
Transformers: The Movie (1986)
Be interesting to see if this works.( I’d assume that, while voting for a movie is voting for a SPECIFIC movie- LOTR fans would have to vote for each individual film in the trilogy, for example- that there would be no allowance for different EDITS of that film- APOCALYPSE NOW and APOCALYPSE NOW REDUX, despite the name change and re-editing, are counted as the same film. Have I got that right?)
Add:
Brotherhood of the Wolf
Baxter (1989)
The Fall
Veto:
Amélie
Reserving one veto for a specific movie, but if I pre-emptively veto that movie, then someone who likes that sort of movie doesn’t have to add THAT movie, and instead gets to add a similar movie that I’m likely to like even worse.
I would recommend NOT vetoing a movie because you’ve seen it too many times — it’s not the movie’s fault you’ve over-viewed it. If you really enjoyed it the FIRST time through, then it’s a good movie, even if the thousandth viewing was a bit repetitive.
ADD:
Arsenic and Old Lace
Current standings:
The Abominable Dr. Phibes
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
Alien
Army of Darkness
Back to the Future
Baxter (1989)
The Big Lebowski
Big Trouble in Little China
Blade Runner
Blazing Saddles
Brotherhood of the Wolf
The Dark Crystal
The Empire Strikes Back
The Fall
The Fifth Element
Galaxy Quest
Ghostbusters
The Howling
The Incredibles
The Iron Giant
Jurassic Park
Life of Brian
The Lion in Winter (1968)
Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
Local Hero
The Matrix
Melody
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Naked
Once Upon a Time in the West
One, Two, Three
Phantasm
The Prestige
The Princess Bride
Princess Mononoke
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
Shaun of the Dead
Silence of the Lambs
Some Like it Hot
Star Wars
They Live
The Thing
This is Spinal Tap
WALL-E
Yojimbo
Zombieland
Vetoed:
Amélie
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Spaceballs
Starship Troopers
Transformers: The Movie (1986)
Zulu
Of course, this is entirely antithetical to the spirit of the original post, since the original post was all about finding at least one movie that everyone found awesome, loved, and would watch at any time. This exercise, on the other hand, is about finding, given n people, at least n movies which they like at least slightly more than at most 2n other movies. We’re already seeing that “I’m saving my vetoes” is likely to reduce the actual number of vetoes well below 2n, since some people are bound to either forget to come back to exercise vetoes, or indefinitely save their vetoes just in case someone staggers in one day and adds Electrocuting an Elephant.
Add: Aliens, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Dawn of the Dead(Romero’s version)
No vetos
Am glad to see I am not the only James Cagney fan here.
Veto: The Matrix. HATE. IT. SO. MUCH.
Add: Tombstone
Lilo & Stitch
The Fellowship of the Ring
Add The Dark Knight
Add City of God
Add Maria Full of Grace
Veto Princess Mononoke
Veto Buckaroo Banzai
Just looked up Electrocuting an Elephant, and two things come to mind. One, Edison was a dick. Two, apparently they were originally going to HANG the elephant. Somebody explain how the hell that is even possible.
Add: Up. 2 adds left.
Veto: The Princess Bride. 1 veto left.
Add: Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
Veto: Galaxy Quest
A long rope? And presumably a crane of some sort.
I tend to agree about the one strike veto. The previous attempt showed how the whole thing can get subverted by a jerk with an agenda that’s more about film snobbery than film enjoyment. Admittedly now they can’t cause widespread damage, but they could still take out obvious favourites simply because they are obvious favourites.
Add Bride of Frankenstein
Singin’ in the Rain
I’ll try and think of something less than fifty years old for my third.
@Diego Ibarra – The Princess Bride?
Most movies I could see why some might love and others might not, but that’s one of the very few I can’t understand why anyone could hate, so I’d be interested to know why you vetoed it.
@Trevel – There are a number of movies that only really work the first time. Particularly those with twist endings, or in some cases, twists all the way through.
There was one movie I remember loving the first time I saw it, and was quite surprised how meh I felt about it when I saw it again a year later.
And then there are other movies that don’t seem that special the first time, but with each rewatch you find more and more to like in them.
Add: Chungking Express
Hard-Boiled
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Veto: The Dark Knight
Star Wars
Add: It’s A Wonderful Life
Add: Little Miss Sunshine
Add: Before Sunrise/Before Sunset
Veto: Army of Darkness
Veto: Back to the Future
Using my vetos: Once Upon a Time in the West
Fellowship of the Ring
Isn’t that the point? The whole exercise is to achieve some mythical “geek consensus”–that is, stuff every geek (in the given set, i.e., geeks who read this blog and care about this game) likes. If any one person hates, say, Big Trouble in Little China, then it’s not an “obvious” favorite by the predetermined conditions. The given sample includes film snobs who hate Pixar or jerks who have axes to grind, because, spoiler alert, snobs and jerks are often huge geeks.
That’s why this is stupid, because the actual goal here is “Let’s make a list of awesome shit that everybody likes, and let’s make sure Big Trouble in Little China is on it because that’s awesome and everyone should like it.” And since it’s impossible to get everyone to like Big Trouble in Little China, “everyone” is replaced with “geeks,” where “geeks” actually means “just people who know Big Trouble in Little China is awesome.” I’m just using that one as an example, but let’s face it; if that or a dozen other “obvious favorites” aren’t on the final list, the list will be rejected as invalid by the people who made it, which isn’t exactly “consensus.”
Add: Zoolander
Add: Dr. Strangelove
Add: Ronin
reserving vetoes — so far there’s noting on the list I absolutely wouldn’t watch again =)
Add:
Highlander
The Untouchables
L.A. Confidential
Veto:
Zoolander
Add: Memento (2000)
Add: Dark City (1998)
Add: The Third Man (1949)
Veto: Zoolander
Reserving the other veto.
Adds:
The Blues Brothers
The Shawshank Redemption
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
@uberwookie: as someone who’s watched Sleeping Beauty waaaaaay more times than I care to admit, due to my 2.5-year-old daughter, I can honestly say that I can sit through it again and again and again and again…
No vetos yet. There are a few things that I’m not familiar with, but nothing so far that makes me say, Oh HELL no.
Spartakos ninja’d me, so I reserve both vetoes.
Add:
Spider-Man 2
Die Hard
Plan 9 From Outer Space (Well made? Of course not, but I defy you to name a more *entertaining* movie)
Veto:
It’s A Wonderful Life
The Untouchables (I assume you mean the DePalma one?)
Add: Judgment at Nuremburg and Batman Returns, the latter purely for the scene where Batman dodges the rocket penguins and gives a little look behind that says “This is my life? Dodging rocket penguins?”
Additions:
A Fistful of Dollars
For a Few Dollars More
(Saving last add for later)
Vetoes:
(Saving them for later)
Add:
Jaws
The Monster Squad
Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
Veto:
Memento
Silence of the Lambs
Add: Batman (Adam West version)
I see people reserving vetoes; I thought we were obligated to veto any film we see on the list that we don’t find “awesome”?
I nominate:
Blade Runner
The Three Musketeers/Four Musketeers (seventies version starring Charton Heston, Christopher lee, Raquel Welch, Olvier Reed, Richard Chaimberlain, Michael York, Frank Finlay and finally Faye Dunaway as Milady)
Veto:
Little Miss Sunshine
Spaceballs (over rated)
I just want to say that I was finally able to watch The Lion In Winter (’68 version) without interruption and it is a stunning movie
I agree with everyone who says that one veto really shouldn’t be enough to knock something out.
If for no other reason than I want to veto the Princess Bride, but someone else already did. A sad, sad day. I hate that movie. I also hate Big Trouble in Little China, but people don’t quote the damned thing so I won’t veto it.
Add:
Moon
The Nightmare Before Christmas
South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut
Veto:
The Princess Bride — I don’t care if it has been vetoed already, I’m vetoing it again. In fact, I’m vetoing it again TWICE!
@Marionette: While I don’t hate it as vehemently as Gustopher does, I just never really got why The Princess Bride is as well-loved as it is. I was easily in the target audience when it came out, and just thought it was a smug, self-congratulating piece of business even then.
I was a weird kid, sure.
And speaking of films that disappointed my younger self, let’s kill Batman Returns with my second veto, shall we?
Add:
The A-Team
Veto:
Perfume: The Story of A Murderer
Also, I am part of the cultural camp that opposes the creation of a “canon.” By nature creating a “canon” list is exclusionary and sets up an unfair standard of evaluation.
Also, sometimes people like things that are complete and utter shit. Like anything written by Ernest Hemingway.
ADD:
Oldboy
Seven Samurai
Metropolis (2001)
VETO:
The Fifth Element (intermittently painful to watch)
This is Spinal Tap (seriously overrated)
Add: Fight Club
Veto: Unbreakable (I’m doing it preemptively. That terrible movie shows up on WAY too many “best of” lists in the comic community and I won’t have it here)
Saving two additions and one veto.
Add: Happy-Go-Lucky
Add: In a Lonely Place
Add: The Seven Samurai
Veto: The Empire Strikes Back
Veto: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
I guess I was late to the Seven Samurai party, so I’ll replace that with Pickup on South Street.
Useless. When the Princess Bride and Empire Strikes Back get vetoed off the list, the list is useless. It’s not just those particular movies, it’s that one person can veto a great movie. I will not nominate any movies, nor veto ones because I don’t think this works at all.
This is not consensus, it’s an attempt at unanimity and it is fatally flawed. For me, it is no fun at all.
ADD: Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Project X, Grand Canyon
VETO: The Lion King, Deliverance
Yeah, I gotta say… I’m not sure consensus is really possible here once you get above a certain sample size, depending on how you define ‘consensus.’ I’m sort of not clear on what the goal is.
If the goal is ‘generate a list such that ANY choice on it is considered an entertaining choice by N sized group’ then that’s flat-out an impossibility. Once N gets to be a certain size, even if N is group with a broadly shared cultural or social context, no matter WHAT you pick off the list, someone is going to say ‘THAT piece of shit?’ which means an automatic markdown, not because they’re a snob but because they genuinely won’t be entertained by it. Consensus is impossible.
But!
It is probably possible to create a list that has movies such that every person in N sized group with a broadly shared cultural and social context can find at least ONE that they’d watch and be entertained by. Showing that list to anyone in the group N ought to get the response ‘Oh, man, there’s some absolute howlers in here, but yeah, most of these are awesome, I’d totally watch them.’ In the sense of ‘this is a generally good list’ consensus becomes a lot MORE possible.
There are other possibilities. If you’re trying to get a consensus ‘What should we show this group of people?’ choice you can probably generate that as well even from people who might hate the final choice (‘Well, I personally think Empire Strikes Back is only useful if you’re trying to torture someone Clockwork Orange style, but every other nerd in the world seems to love it, so I’ll sign on for showing that to this random sampling of nerds.’) because that’s something that doesn’t depend on an immutable quality such as ‘I like this’ or ‘I don’t like that’ that is tagged to only one person.
I’d also point out that consensus-building usually involves give and take. This list-building exercise would probably be a LOT more useful if that even if someone says ‘no’ to something you can come back and change them to a ‘yes’ or a ‘no, BUT’ response with a counteroffer, such as ‘okay, I’ll drop my veto of Big Trouble if YOU drop YOUR veto of Princess Bride.’ That won’t get us to ‘We all like everything on this list’ but might get us to a FORM of consensus.
Veto:
The A-Team
Fight Club
It’s the cloying smugness of “The Princess Bride” that really gets to me.
I’ll acknowledge that there are a lot of movies in the traditional geek canon that I just don’t like, but while I am willing to watch “Blade Runner” (so long as you don’t wake me… I’ve seen the beginning dozens of times), “The Princess Bride” goes past boring into annoying.
the first time and now again, my picks have been vetoed. so terribly sad now. and angry.
so sangry.
One potential solution would be to allow the use of a veto to undo another person’s veto. This would allow extremely minority opinions to potentially be drowned out, while if the movie truly has many detractors it would remain vetoed indefinitely.
I despise The Princess Bride. I like the part where Wesley is able to defeat his three opponents but beyond that the movie begins to truly suck for me. And watching Billy Crystal and Carol Kane is like listening to nails across a chalk board for me.
Empire Strikes Back is off the list?! Say it ain’t so!
Wow. I’m honestly surprised that The Princess Bride should inspire such dislike. It’s not without its faults, but I’ve always considered it a film anyone could enjoy.
This is an worthwhile experiment, and has produced some interesting data, but I fear it is ultimately flawed, and no amount of tinkering with the rules will fix it. I’m not saying geek consensus is impossible, I just don’t think you can find it this way.
Add: Rio Bravo
Regarding the pain of Great Films Being Vetoed, isn’t that the point of this exercise:
Is there a film, or list of films that MGK readers can agree on?
The answer could be “No!”
I saw enough of my favorite films get rapid (and repeated) vetoes in the last go-round, that I recognize** my tastes may fall outside the consensus. As such, I wouldn’t bother adding something like “Urgh! A Music War.”
*substitute “movie” and “movies” if it makes you more comfortable
**as if I didn’t recognize it before!
I’ll save my additions for later, but I’ll veto Nightmare 3 and They Live just now.
I find myself equally wondering if some of my favorites that are popular won’t be added by others. Ah well, I’ll go with less popular (possibly non-geeky) films and see what happens.
Add:
10 Things I Hate About You
Sanjuro
Densha Otoko
Veto:
Nada yet
I doubt I’ll pitch in this time (since someone already vetoed It’s A Wonderful Life, anyway). I know that my own sensibilities are a little skewed beyond the standard range.
If I set it up, I’d replace nomination and veto with +1 and -1 options. Each movie mentioned would have a floating value, and anyone could throw out one Yea or Nae on it. A positive value stays, and a negative value goes. At least until it’s value comes back up.
Add:
Gojira
Brazil
Donnie Darko (yeah, somebody is gonna veto it, but I’m gonna make them use their veto)
Veto:
Dark City
Brotherhood of the Wolf (I was going to veto this turdball of a movie even before I saw it was added by the guy who vetoed Amelie.)
The longer I hold my votes and vetoes, the more power they have. The longer I hold them off, the greater the chance that my preferences will make the final list.
Ambrael’s upcount / downcount probably works the best over a large population.
Sorry, just to add: negative / downcounted titles shouldn’t be taken off the list, just ranked down. If all you are trying to do is arrive at a populist top ten, just because the first 10 people hated (say) “Starship Troopers” doesn’t mean the next 95 didn’t love it.
Unlikely, but there you go. 🙂
I think what we’re going to end up with here is a list of really second-tier films that one person loves and nobody hates enough to use a veto on.
(With, as others have noted, increased weight on the latest opinions.)
I’m with Ambrael and Unsub. Let’s try the ranking based list next weekend.
Can you hook us up next Friday, MGK?
Im adding:
The Matador
Howl’s Moving Castle
No vetoes yet, and keeping an add for later.
The Fox and the Hound
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Who would get stuck doing the math on the floating values method? Because, sure, it might be the best method, but it also sounds like the most work.
Add DEBS, Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter, Strange Days.
Veto 10 Things I Hate About You
One veto reserved.
Add: Nosferatu (1927)
Veto: nothing yet, but please kill whoever vetoed the original Star Wars movies.
Wow, some of you guys are taking this way too seriously. God forbid one person out of a hundred hates a Star Wars movie or The Princess Bride, right? And that’s coming from someone who likes Princess Bride.
Dayv: I wondered that myself, but when I look at some of the films that no one has vetoed yet, there’s some all-time classics there. I keep seeing Kurosawa, for one. Are there going to be some bland, inoffensive films? Sure. But I think a lot of great stuff’s going to make the cut.
Add: Manos: The Hands of Fate
Shotgun Stories
Tokyo Story
Veto: Fight Club
Spider-Man 2
Hell, did someone get to Fight Club before me? Alright, switch out that veto with Donnie Darko (sorry Dayv, I love that you added Gojira, though!).
Add: Return of the Jedi
I fully expect it to be vetoed, but I really like the 3 way action scene that makes up the last third to half of the movie.
Add:
Scorpian King
Veto:
I’d use my vetos but it’s hard to keep track of what has and hasn’t been vetoed at this point. @_@
There should be some sort of veto dispute that makes it so if enough (let’s say 5-10) people veto a veto, the movie is re-added to the list. That way trolling would be mostly eliminated. Simple.
Sorry for double post, but I use my first veto on Scorpion King. That movie is awful to the nth degree.
I knew from the beginning that whatever the intent behind this experiment, it would turn into an exercise in game theory.
Add
The Cowboys
The Sandlot
Snakes on a Plane
Veto
In a Lonely Place
Happy-Go-Lucky
(Sorry, but you shouldn’t have vetoed Empire. Isn’t game theory fun?)
Here we go again with a summary, apologies if I missed anything:
The Abominable Dr. Phibes
Alien
Aliens
Arsenic and Old Lace
Batman (1966)
Baxter (1989)
Before Sunrise/Before Sunset
The Big Lebowski
Big Trouble in Little China
Blade Runner
Blazing Saddles
The Blues Brothers
Brazil
Bride of Frankenstein
City of God
Chungking Express
The Cowboys
The Dark Crystal
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
DEBS
Densha Otoko
Die Hard
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
The Fall
A Fistful of Dollars
For a Few Dollars More
The Fox and the Hound
Ghostbusters
Gojira (1954)
Grand Canyon
Hard-Boiled
Highlander
Howl’s Moving Castle
The Howling
The Incredibles
The Iron Giant
Jaws
Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter
Judgment at Nuremburg
Jurassic Park
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
L.A. Confidential
Life of Brian
Lilo & Stitch
The Lion in Winter (1968)
Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
Local Hero
Manos: The Hands of Fate
Maria Full of Grace
The Matador
Melody
Metropolis (2001)
The Monster Squad
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Moon
Naked
Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Nosferatu (1927)
Oldboy
One, Two, Three
Phantasm
Pickup on South Street
Plan 9 From Outer Space
The Prestige
Project X
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Return of the Jedi
Rio Bravo
Ronin
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
The Sandlot
Sanjuro
The Seven Samurai
Shaun of the Dead
The Shawshank Redemption
Shotgun Stories
Singin’ in the Rain
Snakes on a Plane
Some Like it Hot
South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut
Strange Days
The Thing
The Third Man
The Three Musketeers (1973)
Tokyo Story
Tombstone
Up
WALL-E
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
Yojimbo
Zombieland
Vetoed:
10 Things I Hate About You
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
Amélie
Army of Darkness
The A-Team
Back to the Future
Batman Returns
Brotherhood of the Wolf
Dark City (1998)
The Dark Knight
Deliverance
Donnie Darko
The Empire Strikes Back
The Fellowship of the Ring
Ferris Beuller’s Day Off
The Fifth Element
Fight Club
Galaxy Quest
Happy-Go-Lucky
In a Lonely Place
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
It’s a Wonderful Life
The Lion King
Little Miss Sunshine
The Matrix
Memento (2000)
The Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
Once Upon a Time in the West
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
The Princess Bride
Princess Mononoke
The Scorpion King
Silence of the Lambs
Spaceballs
Spider-Man 2
Starship Troopers
Star Wars
They Live
This is Spinal Tap
Transformers: The Movie (1986)
Unbreakable
The Untouchables
Zoolander
Zulu
Veto: The Incredibles and Wall-E
Add: Star Trek (2009), Iron Man, Superbad
Add:
After the Thin Man
What’s interesting is, mediocre and unpopular films have a better chance of success on this list. After all, you have to have heard of it to hate it.
I’ll add:
The Muppet Movie
Pleasantville
Return to Oz
No vetoes for the moment; there are movies on the list that I don’t necessarily like, but my sense of the purpose is that this is (or should be) less about what one’s favorite films are and more about what films are part of the shared “geek culture matrix”.
Thus while Princess Bride is controversial as all get-out, it’s a film that all of us have strong opinions about that we’re willing to defend at length. (I like the book better than the film, and I suspect that that view drives a lot of the criticism.)
Veto: Superbad
Glad to see Yojimbo and Seven Samurai on there, otherwise woulda added them.
The Good The Bad and The Ugly
Pulp Fiction
The Godfather (Do these have to be “Geek” Films to count?
Veto:
Highlander
Also for the record even though I don’t agree, someone vetoed Wall-E so it should probably be added to the Veto list.
Adding: Deep Blue Sea
Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus
Shark Attack III: Megalodon
Vetoing:
Snakes on a Plane (Sharks own Samuel L. Jackson)
Star Trek (2009)
Re: above, meant Godfather Part 1. Would add two if I had enough votes.
If we’re gonna have two thirds of the Dollars Trilogy up there, we have to include the last.
Add The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
Add Tombstone
Won’t veto anything at the moment.
Add: Sherlock Holmes & Mr and Mrs Smith
Veto: I’ll hold on to them for now.
I have to wonder if the guy who vetoed The A-Team even saw the movie yet. It was awesome!!!
Add:
Brazil
The Wicker Man (Original, not the re-make)
Audition
Veto:
Gojira
Shaun of the Dead
Add:
Rashomon
A Night at the Opera
A Shot in the Dark
I expect those are probably veto bait, but we’ll see how they fly. The movies I would’ve vetoed appear to have already been vetoed, so I’ll hold those for a more unworthy contender.
And I’m a bit surprised, with this many comments and this sort of audience, to have not yet seen The Usual Suspects, Reservoir Dogs, Run Lola Run, The Godfather, The Sting, or The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly mentioned–either as adds, or as preemptive vetos.
And now a few of those appear just as I was typing that!
This is not entirely consistent with my comments above: but assuming that ladypeyton’s “Sherlock Holmes” refers to the 2009 Robert Downey film:
Veto:
Sherlock Holmes (2009)
The Downey film is not a bad film by any stretch, but it’s not even close to being any of (a) a definitive Holmes movie, (b) a definitive Holmes portrayal (not the same thing), or (c) enough better than, say, Murder By Decree or Without A Clue to serve as a baseline for geek-consensus on Holmes filmography. [Being out of nominations, I can’t actually add either of the above — or, say, Young Sherlock Holmes — to the list.
[While I’m thinking about it, how has it happened that no one has yet nominated The Goonies to a Geek Consensus list???]
Plus:
Idiocracy will enjoy a brief, shining moment on the list, and so will Mystery Men. I harbor no delusions.
Minus:
If being smug disqualifies The Princess Bride, then I feel entirely justified in vetoing South Park. I might veto it again just out of spite.
add : Lawrence of Arabia
veto : Pulp Fiction
Add:
In the Mood for Love
Casablanca
The Adventures of Robin Hood
(pre-emptively) Veto:
Crash (Haggis, not Cronenberg, although that one wasn’t great, either)
And I agree that this exercise doesn’t quite achieve “consensus,” not that consensus is anything worthwhile to be strived for in art anyway.
Add
Cutaway
City of Lost Children
Point Break
Veto:
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (overrated by pseudo hipsters everywhere)
saves a veto
For Aardy …
Add: The Sting
This seems a little ridiculous. I see a number of movies I’d like to veto on the grounds that I hated them, they’re overrated, they’re unappealing… but apparently that system nixed Ferris Bueller, Indy & the Last Crusade, and the Matrix. Not to mention the great Princess Bride debate.
And most of the movies I want to veto are movies that I would fully agree are seminal geek movies that deserve to be on a Popular Geek Movies list.
Instead of trying to build up a list of unanimous taste (which we’ve noticed is pretty much impossible), could we try to build up a list of unanimous “popular, seminal works” which fall under one of the three following categories: “I like”, “I can see how someone likes,” “I’ve given up trying to understand why I seem to be one of the few geeks who hates this”?
Add:
THE DIRTY DOZEN
Add: Citizen Kane, Psycho, The Bridge on the River Kwai
Veto: Idiocracy, Howl’s Moving Castle
Add: Triumphs of a Man Called Horse
Veto: Pleasantville
Add: Star Crash
To ponder: MST3k
From a game-theory standpoint, I believe this would be more interesting if each participant had 3 vetos and 2 “adds”. As an experiment, this needs to work even in a worst-case-scenario, in which there are infinite movies and every person loves three moves and hates every other movie.
Another possible amendment to the game mechanics: arguably, if one of someone’s nominated movies is vetoed (as indeed, my add of Pleasantville has now been quashed), that someone should be able to add a new nominee to replace the vetoed film.
FWIW, while I fully expected to attract at least one veto with my list, Pleasantville wasn’t the one I thought would be zapped first.
I think this would work better if two or three vetos from different people were required to remove a movie. It might be a good idea to require multiple votes to add a movie as well.
I find it interesting that everyone who has mentioned Gojira has used the original title. I almost never hear the correct name in the wider popular culture. Have any of you seen the original Japanese version? I’ve only seen the American edit.
GOJIRA is readily available on DVD and is a much stronger, darker film; it’s quite unabashedly ABOUT the A-Bomb, openly referencing both Hiroshima and the then-current US nuclear tests.(Characters die from the after-effects of Gojira’s radiation). I first saw it in a theatre during a fiftieth-anniversary reissue in 2004, and I realised what kind of impact this must have had for it’s original audiences when a specific shot of a crumbling building reminded me of 9/11. (Having grown up on “fun” Godzilla movies, it was kind of like watching a beloved comedian in a movie where he played a serial killer…)
Yeah, when I mentioned (and vetoed) Gojira, I figured we were talking about the original cut.
Add: Three Kings
The Big Red One
A Bridge Too Far
Veto:DEBS
Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter
Additionally, I’d like to veto the breeding rights of about half the posters here (who the heck nixes Wall-E in favor of Superbad?), but I’ve only got 2 votes.
Add:
Young Frankenstein
Batman Mask of the Phantasm(BTAS Theatrical film)
Escape from NY
Veto:
Mega Shark V. Giant Octopus
Add:
Inglourious Basterds
12 Angry Men (1957)
Cat City (Macskafogó)
Veto:
Mr. & Mrs. Smith
(keeping one veto for now)
My final veto goes to the Godfather. Fuck that movie, it’s awful and boring and way overrated.
[…] MGK пишет: Sorry for double post, but I use my first veto on Scorpion King. That movie is awful to the nth degree. mygif. ams said on June 13th, 2010 at 3:51 pm. I knew from the beginning that whatever the intent behind this experiment, … […]
Manos: The Hands of Fate is still on the list, but Buckaroo Banzai is vetoed? The experiment is failing.
Add: Nothing
Veto: For a Few Dollars More, Manos: The Hands of Fate
Add: Them!
Add: Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie
Add: Space Mutiny
Veto: Return of the Jedi
Veto: Inglourious Basterds
A problem that others have spoken to in other words is that the current system favors obscurity, as people won’t veto something that they know nothing about. I think the experiment might be served by requiring 2 up-votes to show on the final list.
That suggestion aside, I still feel this is a futile labor. The big problem is that we’re trying to quantify a neutral “good” concept, when two people can agree that a certain movie contains a trait (eg: Princess Bride is schmaltzy) while disagreeing that said trait is positive or negative. An opinion can be well-informed but entirely divergent from one’s own.
Maybe we should go with a slightly different experiment as a preliminary: Put out another blog post to ask the crowd to put forward their opinion on what makes a good nerd/geek movie
Well, pretty much any movie I’d even consider watching a second time, let alone over and over again, has been vetoed, so as far as I’m concerned this experiment has failed in its bid for consensus.
Also, the definition of geek movie is being strained to bursting. Westerns and WWII movies are a little too mainstream to be considered even remotely geeky.
Veto The Muppet Movie and Cat City (Macskafogó).
Luckily people have already vetoed the dozen or so movies I really disliked on the list, so I am saving my two vetos.
Also, trying to pick movies that falls into the ‘geek’ thingy then, though I have NO idea what that is. I mean most of these movies are what I would call mainstreams so…
Add:
Prince of Darkness (Carpenter)
Watership Down
Reanimator
Also, one thought. There are a lot of movies out there that inspires both love and hate (like the Matrix, which I love, and the Princess Bride, which I hate). If any group of people grows enough, the well known ones will always be vetoed by somebody.
What will be left will be a mixture of classics that nobody hates (very few), the obscure that few people have seen, and the bland.
Still, fun idea!
I haven’t been watching closely enough to see whether this had happened already, but we now have a direct-opposition case: Person A vetoes a film added by Person B, and Person B vetoes a film added by Person A. (Specifically, ladypeyton and I have each vetoed one of the other’s added movies.)
Presuming that both of us self-identify as having legitimate “geek” credentials (and deity knows I do, I think this pretty much wipes out any prospect of achieving consensus via the present process.
[I’m also fascinated; I now have one add left standing, and it’s the one I expected to see vetoed first.]
John originally suggested the movies list as an attempt to “…see if anything survives as something everyone on the Internet could sit down and watch together.”
This was to answer his initial question, phrased thusly:
“…after a while writing for a high-traffic blog on the Internet, you do start to notice that no matter what you say, someone disagrees with it…. But I am curious. Is there really any opinion out there that everyone, absolutely everyone can agree on? Is there something we all like?”
As several others have said, I think we can by now definitely conclude that the answer is “No.”
I would like to add Sneakers, Sleeping Beauty, and Rushmore
Veto The Dark Crystal – I watched it again as an adult and it did not hold up – if you have fond memories and haven’t watched it as an adult – don’t keep the memory, its probably better than the movie.
… unless the answer to the question “Is there something we all like?” is “Disagreeing with other people’s opinions on the internet.”
@thornae: I don’t like disagreeing with people on the internet, but everyone else is just so constantly WRONG.
😉
I can’t help but feel like this system involves a lot of trolling. I know that when I see one of my favorite movies vetoed, I almost immediately want to revenge veto of the vetoer’s movies.
I’m repeating a thought I had from the earlier thread, but while I understand vetoing something you *haven’t seen* isn’t quite as valid as doing it because you don’t like it (and previously, I did not veto for that purpose, to be clear) … if the purpose of the list is to get me to sit down to watch something I *already* like, I need to have seen it *first.* Sure, maybe I’ll end up liking it, but that’s not the same as sitting down to an old favourite.
That I’m an ignoramus, well … couldn’t help that, but I’ll say that I wouldn’t be using it as a tool of malice against others’ choices. It wouldn’t be a matter of disagreeing with aesthetic preferences, but just a service to the very purpose of this list.
Basically, either this is a list for everyone (that is, everyone who has favourite films to share) or just for people who have seen a lot of films.
Well, the problem is people not willing to compromise.
Some movies are polarizing, like The Matrix or Snatch or Amelie (those i know polarize *me*), but a whole lot of them are not, even when we don’t like them. And we should also be honest and see if whatever movie polarizes us because of the movie merits/lack thereof, or because we’re dicks who can’t stand certain situations/people/facts.
For instance, i know i hate the fact that so many people think Amelie is this brilliant movie of superior taste, and so, my psychotic self will always try to “balance that out” by publicly hating on that movie and its corniness and whatever, but the truth of the matter is that i don’t really hate *the movie*, i hate the machine around it. So i should let it slide. The Matrix or Snatch, on the other hand i feel i can’t enjoy for reasons that have everything to do with the craft of the movie and the flaws i perceive (i can’t unsee the gazillion mistakes on the former, i can’t take the Mary-sue that is Brad Pitt on the latter).
We should just agree on the ones most of us would enjoy, and just ban the ones some of us would absolutely hate *seeing* not *admitting to have seen/enjoyed*. I think that right there would probably un-veto a whole flock of movies, or at least make them last a lot longer before veto.
Then again, it could also be the fact that there’s too wide an array of tastes and preferences lurking around on the internet, mixed in a uniformed mass that really isn’t so. I bet even among us MGK’ers there’s a whole range of inclinations and preferences in, say, music. Or books. And we assume that just because we all like movies and visit MGK we all belong together in some sort of group, when we may very well be people that would never ever even speak to each other when face to face.
“Well, duh!” version: Its the Internets. We can’t agree. Because we’re vastly different even if we have the few things we choose to show in common.
“Presuming that both of us self-identify as having legitimate “geek” credentials”
Avid comic book reader since 1973, both Marvel and DC, and saw Star Wars in the theater in its original run more than 5 times (read the book 210 in the 70s alone) and have seen more than 75% of the movies listed on this page (even if, IMO, many of them don’t qualify as geek movies). Much prefer genre television to mainstream television. Card carrying member of the SCA. Have burned through two Fallout 3 DVDs which I play on the computer so I can play the mods. I think that qualifies as geek credentials.
Though, I agree on the not being able to reach consensus thing. Maybe that’s the one thing about which we all can come to a consensus. The idea that we’ll never all be able to come to a consensus.
Add:
Lock, Stock, and 2 Smoking Barrels
Mystery Men
Serenity
Veto:
Deep Blue Sea
Shark Attack III: Megalodon
[nods]
I thought that was a pretty safe assumption.
[Me? First online fan presences were on WWIVNet bulletin boards and GEnie, discovered D&D in high school and played till well after graduating from college, once sold 12 banker boxes of genre paperbacks to Powell’s Books all at once (and now wish I had a lot of them back even if I don’t have room for them here), saw the first Star Trek film on opening night even though the nearest theater was an hour’s drive from my college campus (and I didn’t drive), etc. etc.]
Veto
Lawrence of Arabia
Add:
Spirited Away
The Triplets of Belleville
Veto:
Mystery Men
ADD
The Magnificent Seven
My Neighbor Totoro
Reservoir Dogs
VETO
The Fox and the Hound (sorry)
South Park
I feel a bit guilty because none of my picks are really ‘geek movies’. I wasn’t really thinking of that qualification when I picked them, perhaps because there were already so many non-geek films on the list already.
Sorry.
Oh well, at least I managed to pick a couple obscure enough that nobody has bothered to veto them.
@Clayton: Ha ha! No need to apologize.
@ Mary Warner: I also gloss over the part about them being “geek movies”. Just went for movies I liked.
@Clayton: Ha ha! No need to apologize.
@ Mary Warner: I also glossed over the part about them being “geek movies”. Just went for movies I liked.
Add: The Abyss, In the Line of Fire, Say Anything
Aside from the Abyss, not particularly geeky, but movies that I have enjoyed repeat viewings of.
In the Line of Fire holds up to me as a good thriller with the right mix of actors and knowing the plot doesn’t ruin it for me on repeat viewings.
Say Anything may be more of a nostalgic choice, but I enjoy watching it again every once in a while.
Veto: Of the ones I’ve actually seen on the list, I don’t actively hate any of them enough to warrant a veto. I’ll reserve for later.
I was going to veto The Big Lebowski (somehow I missed that it was still in the running. I really don’t get that movie’s appeal) and try to come up with two more movies I love that haven’t already been added and/or vetoed but I think I’m done. The list as it stands now is primarily composed of movies I’ve either never seen, never heard of, or don’t feel particularly strong about one way or another (and therefore wouldn’t waste a veto even if it isn’t a favorite). I suspect the same is true for a lot of others. I’m thinking we can declare the experiment a failure because – the way things are shaping up – it will be nothing but obscure movies, middle-of-the-road films, and late-comers that dodged the vetoes of the early voters.
I really like the idea though. Maybe enough trial and error will work out the kinks. Some people are lovers. Some are haters. Maybe you should be able to split your votes however you want them. Do you really love the Pink Panther movies? Vote for your five favorites! All your favorite movies are already on the chopping block and the list is full of garbage? Veto five terrible movies. Or use four additions and one veto. Or two additions and three vetoes. Or whatever.
Veto: This list
Add: A new list
Add: Some time to think of a new system.