Kids-in-mind "provides parents and other adults with objective and complete information about a film's content so that they can decide, based on their own value system, whether they should watch a movie with or without their kids." Informative AND unintentionally hilarious! From the somewhat kid-friendly Ratatouille (A rat smokes a mushroom over a chimney, and with another rat they are struck by lightning, thrown from the roof and to the ground (they have electrified fur but are otherwise OK).) to more decidedly non-kid-friendly fare, and everything in between.
posted on Apr 21, 2008 - View this thread

Sports Business Journal has a detailed look behind the buzz over "The Emperor’s New Clothes: How ESPN’s Multi-Platform Strategy Hasn’t Improved Ratings," a sharply critical PowerPoint presentation making the rounds of sports league offices and advertising buyers in recent months. A good read for folks interested in the business of sports, decreasing TV ratings for many leagues, the blurriness of the ad/news line and the difficulty of measuring eyeballs across media. [via Romenesko]
posted on Mar 17, 2008 - View this thread

The Color of Top Grossing Movies. A movie’s theatrical poster is only a very small part of the larger marketing and hype machine that turns movies into spectacular blockbusters, but as part of a whole, they are fairly representative of the “image” of any given movie. So, as an exercise in color trends, and to see if any significant pattern emerged, I decided to break down the colors of 25 posters — the top 5 of each MPAA category.
posted on Sep 12, 2007 - View this thread

Mmmm, beeeer: ratebeer.com The World's Worst Beers, Best Beers - 2007, find the top beers by category or region. Emphasis on craft brews. (See also the previously mentioned BeerAdvocate.com) Happy Friday, everyone!
posted on Aug 17, 2007 - View this thread

Sizzlingly Inappropriate Republican Debate Hottie Rundown! --in what's becoming a recurring series (see her UK Hostages and Dem candidates here), Werthmann rates (in a supergroovy Tiger Beat/fan mag way) the 10 GOP hopefuls appearing tonight in the Debate. On Rudy: ... The way he burns through spouses, we think he's fair game. Hey, Rudy, we need some "consulting"! ... : >
posted on May 3, 2007 - View this thread

Jack Valenti, RIP.
posted on Apr 26, 2007 - View this thread

Does it suck? Or does it rock? No, this is NOT like Will It Float? or Will It Blend? It's a cute use of the Google API to search for how often your inquiry comes up as "x sucks" or "x rocks" or a small number of other similar phrases. MetaFilter rates 8.7 out of 10 (87% rocks, 13% sucks). A delightfully evil way to rate - and compare - various things.
posted on Mar 14, 2007 - View this thread

This Film is Not Yet Rated (SFW trailer) and a hilarious (audio NSFW) version. (2:05) "How does one follow-up an Oscar-nominated documentary (2004's Twist of Faith) about sexual abuse perpetrated by members of the Catholic Church? If you're Kirby Dick, you deliver another exposé of institutionalized misconduct by taking direct aim at the ratings system of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)." Interviews with the director, Kirby Dick: 1,2,3. Not available on DVD until January '07, but the Amazon Reader Reviews are worth a look see.
posted on Nov 28, 2006 - View this thread

Amazon's "Top Selling Videos" Here's a mystery: Amazon has a page showing their top selling VHS videos. It is "updated hourly." Before you look at what the top sellers are, take a guess. I doubt that anyone would think that the 1994 Richard Simmons "Sweating to the Oldies" video would be listed as No. 1 -- particularly in view of the fact that it is described as being "unavailable." The others in the top 10 are also interesting: #3 is the 1945 black and white "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn". Would you guess that #7 is "Fatso", a 1993 comedy starring Dom DeLuise? I may be wrong but I suspect that Amazon's ratings are not accurate. Now I wonder about their book ratings . . .
posted on Feb 10, 2006 - View this thread

The Movie Deaths Database. 273 movie deaths, categorized and rated by greatness.
posted on Jan 19, 2006 - View this thread

Rule 1b: Do not write some stupid slogan on your flag. If you've ever wanted to know how all the world's flags rank in terms of aesthetic appeal, here's a handy guide with an accompanying methodology.
posted on Dec 27, 2005 - View this thread

filmaffinity.com looks like another useful tool to get recommendations for your viewing pleasure-once more of us start rating! It's in English and Spanish now (with more languages yet to come). Movielens seems promising as well. IMDb Pro looks cool too, though I haven't gone that far. However, this guy says beware!!
posted on Jan 30, 2005 - View this thread

"Unsatisfactory movie viewing can only be attributed to human error." The Denver Post examines the way technology can help viewers find their next favorite movie.
posted on Jan 30, 2005 - View this thread

Rate My Professor! A searchable database of student ratings of their college professors. In what must be a wonderful reflection of the current status of the American and Canadian higher education systems, the ratings include entries for how easy the professor is and, of course, how hot they are. So click around, visit your alma mater, and let that jerk who almost flunked you in freshman comp feel your wrath!
posted on Nov 22, 2004 - View this thread

Professor Pollkatz's statistics. Interestings graphics on Bush approval/disapproval. This one, for example, clearly proves that whenever Bush's approval was high, it was driven by an event (the two major events being September 11 and the Iraq war) and steadily declined afterwards. This page shows that FOX polls consistently overrate Bush, while Zogby polls consistently underrate him. [more inside]
posted on Dec 4, 2003 - View this thread

Rolling Stone's 500 greatest albums. Not a bad list at all, but I'm sure that some of us will find something they missed ...
posted on Nov 21, 2003 - View this thread

Andy Griffith Beats Jessica Lynch Interview for Viewers
Well sure, it was for the Andy Griffith Reunion Show. What was ABC thinking putting Diane Sawyer and Jessica "Selective Amnesia" Lynch up against Andy, Opie and Aunt Bea?
posted on Nov 12, 2003 - View this thread

StumbleUpon is a browser plugin-in that "uses member ratings to form collective human opinions on website quality." The plugin-in then uses these ratings to recommend websites, much like Amazon.com recommends books.
posted on Jan 5, 2003 - View this thread

American Heritage magazine's fifth annual Overrated and Underrated list is out, with this year's experts weighing in on the most overblown poet, underappreciated pirate, and overadmired Roosevelt, among many others. (See the Metafilter discussion of last year's list for more dichotomies.)
posted on Sep 30, 2002 - View this thread

The end of an era? The Miss America crowning had just 12 million viewers tune in this past Saturday, the lowest viewership in the history of the pageant. Are people turned off by this type of competition? Or are there just better things to do on a Saturday night?
posted on Sep 25, 2002 - View this thread

themoviespoiler.com: "WARNING! The ending to these films will be revealed!" Because some of us hate surprises. Or maybe we just want to ruin The Master of Disguise for our "Turtle! Turtle!" Co-workers.
posted on Aug 6, 2002 - View this thread

The Emmy nominations are out and the news nominations go to the biggest story, September 11. No surprises there. PBS has 41 nominations and Fox has 0. No surprises there either. Does this say something about the news industry and it's ability to discern serious news from chaff? Is Bill Moyers a national treasure? Do you think perhaps Murdoch should rethink the direction of his media empire?
posted on Jul 31, 2002 - View this thread

Spider-Man "too violent for kids" The British Board of Film Classification has given the Spider-Man film (which opens here in the UK today) a '12' certificate because of its violence, meaning no one under that age can see it. Some local authorities have exercised their power to reclassify it as a 'PG' to open it up to younger viewers.
The BBFC's argument runs that "The violence is set in a modern urban setting with a clear message that the use of violence is the normal and appropriate response when challenged." In fact, I'd say, the film suggests that an appropriate response when challenged is to put on an armoured exo-skeleton and fly around on a jey-powered glider. How can the BBFC not get the concept that this is a fantasy?
posted on Jun 14, 2002 - View this thread

At least they ask before they track your web usage. We're all familiar with Neilsen ratings and how a few select families get to decide when 20/20 will finally end. I guess it was only a matter of time before they came sniffing around looking to track popular websites. People who sign up get gifts, prizes and free technical support - at least that's the deal for Canadians.
posted on Apr 1, 2002 - View this thread

Gay? Afghan? Love Travel? Then GayTravel.com has a job for you! Help this gay travel guide populate its listings for food, fun, and more in and around Kabul and the surrounding countryside!
posted on Mar 22, 2002 - View this thread

Fox News overtakes CNN in viewership even though fewer people get Fox News in their households.
posted on Jan 30, 2002 - View this thread

Restroom Ratings is a site where you can scope out the possible nastiness of a bathroom before you need to go use it. Most of the rated bathrooms seem to be centered around the Minneapolis, MN area. You can even send a restroom e-card to your friends (or enemies).
posted on Dec 24, 2001 - View this thread

What goes up, must come down. After it's meteoric rise in the ratings, WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE's future is looking bleak. This comes after news that a British Millionaire contestant accused of cheating. <coff, coff!> Do you think maybe it was just all too crass in the post 9/11 world?
posted on Nov 28, 2001 - View this thread

You will not escape "Car Talk," "Prairie Home Companion" or "Whad'ya Know" How the hardcore number-crunching audience analysis of commercial radio is applied to public radio. It's "frowny faces" for poor-performing classical music shows, I'm afraid. Is there any local radio programming you love that wouldn't survive this kind of scrutiny? (NYT registration required.)
posted on Nov 12, 2001 - View this thread

No surprises here. Or are there? And just when the networks are separating the subjective wheat from the more obvious chaff, look what's waiting in the wings. Can't wait.
posted on Dec 7, 2000 - View this thread

Show an R-rated film to kids, go to jail. Of course Channel 2 selects the raciest scene for their screengrab in the story, talk about your unbiased news reporting...
posted on Mar 9, 2000 - View this thread

Gomez.com looks like they're doing the same thing that Bizrate is doing: rating the dotcommerce companies. It seems like a lot of companies have been copying the Amazon interface, now I see why. In the 'Ease of Use' category, Amazon is number one in books, toys, and music (they would have swept all their categories but Borders won for Video).
posted on Oct 29, 1999 - View this thread

Jon Carroll has a few ideas on the Culture War in this SFGate article from June. He's right, of course.
posted on Sep 16, 1999 - View this thread