
Netflix Prize: Was The Napoleon Dynamite Problem Solved? - jasonwatkinspdx
http://whimsley.typepad.com/whimsley/2009/10/netflix-prize-was-the-napoleon-dynamite-problem-solved.html
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I draw a slightly different conclusion than the author.

>I noticed they were all similar in some way to “Napoleon Dynamite” —
culturally or politically polarizing and hard to classify, including “I Heart
Huckabees,” “Lost in Translation,” “Fahrenheit 9/11,” “The Life Aquatic With
Steve Zissou,” “Kill Bill: Volume 1” and “Sideways.”

To me, what all these movies share in common is that they are so original that
they are less accessible to the first-time viewer (or, in the case of
Farenheit 9/11, completely tied to one's political leanings).

For example, I walked out of Napolean Dynamite and was bored to tears with
Lost in Translation. The second time I watched those movies, I laughed my butt
off at Napolean Dynamite and I found Lost in Translation to be one of the
deepest movies I'd ever seen. Just the thought of Lost in Translation now
gives me a yearning heartache. If I used Netflix to rate these movies after my
first viewings, I probably would have given them 1 or 2 stars. Now I give them
both 5 stars.

(As an aside, I highly recommend all of the above mentioned movies. I'd love
to see an expanded list, so if anyone has one, please share. Going by my
theory, I bet The Big Lebowski is in there. :)

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DannoHung
I want to have an inverse Netflix graph. I want to be able to meet and connect
with other cinema lovers based on their ratings of movies I like. In that way,
I can find people that probably won't piss me off too much and a way to find
other stuff that I think is cool.

So, for example, I would exclude anyone who didn't like The Big Lebowski on
the principle of them being nilhists.

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8plot
Seems like movie ratings would be a great way to find a perfect match. Do
dating sites use this data?

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ntoshev
Yes, anytime they ask you to list your favorite movies/books/music in your
profile. Of course the matching algorithms are only in the heads of your
prospective dates.

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yalurker
One thought I haven't seen mentioned is the emotional aspect of several of
these movies. In my opinion, Lost in Translation was bad, but I made it
through it, I heart huckabees & Sideways were so terrible I stopped watching
in the middle. All three movies were good in the sense that I could get drawn
into the stories, but the characters/storyline just made me want to scream
"Get over it you freaking cry-baby".

They weren't bad in the way that a normal bad movie is bad. They were bad in
the way that it took talented writing, acting & directing to make characters
and situations that were so pathetic and annoying that it was unwatchable to a
guy like me.

I can easily see how someone else (who presumably could relate to the emotions
of the characters) would really like the films.

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aduric
They still didn't answer the question as to WHY is it so difficult to predict?
I think that Napoleon Dynamite has two types of fans: The people that watch it
for the purely (seemingly) primitive comedy and the people who find a deeper
meaning in it and who 'get it'. The first type will also like stupid screwball
Adam Sandler comedies, while the second type will go for more indie, artistic
fare. Thus the ambiguity when trying to predict per user.

