The making of the NYT’s Netflix graphic

Kevin Quealy, a graphic editor at the New York Times, reveals the method to the radness of the interactive Netflix queue graphic that went up on the Times’ website last week. His discussion of their primary design considerations hits upon precisely what makes the map a popular success:

the hardest part about this graphic was designing the interface. We wanted readers to be able to find a given movie quickly, but a search box didn’t really work visually. We also wanted to give readers an idea which movies were most popular and which were most critically acclaimed.

I mocked up at least ten versions. None were any good. The challenge was navigation. As a user, I wanted to be able to see one movie in a bunch of different cities, fast, or I wanted to see a bunch of movies in one city just as fast. So there are two major navigation elements – cities and movies – but the map itself still needed to be the visual focal point of the graphic.

The ability to jump from city to city without worrying about the formalities of zooms in and out makes playing with it plenty pleasant. Not mentioned but nearly as important is the second sentence of the two sentence summary, just below the map title (the bolding is mine):

Examine Netflix rental patterns, neighborhood by neighborhood, in a dozen cities. Some titles with distinct patterns are Mad Men, Obsessed and Last Chance Harvey.

A statement as intriguing as that is like a sheet of bubble wrap left in your path on the way to work: it’s not a clear invitation to play, but you’ll pop it anyway.

Reverse Shot's best films of 2009

It’s been too long for this space to be called the “Daily” anything, at least with a straight face. Which explains why I might be smirking just a little.

The last post was a film-related link from Jeremy and so this one is, too. Like Mr. Bushnell, I had also only seen one of the films from the title-linked list (it was Inglorious Basterds, which I loved). After tonight, I’m up to two; I just finished watching Olivier Assayas’ Summer Hours (it’s available to watch instantly on Netflix). I haven’t read Reverse Shot’s discussion of the film since yesterday morning, so hopefully I’ll provide a fresh perspective on things (and without anything but the fuzziest of spoilers).

Stories involving the death of a matriarch or patriarch often center on the coming-together of the children, who then grapple with their relationship to one another in this strange world, freshly rid of a central figure in their lives. I immediately thought of Nate and David’s struggles from the first season of Six Feet Under, a series that spent a remarkable five years holding the profundity of grief and the mundanity of funeral arrangement in a fragile balance. But where Six Feet Under used funereal decision-making as a vehicle (a hearse, perhaps?) for its larger human dramas, Summer Hours opts to bring the decision-making to the fore.

Instead of giving us sibling rivalry, Assayas has turned in a tight little treatise on how objects and practices of our past relate to our present (and, in turn, how this relationship relates to that of the people we love). The last third of the film also offers a poignant study in how our relationships with objects—even those very familiar to us—are determined by the context in which we encounter them. This is Heideggerian in ways I’m only just beginning to uncover.

Twenty shots to be henceforth retired from film vocabulary

This list seems to cover most of the leading offenders, including:

4. Overhead shot of protagonist in the rain, arms spread, just letting the downpour COME.

10. Dude goes to open a safe or a refrigerator or whatever and PRESTO the camera’s shooting out from inside the safe or refrigerator or whatever. That’s some bush league My First Creative Camerawork shit.

The famous overhead shot in the rain from Shawshank Redemption ruined the movie for me.

The New Cult Canon

The Onion’s A.V. Club offer their list of the new cult classics. I need to watch The Room and The Limey’s commentary track,

a heated feature-length argument that couldn’t be further from the ego-stroking sycophancy of most tracks. It’s a case study in what happens to a script after it’s run through the sausage factory of production; even with a sympathetic director at the helm—Soderbergh championed Dobbs’ script for Kafka before making it his second feature, and the two remain friends—the writer will always get the shaft in the end.

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe

Momus traces the poignant line connecting Dr. Evil, Batty from Blade Runner, and T.S. Eliot’s Wasteland.

We know these people must die for their difference, but we are also fascinated by it. We are wedded to monoculture, but subtly disturbed by pluricide. And so, just before they die, evil characters representing “the unacceptable other” are given speeches which allow us to glimpse, simultaneously, how unlike us they are, and yet how like us, if only by the fact that they have had experiences, as we have too.

See all of blackbeltjones’ bookmarks tagged momus.

How accurate was Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" about the future?

Martin Belam compares the present with Kubrick’s vision of it. While Kubrick got plenty right, he failed to predict that meetings of the future might become less humane.

No PowerPoint

Part of the reason that Dr Floyd has been sent to Clavius Base is to deliver a morale-boosting speech to a crew bemused by what they have unearthed on the moon.

Frankly, there is no way that this would have been done in the real 2001 without the judicious use of PowerPoint featuring Excel charts and inspiring pictures of puppies, and probably some free branded goodies to take away and cheer everybody up.

Amazing Robocop Rap