text:
A database of movie ratings since 1997. Includes film reviews, lists, and polls by Ian Cavalier.
Filmometer.com
Cavalier Industries
Nowhere Press
Movie Ratings & Reviews
Last film added: December 16, 2018. There are currently 1603 films in the database (since 1996).
Show: All Films (1603), New Releases (161), Recent Releases (263), Watched This Month/Year
Year: pre-1997, 1996 (26), 1997 (85), 1998 (112), 1999 (126), 2000 (84), 2001 (87), 2002 (77)
Year: 2003 (58), 2004 (64), 2005 (76), 2006 (58), 2007 (88), 2008 (71), 2009 (95), 2010 (72)
Release Years: 1927-1996, 1997-2001, 2002-2006, 2007-2010, 2011-2014, 2015-2018
Films Watched During: 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020
Rating: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, CRAP
Language: Foreign, English
Show Films: Animation, Comedy, Conspiracy, Fantasy, Horror, Mind-blowing
Show Films: Musical/Music, Obscure/Rare, Sci-Fi, With Sex/Nudity, Sport
Show Films: Documentary/True, Comic Book/Superhero, TV Shows
Show Films: I own on DVD, Filmometer Best Films of Year, Won Best Picture Oscar
Show: AFI and Academy Awards Movie Lists
Obscure and Rare Films (1996-2020)
Search returned all hard-to-find or underground movies out of 1603 total rated films.
These aren't really "cult classics" yet because not enough people have seen them.
Amazing Screw-On Head, The (2006) 10
A TV pilot featuring Emperor Zombie and Lincoln. Any last words before I spark it?
Collected Shorts of Jan Svankmajer, The (2005) 10
An excellent retrospective of surreal, unsettling films from the Czech animator, dating 1965 to 1992.
Cyclo (1996) 10
After a Vietnamese man's bicycle-taxi is stolen, he desperately turns to the mob for work.
Dance of Reality, The (2014) 10
Jodorowsky bares his soul through a dreamlike, mythical retelling of his childhood in Chile. Provocative.
Endless Poetry (2017) 10
Jodorowsky's vibrant retelling of his life continues. Chronicles personal and artistic development via magical realism.
Fast, Cheap & Out of Control (1997) 10
A documentary about an elderly topiary gardener, a retired lion tamer and a robotics designer.
Happy Accidents (2000) 10
Marisa Tomei wonders if her boyfriend Vincent D'Onofrio is really a time-traveler, or just delusional.
In the Realms of the Unreal (2004) 10
Visionary artist Henry Darger was a hospital janitor who privately authored a 15,000-page fantasy novel.
It's Such a Beautiful Day (2012) 10
Don Hertzfeldt's feature-film version of his animated philosophical trilogy about Bill and his shattered psyche.
Rosetta (2000) 10
The Dardenne Brothers' Dogme 95 film. Young Rosetta will do anything to maintain a job.
Short Films of David Lynch, The (2002) 10
A detailed DVD collection of Lynch's six short films, dating 1966 to 1996. Horrifically odd.
Son, The (2002) 10
The Dardennes' build emotional and moral complexity around a vocational training center for troubled boys.
World of Tomorrow (2015) 10
Brilliant Don Hertzfeldt short. A little girl experiences a mind-bending tour of her distant future.
World of Tomorrow Episode Two: The Burden of Other People... (2017) 10
Dazzling and poignant sci-fi. Don Hertzfeldt reverse-engineered this sequel from audio of his five-year-old niece.
13th (2016) 9
In-depth look at racial inequality, criminalization and the prison-industrial complex in the U.S. Essential. Tragic.
Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry (2012) 9
Documentary about the life of celebrated Chinese artist and outspoken dissident Ai Weiwei. Compelling humanity.
All the Real Girls (2003) 9
This believable natural drama about love and anger stars Zooey Deschanel.
Animation Show, The (2003) 9
A collection of short films (mostly comedy) put together by Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeldt.
Animation Show 2005, The (2005) 9
Don Hertzfeldt, Bill Plympton and other animators return in this second collection of excellent shorts.
The touring festival's third anthology of animated shorts collected by Don Hertzfeldt and Mike Judge.
Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey (2011) 9
The story of puppeteer Kevin Clash, the heart and soul of Elmo. Touching and inspiring.
Brand Upon the Brain! A Remembrance in 12 Chapters (2006) 9
Guy Maddin's homage to silent film. A return to an abandoned island home. Orphanage memories.
Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2011) 9
Inside France's Chauvet Cave, Werner Herzog idiosyncratically explores the history of art and human culture.
Chop Shop (2008) 9
A hard-working, resourceful street orphan in Queens struggles to create a better life for himself.
Citizenfour (2014) 9
Whistleblower Edward Snowden releases classified info about mass global surveillance by the NSA. Gripping, chilling.
Cutie and the Boxer (2013) 9
The art and 40-year marriage of Ushio and Noriko Shinohara, Japanese artists in New York.
Dark Days (2000) 9
A cinematic portrait of the homeless population living permanently in New York City's underground tunnels.
DMT: The Spirit Molecule (2010) 9
Strassman and Hancock explore connections between human spirituality and neuroscience through psychedelics.
Dreamlife of Angels, The (1998) 9
In France, two penniless young women with few prospects become friends and share a flat.
Drunk History - Season 1 (2008) 9
Drunk historians try to describe history while Jack Black, Michael Cera and others reenact. Hilarious.
Go-Getter, The (2008) 9
A great road movie, starting from Eugene, Oregon. Features Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward's music.
Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (2008) 9
A fast-moving, entertaining portrait of late gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, narrated by Johnny Depp.
Helvetica (2007) 9
No modern typeface is more ubiquitous than Helvetica. What are the responsibilities of graphic designers?
How to Die in Oregon (2011) 9
Peter Richardson's respectful, heartbreaking documentary about physician-assisted suicide and the beauty of life.
Hype! (1996) 9
The Seattle grunge music scene of the early 1990s and its effects on American culture.
In Pursuit of Panama (2009) 9
An allegorical, Kerouac-like documentary about two lifelong friends who embark on a seven-country road trip.
Inexplicable Universe: Unsolved Mysteries, The (2013) 9
Six Neil deGrasse Tyson lectures exploring what we don't know about how the universe works.
Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking (2010) 9
Discovery Channel cosmology miniseries that discusses aliens, time travel and the history of the universe.
Jodorowsky's Dune (2014) 9
Behind Jodorowsky's ambitious, influential mid-1970s sci-fi film failure. With Dalí, Giger, Welles, Jagger, Pink Floyd.
Last Night (1998) 9
There are six hours until the end of the world. What would you do?
Limbo (1999) 9
A film set in Alaska's wilderness about people living in limbo. There is no ending.
Little Otik (2001) 9
A fantastically disturbing Czech fairytale about parenthood. It's conventionally structured for a Svankmajer film.
Lorna's Silence (2009) 9
The Dardenne Brothers' stunning film about Albanian emigrants in Belgium. Study of a woman's conscience.
Meeting People Is Easy (1999) 9
A documentary about the band Radiohead. An OK Computer travelogue of the disorientation of touring.
Millennium Actress (2001) 9
This animated epic blurs the distinction between film, history and memory. There are many truths.
My Winnipeg (2008) 9
Haunting, personal portrait of filmmaker Guy Maddin's hometown of Winnipeg, and of his psyche. Unique.
Pixar Story, The (2008) 9
Documentary about the history of animation, and the origin and successes of Pixar Animation Studios.
Promesse, La (1997) 9
A gritty, thoughtful portrayal of the illegal immigrant situation in Belgium by the Dardenne Brothers.
Torrey Pines (2016) 9
Stop-motion adventure of 1990s youth. Director Clyde Peterson also leads queercore band Your Heart Breaks.
Turtles Can Fly (2005) 9
A grim and heartbreaking portrait of Iraq. Refugee children survive by collecting and selling mines.
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2011) 9
On his deathbed, Uncle Boonmee experiences the magical intersection of spirit, animal and human worlds.
Upstream Color (2013) 9
Shane Carruth's fragmented, hypnotic story of lost identity. Puzzling allegory via Thoreau and psychotropic grubs.
When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions (2008) 9
Discovery's compelling six-part series about the race into space, the moon landings, shuttles, and beyond.
180° South: Conquerors of the Useless (2010) 8
An outdoorsman retraces the epic 1968 journey of his hero Yvon Chouinard to Patagonia. Inspiring.
5 Broken Cameras (2012) 8
Intimate study of a small West Bank village's protests against Israeli soldiers. Injustice, violence, resolve.
Abel Raises Cain (2005) 8
A documentary about world-class hoaxer Alan Abel, who exposes the media's obsession with the salacious.
April and the Extraordinary World (2016) 8
Alternate universe ruled by coal and steam engines. Scientists have been disappearing. Fun French steampunk.
Art & Copy (2009) 8
Documents advertising's history and influence. Wisdom and inspiration from creative artists behind the campaigns.
Aura, The (2006) 8
An epileptic taxidermist imagines executing the perfect robbery, then gets his chance. A psychological thriller.
Away From Her (2007) 8
A man deals with the progression of his wife's Alzheimer's. Sarah Polley's character-driven directorial debut.
Bag It (2011) 8
Funny/disturbing environmental documentary about plastic bags, the ACC, BPA, phthalates and child development.
Beautiful Losers (2009) 8
A collective group of do-it-yourself artists and designers in 1990s New York find success.
Between the Folds (2008) 8
PBS documentary about artists and scientists who have devoted their lives to modern origami.
Blood Into Wine (2010) 8
Eccentric rocker Maynard James Keenan's journey from L.A. to running a world-class vineyard in Arizona.
Breaking the Huddle: The Integration of College Football (2008) 8
HBO chronicles the profound effect of the 1960s Civil Rights movement on college football programs.
Bunny and the Bull (2009) 8
A surreal, Gondry-esque comedy starring an agoraphobic man who reconstructs a tragic European road trip.
Cemetery of Splendor (2016) 8
Gentle magical realism featuring Thai soldiers with a mysterious sleeping sickness, ancient kings, and love.
Christmas, Again (2015) 8
Life of a dejected Christmas-tree salesman. Small observations about human behavior, the importance of timing.
City Dark, The (2012) 8
Documentary about the human and global consequences of modern light pollution and the disappearing stars.
Clear Cut: The Story of Philomath, Oregon (2006) 8
A documentary about political conflict in an Oregon logging town, directed by Peter Richardson.
CODE: Debugging the Gender Gap (2015) 8
Exposes the lack of women and minorities in tech. Explores reasons why and possible solutions.
Cold Weather (2011) 8
Charming mumblecore mystery set in Portland, Oregon. I want to be friends with the leads.
Computer Chess (2013) 8
Bizarre story about artificial intelligence via 1980s chess programmers. It's like 'Pi' meets 'Napoleon Dynamite'.
Cremaster 3 (2002) 8
Matthew Barney's art installation epic where he plays the Entered Apprentice and faces bizarre adversaries.
David Lynch: The Art Life (2017) 8
Lynch discusses his early life, his art and his creative process. Meditative smoking and painting.
Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog (2008) 8
Joss Whedon's three-part online musical miniseries. Filmed during the writers' strike, starring Neil Patrick Harris.
Dynamic:01 - The Best Of DavidLynch.com (2007) 8
A collection of short films and interviews created for subscribing members of DavidLynch.com. Weird experiments.
Everything is a Remix (2012) 8
Four-part video series by Kirby Ferguson about the culture of copying, transforming and combining media.
Forks Over Knives (2011) 8
Vast evidence that a whole foods, plant-based diet can reverse diseases caused by animal-based foods.
Freedom on the Fence (2005) 8
A documentary project about the culturally iconic art of Polish posters under the USSR regime.
Future, The (2011) 8
Miranda July weaves a magical, heartrending film on loneliness and mortality. And a stray cat.
Grand Night In: The Story of Aardman, A (2015) 8
History of Aardman Animations, the acclaimed British stop-motion animation studio behind Morph, Wallace & Gromit.
Gruffalo, The (2009) 8
A cunning mouse outwits a succession of predators while walking in the deep dark wood.
Hire Film Series Vol. 1, The (2001) 8
Five short BMW-commissioned films starring Clive Owen. Directors include Kar-Wai Wong and Ang Lee.
How the Fire Fell (2011) 8
Edward P. Davee's haunting, dreamlike portrayal of Edmund Creffield's early-1900s cult in Corvallis, Oregon.
In the Shadow of the Moon (2007) 8
The surviving crew members from NASA's Apollo missions tell their story in their own words.
Inherit the Wind (1999) 8
Like 12 Angry Men, another excellent made-for-TV remake starring Jack Lemmon and George C. Scott.
InnSæi: The Sea Within (2016) 7
A global journey to reconnect human intuition within our modern world of distraction and stress.
Julien Donkey-Boy (1999) 8
A Dogme 95 video-art exercise about the effects of schizophrenia on family life. Poetic desperation.
Kinamand (2006) 8
A Danish plumber begins eating at a family-run Chinese diner and makes unexpected emotional connections.
King Corn (2007) 8
Good-natured introduction to industrialized agriculture. We subsidize the Happy Meals, but not the healthy ones.
Light Bulb Conspiracy: The Untold Story of Planned Obsole... (2011) 8
History of planned obsolescence, the hidden mechanism at the heart of our wasteful consumer society.
Lila Says (2005) 8
A well-acted story of seduction and self-realization, revolving around the beautiful and alluring Vahina Giocante.
Little Thief, The (1999) 8
A young man from the French countryside moves to the city to find a job.
Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World (2016) 8
Werner Herzog explores the Internet's evolution, ponders its societal influence. Cyberwarfare, AI, telepathy, etc.
Loose Change 9/11: An American Coup (2009) 8
Investigates the conspiracy theory that 9/11 was an inside job. An example of history repeating?
Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack - Seasons 1-3, The (2010) 8
Cartoon seafaring adventures of young Flapjack and pirate K'nuckles who live in a talking whale.
Mindscape of Alan Moore, The (2003) 8
Creative philosophies from the brilliant comic writer of Watchmen, V for Vendetta and From Hell.
Moon Man (2012) 8
Moon Man hitches a ride to Earth on a comet and discovers children need him.
More Tales from the Script (2010) 8
Fascinating unheard stories from top Hollywood screenwriters. A 47-minute continuation of Tales from the Script.
My Son the Fanatic (1998) 8
Set in Britain, a Pakistani taxi-driver is attracted to a prostitute. Enter the Islamic fundamentalists.
Neverwas (2007) 8
A psychiatrist befriends a patient in a mental institution and discovers his father's secrets. Magical.
Nói albínói (2004) 8
A teenager drifts through life on a remote fjord in the north of Iceland.
Oceans (2010) 8
Exquisite cinematography of majestic undersea creatures with terribly dull, sentimental Pierce Brosnan narration.
One I Love, The (2014) 8
Weekend getaway of a married couple on the brink of separation becomes clever plot twist.
Osama (2004) 8
Attempting to survive beneath the Taliban, a 12-year-old Afghan girl disguises herself as a boy.
Painting, The (2013) 8
Characters in an incomplete painting seek their creator. Charming parable about God and social status.
Paragraph 175 (2000) 8
German historian interviews survivors of Nazi persecution of homosexuals under the Paragraph 175 penal code.
Paranoia Agent: Complete Collection (2004) 8
Satoshi Kon's dark, paranormal 13-episode Japanese TV series. The spectral, enigmatic assailant Lil' Slugger fascinates.
People, Places, Things (2015) 8
Graphic novelist Jemaine Clement, now single-parenting twin girls, can't get let go of his ex.
Persuaders, The (2004) 8
The cultures of marketing and advertising influence what Americans buy and how they view themselves.
Purge (2013) 8
A young woman running from Russian sex-traffickers meets an older version of herself. Gut-wrenching.
Rabbits (2002) 8
David Lynch's nine-episode sitcom starring people in rabbit suits, accompanied by laugh tracks. Plotless, eerie.
Reality (2015) 8
Surreal, compelling nonsense from absurdist Dupieux, who has taken a page from Lynch's Mulholland Drive.
Reel Injun (2009) 8
How depictions of Native Americans in cinema have shaped perceptions of their cultures and histories.
Regret to Inform (1998) 8
The filmmaker goes on a pilgrimage to the Vietnamese countryside where her husband was killed.
Rock-afire Explosion, The (2008) 8
The inventor behind (and fans of) the Showbiz Pizza and Chuck E. Cheese's animatronic puppets.
Room on the Broom (2012) 8
A gentle witch offers rides to a variety of animals on her increasingly crowded broom.
Shower (1999) 8
A businessman travels home to Beijing after receiving a message that his father has died.
Six-String Samurai (1998) 8
In a post-apocalyptic America, samurai guitarist Buddy Holly journeys to Lost Vegas to become king.
Special (2008) 8
Michael Rapaport participates in an experimental drug study and becomes sure his superpowers are strengthening.
Startup.com (2001) 8
Examines the start-up phenomenon by documenting the existence of new media company govWorks.com.
Tales from the Script (2009) 8
Veteran Hollywood screenwriters share their triumphs and failures, insider insights, anecdotes and artistic compromises.
Tangerine (2015) 8
A transgender prostitute tears through L.A. on Christmas Eve seeking her unfaithful pimp. Raunchy, empathetic.
Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait of Maurice Sendak (2009) 8
Diary-style documentary by Spike Jonze about Maurice Sendak, the unconventional author of iconic children's books.
Terms and Conditions May Apply (2013) 8
Documentary examines the erosion of privacy in the digital age. How corporations and governments spy.
Tetro (2009) 8
Stylish indie film by Francis Ford Coppola. Could've been better with fewer staged productions though.
These Amazing Shadows: The Movies That Make America (2011) 8
The National Film Registry's history and the cultural, historical and aesthetic significance of motion pictures.
This is Not a Conspiracy Theory (2018) 8
Six-part (2014-2018) episodic documentary by Kirby Ferguson about the hidden forces that shape our lives.
Three Seasons (1999) 8
A languorously beautiful, kind film centered around the lives of three main characters in Vietnam.
Time Code (2000) 8
Mike Figgis's innovative film is composed of four simultaneous takes, each occupying a screen quadrant.
Tim's Vermeer (2013) 8
Ingenious. Inventor Tim Jenison works to replicate the painting techniques of Dutch master Johannes Vermeer.
Tokyo! (2008) 8
A cinematic triptych (transformation, anarchy, rebirth) set in Tokyo. Directed by Gondry, Carax and Bong.
Tokyo Godfathers (2003) 8
An animated Christmas story set in Tokyo featuring an unlikely trio of homeless friends.
Truth About Romance, The (2013) 8
Losing what you thought you wanted can reveal a new adventure. Danielle Jackson is magnetic.
Tuvalu (2001) 8
Stunning, whimsical German film with almost no dialogue set in a surreal bathhouse in Bulgaria.
Unmade Beds (2009) 8
The stories of Vera and Axl intersect via artsy, free-spirited squatters in a London warehouse.
Vanishing of the Bees (2011) 8
Investigation into implications of the worldwide collapse of the honeybee. Slow death by systemic pesticides.
Waste Land (2011) 8
Uplifting documentary highlighting the transformative power of art and the beauty of the human spirit.
William S. Burroughs: A Man Within (2010) 8
Never-before-seen footage and exclusive interviews with friends and colleagues of the influential postmodernist novelist.
Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl (1998) 8
Explores the Cultural Revolution in China. A young teenage girl is sent to remote lands.
Advantageous (2015) 7
Dystopian future where a middle-aged woman undergoes a drastic biomedical procedure to support her daughter.
Aimée & Jaguar (1999) 7
Set in 1943 Berlin, a Nazi wife has a love affair with a Jewish lesbian.
Atom Smashers, The (2008) 7
How does life exist? Documentary chronicles the search for the Higgs boson by Fermilab physicists.
Before I Disappear (2014) 7
Circumstances cause a suicidal man to drag his young, precocious niece across Manhattan one night.
Bernard and Doris (2008) 7
An HBO Films picture about tobacco heiress Doris Duke (Sarandon) and her gay butler (Fiennes).
Berserk - The Complete Collection (2002) 7
Anime about young warrior Guts and the mercenary company called the Band of the Hawk.
Big River (2010) 7
An update/companion to 2007's King Corn. Explores the ecological consequences of industrial corn production.
Big Sur (2013) 7
Depressed alcoholic Beat writer Jack Duluoz/Kerouac retreats to a small cabin in California's Big Sur.
Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975, The (2011) 7
Found footage shot by Swedish journalists documenting the Black Power Movement. Great Angela Davis interviews.
Blank City (2011) 7
Snapshot of late 1970s underground/punk filmmaking in New York during the No Wave movement.
Bomb It (2008) 7
A global history of street art. Explores cultural/political issues of tagging, graffiti and art activism.
Bon Voyage (2004) 7
A farcical portrait of 1940 France nearly surrendering to zee Germans. Virginie Ledoyen is adorable.
Bonjour Monsieur Shlomi (2003) 7
A school principal in Israel discovers that a quiet 16-year-old underachiever is a genius. Sweet.
Book of the Dead, The (2006) 7
Intricate stop-motion animation set in feudal Japan. A mysterious Buddhist parable involving a ghost prince.
Brief History of Graphics, A (2014) 7
Five-part series by Stuart Brown of XboxAhoy covering the history/milestones of video game graphics/techniques.
Calles Hablan, Las (2013) 7
Documentary about graffiti art in Barcelona, Spain, pitting an artistic community versus a restrictive government.
Cat in Paris, A (2012) 7
Charming, attractive animated feature centered on cat burgling. Made with traditional ink and paint cartooning.
Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury, The (2004) 7
Peter Chung's animated short film bridges the Riddick story between 'Pitch Black' and 'The Chronicles'.
Collection of 2005 Academy Award Nominated Short Films, A (2006) 7
Death abounds. I enjoyed Six Shooter and Jasper Morello. Hated the Moon and the Son.
Conan O'Brien Can't Stop (2011) 7
Behind the scenes of Conan O'Brien's frenetic 2010 comedy tour. Revealing but not especially funny.
Country Wedding (2008) 7
A couple tries to find a church in the Icelandic countryside to have their wedding.
Dark Star: H.R. Giger's World (2014) 7
The dark surrealism of Swiss artist H.R. Giger interspersed with documentation of his final years.
Desert Blue (1998) 7
A struggling roadside town. The world's largest ice cream cone. Christina Ricci blows stuff up.
Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them, The (2014) 7
The tragic dissolution of a romantic relationship, told from two perspectives in two independent chapters.
Dolphin Tale (2011) 7
Charming family film based on a true story. The actual dolphin involved stars as herself.
Drakmar: A Vassal's Journey (2008) 7
A sensitive 14-year-old escapes to the medieval fantasy kingdom of Adria to survive his adolescence.
East/West (1999) 7
In 1946, Stalin invited self-exiled Russians to return home, only to execute or imprison them.
Exploding Girl, The (2010) 7
A young epileptic woman, back home from college, struggles with her feelings for her boyfriend.
FairyTale: A True Story (1997) 7
Two young girls in 1917 take a photograph, believed to confirm the existence of fairies.
FL: Unpremeditated Movie (2013) 7
No-budget documentary by MTO that chronicles his controversial graffiti art and intervention in Sarasota, Florida.
For No Good Reason (2014) 7
Depp visits Ralph Steadman to discuss the motivation/process behind his deranged/Gonzo art. A bit congratulatory.
Frequencies (2014) 7
Ambitiously explores philosophical notions of fate and free will in an alternate reality of frequencies.
From One Second to the Next (2013) 7
Short documentary chronicling the devastating consequences of texting and driving, directed by Werner Herzog.
God Forgive Us (2014) 7
Parallel stories of four struggling strangers build to an unexpected collision. Engaging indie. Acting is passable.
Gray Area, The (2010) 7
Three young men mourn the death of a friend, investigate the circumstances. Shot in Portland.
Great Directors (2010) 7
Conversations with 10 of the world's greatest living directors, including David Lynch and Richard Linklater.
Gruffalo's Child, The (2011) 7
The child of the Gruffalo ignores her father's warnings and seeks the Big Bad Mouse.
H. (2016) 7
Two women named Helen struggle to cope following strange atmospheric phenomena in Troy, NY. Unsettling.
Happenstance (2000) 7
A subtle twist of fate can affect the lives of total strangers. Stars Audrey Tautou.
Happy Times (2001) 7
A bittersweet comedy about a poor, aging bachelor who hasn't had luck in love.
He Died with a Felafel in His Hand (2001) 7
Darkly humorous series of vignettes of shared-housing experiences across Australia. A search for meaning.
Hellboy Animated: Blood and Iron (2007) 7
Hellboy ends up battling the goddess Hecate after a professor resurrects a powerful female vampire.
Hi-Line, The (2000) 7
Set in rural Montana, this thoughtful character drama stars a young naïve Rachael Leigh Cook.
Hieronymus Bosch, Touched by the Devil (2016) 7
New infrared photography of the late-medieval artist's fantastical paintings. Too much focus on inter-museum politics.
High Art (1998) 7
Explores the romance between photo editor Radha Mitchell and heroin-addicted photographer Ally Sheedy.
Home (2009) 7
A film by Yann Arthus-Bertrand featuring aerial footage from around the globe. Beautiful but tedious.
House of Pleasures (2011) 7
Hardship and camaraderie at an upscale Parisian brothel at the turn of the 20th century.
Hunt for Gollum, The (2009) 7
Chris Bouchard's impressive Lord of the Rings film. Gandalf sends Strider out to find Gollum.
I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House (2016) 7
A hospice nurse cares for an elderly horror novelist in an old house. Persistent unease.
I Cannot Go on as I Am (2015) 7
Silent musical by Edgardo Flores. A woman loses her job and lover. Meaning in stillness.
Idiots and Angels (2009) 7
Bill Plympton's animated dark comedy about a morally bankrupt man who wakes up with wings.
Ingredients (2009) 7
Compares America's industrialized food system to a rising local-growth movement, from Oregon to New York.
Ink (2009) 7
High-concept visual thriller that weaves the conscious with the subconscious. Falls down on unconvincing acting.
In Your Eyes (2014) 7
Two seemingly unconnected people have an unexplainable telepathic bond that allows them to share experiences.
Jack Goes Boating (2010) 7
Philip Seymour Hoffman explores the dreams and failures of two awkward, working-class New York couples.
Jellyfish (2008) 7
Intersecting stories of three very different Israeli women living in Tel Aviv. Loved Batiya's story.
Jesus Henry Christ (2012) 7
Measured quirkiness that evokes Wes Anderson's style about a 10-year-old prodigy. Toni Collette is great.
Journey of the Universe (2011) 7
Explores of the epic history of the cosmos, Earth and humanity. Sometimes goofy but also profound.
Just Like Being There (2012) 7
Celebrates gig posters by contemporary artists nearly 50 years after the first iconic concert posters.
Keyhole (2012) 7
Guy Maddin's surreal take on Homer's Odyssey. A mysterious, dreamlike journey of Ulysses and ghosts.
King of California (2007) 7
Mentally unstable Michael Douglas is convinced that Spanish treasure is buried in suburban California.
Knee Deep (2007) 7
In rural Maine, a young, hardworking dairy farmer is betrayed by family. A humanistic documentary.
Last Days of the Arctic (2011) 7
Follows photojournalist Ragnar Axelsson on an evocative photographic journey among the people of the Arctic.
Pearl Jam: Let's Play Two (2017) 7
Eddie Vedder's Chicago Cubs fandom during their 2016 World Series run, plus Wrigley Field concerts.
Life During Wartime (2010) 7
Todd Solondz sequel explores the virtues of forgiving and forgetting through troubling, dysfunctional family scenarios.
Life is to Whistle (1998) 7
Three characters in present-day Havana must choose between their self-restricting beliefs or living more freely.
Little Fish (2005) 7
In an Australian Little Saigon district, Cate Blanchett is trying to escape her drug-addicted past.
Live from Baghdad (2002) 7
Robert Wiener's memoirs of CNN reporters in Iraq during the Gulf War bombing in 1991.
Loneliest Planet, The (2012) 7
A pivotal, instinctive reaction divides a couple's hiking trek in Georgia's Caucasus Mountains. Slow, stunning.
Look Around You - Series 1 and 2 (2005) 7
A BBC TV comedy series that satirizes 1970s educational science programs. A nonsensical, faithful homage.
Love & Teleportation (2013) 7
A disgraced quantum mechanics professor invents a teleportation machine in his garage. Clever, charming ending.
Lunopolis (2009) 7
Pseudo-documentary about aliens on the moon and a secret Scientology-like group. A fun, riveting conspiracy.
Malice in Wonderland (2010) 7
A woman descends into a gritty underworld after encountering a London taxi driver. Clever update.
Metropia (2010) 7
Bleak dystopian future of Europe with a fascinating, photomontage animation style. An unsettling Orwellian plot.
Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things (2016) 7
Inside the lives of minimalists striving to exist meaningfully with less. A familiar anti-consumerism premise.
Minus Man, The (1999) 7
Inconspicuous serial killer Owen Wilson drifts into a quaint coastal town looking to start over.
No No: A Dockumentary (2014) 7
The story of baseball star Dock Ellis, most famous for his 1970 no-hitter on LSD.
Not One Less (1999) 7
A very determined girl is left in charge of a mountain village school in China.
Objectified (2009) 7
Documentary about how humans relate to manufactured objects, featuring designers like Dieter Rams and Apple.
Or, My Treasure (2005) 7
A young Israeli girl does anything to support her sick, aging prostitute mother. Raw, non-judgmental.
Phantom (2013) 7
A Tokyo couple's all-night philosophical conversation about their precarious lives and place in the world.
Phantom Boy (2016) 7
A boy whose illness allows him to float outside his body befriends a NYC cop.
Phoebe in Wonderland (2009) 7
An unconventional drama teacher inspires a troubled girl. Elle Fanning and Patricia Clarkson are amazing.
Piano Tuner of Earthquakes, The (2006) 7
The Brothers Quay present a dark fairytale about a diabolical doctor and beautiful opera singer.
Pompeii: The Last Day (2003) 7
A dramatized recreation of the destruction of Pompeii when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD.
Prisoner, The (2009) 7
AMC miniseries based on the classic 1960s TV show. Interesting but muddled. Caviezel lacks personality.
Pontypool (2010) 7
Thoughtful psychological thriller. A virus with zombie-like symptoms is somehow infecting a small Ontario town.
Radiant City (2007) 7
Faux-documentary about the disaggregated, unwalkable, intolerant nature of modern suburbia. Mocking.
Renegade (2004) 7
Psychedelic French Western that feels like a Jodorowsky film. Sacred mountains, gunfights, peyote and shaman.
Rewind This! (2013) 7
The cultural and historical impact of the VHS tape. How home video changed the world.
Road to Nowhere (2011) 7
Shannyn Sossamon's emotive performance carries Hellman's thin neo-noir mystery that blurs film with real crime.
Robot Stories (2004) 7
Four stories about a futuristic society grappling with its relationship to the growing robot population.
Romance (1999) 7
A young French woman embarks on an escalating sexual journey, testing her emotional limits.
Rosewater (2014) 7
Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari is jailed in Iran under suspicion of espionage. Jon Stewart directs.
Saddest Music in the World, The (2004) 7
Guy Maddin oddity. A Canadian beer baroness organizes a saddest-music contest during the Great Depression.
Saving Capitalism (2017) 7
Robert Reich's demoralizing yet hopeful account of how American politics became rigged by crony capitalism.
Septien (2011) 7
Weird little movie about three eccentric brothers. The underlying bearded angst is charming and absurd.
Sherrybaby (2006) 7
Former drug addict Maggie Gyllenhaal is out of prison, seeking her daughter and emotional recovery.
Sidewalls (2011) 7
Two neurotic individuals live in neighboring apartments in Buenos Aires. Will they meet? Charming loneliness.
Sky Ladder: The Art of Cai Guo-Qiang (2016) 7
The grand celestial ambitions of Chinese contemporary artist Cai Guo-Qiang, famous for his pyrotechnic displays.
Sons of Perdition (2010) 7
Three teenagers exiled from an FLDS polygamist cult try to survive in mainstream America. Distressing.
Son of the Congo (2015) 7
Basketball star Serge Ibaka returns to the Congo with the hope of uplifting communities. Heartwarming.
Stanley Kubrick's Boxes (2008) 7
Kubrick's incredible attention to detail revealed in 1,000+ boxes of his meticulously sorted film materials.
Starlet (2012) 7
The unlikely friendship between a 21-year-old actress and a lonely elderly woman in Los Angeles.
Third Contact (2012) 7
Psychological thriller explores madness, depression, quantum suicide and immortality. It's a dark, puzzling poem.
TiMER (2010) 7
A biotech implant counts down to the moment you're supposed to meet your soulmate. Charming.
Twilight of the Ice Nymphs (1998) 7
Jewel-toned, deadpan absurdity from the inimitable Guy Maddin. A kitschy, disorienting fantasy of frustrated desires.
Va Savoir (2001) 7
This romantic comedy follows three men and three women as their lives intersect in Paris.
Vegucated (2011) 7
Three New Yorkers adopt a vegan diet for six weeks, get educated about animal agriculture.
Vine of the Soul: Encounters with Ayahuasca (2010) 7
Explores sacred plant medicine. Two Canadians visit the Amazon to drink the hallucinogenic brew ayahuasca.
Werckmeister Harmonies (2001) 7
Darkness descends. A bleak, mysterious and meditative art film. It's also cryptic, tedious and pretentious.
When Time Becomes a Woman (2013) 7
Dialogue-driven sci-fi filmed at Jordan's Dead Sea. Mysterious narrative about how the world could end.
Who is Dayani Cristal? (2014) 7
Moving portrait of border-crossing migrant workers. Begins with an unidentified body in the Arizona desert.
Who Took Johnny (2015) 7
Examination into the famous 1982 disappearance of Iowa paperboy Johnny Gosch. Case appears essentially solved.
Wild Man Blues (1997) 7
A documentary about Woody Allen's life as he tours with his New Orleans jazz band.
Winter Passing (2006) 7
Zooey Deschanel visits her novelist father, now rooming with a young woman and Christian rocker.
Wrong (2013) 7
Absurdist Dupieux film about a man changing others' lives while looking for his lost dog.
XX/XY (2002) 7
A three-way relationship during college still haunts and complicates Mark Ruffalo's life 10 years later.
4th Dimension, The (2008) 6
Feels inspired by Eraserhead and Pi, but this Aphex Twin-scored meditation on reality ultimately disappoints.
Alice in Wonderland (1999) 6
A made-for-TV, family-friendly version with a cast of Hollywood all stars. It's hardly worth watching.
All My Friends Are Funeral Singers (2010) 6
A fortuneteller lives in a house crowded with ghosts at the edge of the woods.
Beat Hotel, The (2012) 6
Collects fragments of 1950s-era Ginsberg, Corso, Burroughs and Gysin living in a rundown Paris hotel.
Besieged (1998) 6
Housekeeper Thandie Newton goes into exile in Italy after her African husband is jailed.
Best Man, The (1999) 6
A marriage causes a reunion of college friends. Taye Diggs and Nia Long star.
Blood: The Last Vampire (2001) 6
A vampire horror anime set in 1966 on a U.S. Air Force base in Japan.
Bottom of the World (2017) 6
Trippy mystery of a guilty subconscious. Dreams within dreams, but falls flat in the end.
Bread and Tulips (2000) 6
This lighthearted comedy traces a married woman's self-discovery in Venice. Contrived, sweet, and escapist.
Breast Men (1997) 6
HBO movie follows two doctors who invented silicone breast implants through time. David Schwimmer stars.
Capturing Reality: The Art of Documentary (2009) 6
A metadocumentary. This film about making documentaries should have been richer, deeper and edited better.
Cartoon Noir (1999) 6
Six oddball, animated shorts from five countries, featuring supernatural elements and darker themes. Mediocre.
Chasing Sleep (2001) 6
An insomniac wakes up to find his wife missing and proceeds to lose his mind.
Close Your Eyes (2002) 6
A hypnotherapist receives visions from the inside of his patients' minds. A key to immortality?
Colony (2010) 6
Slow and unfocused documentary about beekeeping, and the struggle to cope with colony collapse disorder.
Coyote Waits (2003) 6
A murder mystery set on a Navajo reservation. Part of PBS's American Mystery! series.
CQ (2002) 6
The story of a young sci-fi filmmaker in Paris. Model Angela Lindvall serves as eye-candy.
Crystal Fairy & the Magical Cactus (2013) 6
Two rather insufferable young Americans seek the legendary hallucinogenic cactus in Chile. Anticlimactic drug trip.
Dante's Inferno: An Animated Epic (2010) 6
Animatrix-style companion to EA's video game. Dante enters the nine circles of hell, battles demons.
Embers (2015) 6
Survivors of a global neurological epidemic, unable to make memories, live entirely in the present.
Exterminating Angels, The (2007) 6
A provocative, high-minded exercise about sexual pleasure in film. It's self-indulgent and oh so French.
Extraordinary Tales (2015) 6
Animated anthology of five stories adapted from Edgar Allan Poe. Disjointedly connected via Death character.
Forest for the Trees, The (2005) 6
An awkward German schoolteacher is basically unprepared for life. Her alienation is painful to watch.
Girl Asleep (2016) 6
Vibrant and fantastical. Chaotic caricature of a teenage girl coming of age in 1970s Australia.
Give 'em Hell, Malone (2009) 6
Mediocre, ultraviolent detective noir in need of a better director. Ridiculous villains in second-rate makeup.
Haiku Tunnel (2001) 6
A comedy about tempness versus permness, both in the workplace and in life.
Hellboy Animated: Sword of Storms (2006) 6
A samurai sword sends Hellboy into a dangerous realm of Japanese legends, ghosts and monsters.
Hideous Kinky (1998) 6
A hippie British woman travels to Morocco with her two young daughters. Stars Kate Winslet.
Homegrown (1998) 6
Small-time marijuana-grower Billy Bob Thornton and Kelly Lynch try to get rich following a murder.
Hot Girls Wanted (2015) 6
Superficial documentary of lost and confused young women being exploited in the amateur porn industry.
How Beer Saved the World (2011) 6
Simplifies human history to exaggerate the importance of beer to civilization. BEER! Extreme hyperbole!
Imagination (2007) 6
Eric Leiser's surreal experiment with puppetry, stop-motion sketches and claymation. And unconvincing actors.
Ingenious (2009) 6
Likable rags-to-riches comedy based on the true story of an Arizona inventor of novelty items.
Jack and the Cuckoo-Clock Heart (2014) 6
Strange, vivid fantasy about a boy with a mechanical heart. Disjointed script, uncanny valley characters.
Lifeguard, The (2013) 6
Lovable Kristen Bell's sensitive, sympathetic performance saves this uninspired movie. But she's actually too likable.
A bullet sends a man into a repeating time loop. Afterlife as low-budget film noir.
Love (2012) 6
Lonely astronaut stranded aboard the ISS develops cabin fever, becomes one with the universe. Posthumanism.
Lulu on the Bridge (1999) 6
After Jazz saxophonist Harvey Keitel is accidentally shot, he enters into a hallucinatory, obsessive affair.
Marie from the Bay of Angels (1997) 6
Nubile teenager Vahina Giocante spends her holidays on the French Riviera, picking up American sailors.
Origin: Spirits of the Past (2007) 6
In a post-apocalyptic anime future, cell-animated humans battle sentient forests with CG war machines.
Parallels (2015) 6
A mysterious building is the gateway to infinite parallel Earths. Interesting concept, but mediocre execution.
Pee-wee's Big Holiday (2016) 6
A Netflix revival of Pee-wee Herman's childlike antics and fun-house sketch humor. Fulfills 1980s nostalgia.
Permanent Midnight (1998) 6
Ben Stiller plays desperate comedy writer and heroin addict Jerry Stahl. Maria Bello also stars.
PU-239: The Half Life of Timofey Berezin (2007) 6
A nuclear plant worker with radiation poisoning tries to sell stolen plutonium to Moscow gangsters.
Ricky (2009) 6
French parable about a bizarre baby's physical development, his precocious sister and his irresponsible mother.
Rid of Me (2011) 6
A socially awkward newlywed's emotional breakdown and rebirth in Laurelwood, Oregon. A hard-to-watch indie.
Salinger (2013) 6
Invades the privacy of J. D. Salinger. Engaging speculation, but trumpeted through a flawed, self-important lens.
Student Services (2011) 6
A 19-year-old freshman in France, desperate for cash, is enticed into a life of prostitution.
Tell Me Something (2001) 6
Black garbage bags filled with dismembered human body parts are showing up around the city.
Tetsuo: The Bullet Man (2010) 6
The third film in Tsukamoto's series about technology's dehumanizing influence. Human bodies as weapons.
Trekkies (1999) 6
A somewhat affectionate documentary about the phenomenon of Star Trek fandom in its many-splendored geekiness.
Tuesdays with Morrie (1999) 6
A made-for-TV movie with sportswriter Hank Azaria and retired professor Jack Lemmon, dying of ALS.
Tulse Luper Suitcases: The Moab Story, The (2003) 6
This Peter Greenaway multimedia project is too ambitious, difficult, and intertextual. Caroline Dhavernas still shines.
VANish (2015) 6
A drug lord's daughter is taken hostage by amateurs. Entertaining mayhem ensues inside their van.
Wild Blue Yonder, The (2005) 6
Werner Herzog fashions a boring sci-fi documentary from beautiful undersea Antarctica footage and NASA video.
Wonders Are Many: The Making of Doctor Atomic (2008) 6
Irritating modern opera rehearsals dominate the story of Oppenheimer and the 1945 Trinity atomic test.
Yesterday Was a Lie (2010) 6
Ambitious indie that explores the sci-fi film noir genre. Packed with Jung and consciousness theories.
All I Wanna Do (1998) 5
It's 1963 and Kirsten Dunst, Gaby Hoffmann, and Rachael Leigh Cook are pissed-off schoolgirls.
Born of Hope (2009) 5
Kate Madison's Lord of the Rings prequel, based on Tolkien's appendix paragraphs. Decent low-budget effort.
Delirium (2018) 5
Topher Grace, recently released from a mental institute, inherits his father's mansion. Haunted? Or psychosis?
FDR: American Badass! (2012) 5
As expected, the two-minute trailer was funnier than the movie. Crude/dumb humor, with Nazi werewolves.
Feed (2006) 5
An Internet sex crimes expert investigates feeder-gainer relationships (sexual fetish of the grotesquely obese).
Guardian Brothers, The (2017) 5
The spirit world is authoritarian and small-minded. The godless human world has tasty-looking Chinese soup.
Girl from Monday, The (2005) 5
Citizens have become property traded on the stock exchange, but aliens are supporting the resistance.
Glitch in the Grid (2011) 5
Three artists find spiritual renewal in this imaginative but self-indulgent film by the Leiser Brothers.
Gnome Alone (2017) 5
Help garden gnomes battle the Troggs and save the world? Or befriend wicked teenage girls?
Gun Shy (2000) 5
Undercover DEA agent Liam Neeson almost gets killed. He begins attending group therapy for support.
Halo Legends (2010) 5
Collection of seven Halo stories. Starts out heavy-handedly and badly animated, but eventually gets better.
Harvard Man (2001) 5
Mixes basketball and crime with sexual and chemical experimentation. And cheerleader Sarah Michelle Gellar.
Hellevator: The Bottled Fools (2005) 5
Had me with the underground dystopia and telepaths, lost me with the overdone elevator bloodbath.
Last Days of the World, The (2011) 5
A bored Japanese teenager learns that Earth will be destroyed. Surreal, kinky and borderline exploitative.
Last Survivors, The (2015) 5
A teen girl tries to evade masked marauders in drought-stricken, post-apocalyptic Oregon. High body count.
Man with the Iron Fists 2, The (2015) 5
RZA, the kung-fu blacksmith, arrives unceremoniously in an oppressed silver-mining village in feudal China. Fight!
One and Two (2015) 5
Siblings with teleportation powers live with their abusive father on an isolated Mennonite-like farmstead. WTF.
Outside Ozona (1998) 5
Oklahoma motorists listening to the same radio station DJ are connected by a serial killer.
Palmetto (1998) 5
Recently released ex-con Woody Harrelson gets involved in a fake kidnapping scheme that turns real.
Playing God (1997) 5
Famed surgeon David Duchovny is stripped of his medical license and becomes a criminal doctor.
Reconstruction of William Zero, The (2015) 5
A geneticist with amnesia awakes under the care of his identical twin. Clever, but clumsy.
Saiyûki Vol. 1: The Journey Begins (2003) 5
A Dragonball Z-like anime adventure of four heroes traveling West to confront a powerful demon.
Saving Private Perez (2011) 5
A Mexican crime lord plans to invade Iraq to rescue his brother. Ridiculous, wacky violence.
Sleeping Dogs Lie (2005) 5
A short, low-budget film. Maynard James Keenan was charming, but Audioslave's Brad Wilk can't act.
Stuck (2008) 5
The callous aftermath of a hit-and-run. I winced at the bad acting and grisly suffering.
Superstorm (2007) 5
Scientists attempt to divert or weaken a Miami-bound hurricane using cloud seeding. A miniseries docudrama.
Trauma (2004) 5
Colin Firth's fragmented reality is haunted by death, apparitions, blood, ants, and Mena Suvari's vacuity.
FROM BAD TO WORSE
13 Seconds (2004) CRAP
I was cost-effectively bored by this cliché-ridden indie splatter film. Unbearably amateurish and uncreepy.
C.O.G. (2013) CRAP
A self-absorbed graduate tries living the simple life in Oregon, finds self-hatred through religion? Pointless garbage.
Committed (2000) CRAP
Adorable nitwit Heather Graham follows her panicked husband across the country. Attempted hilarity ensues.
Contaminated Man, The (2000) CRAP
Natascha McElhone stars in this film about a Hungarian man infected with a deadly pathogen.
Curve, The (1998) CRAP
Matthew Lillard and a friend kill their roommate and make it look like a suicide.
Day Without a Mexican, A (2004) CRAP
California's entire Hispanic population vanishes into pink fog. Satirical premise is thoroughly beaten to death.
Desire (2017) CRAP
Two estranged sisters reunite at a wedding. Lust destroys their lives again. Boring yet poetic.
Falling Sky (1998) CRAP
Depressing movie set in Las Vegas about alcoholic mother Karen Allen and daughter Brittany Murphy.
Hush (1998) CRAP
Mother-in-law Jessica Lange is batshit crazy. Pregnant Gwyneth Paltrow should be afraid, very afraid.
Lady Ninja Kaede 2 (2009) CRAP
Why? Bizarre, terrible Japanese erotica. Lady ninja's mission is to destroy an Edo sex cult.
Ma Mère (2005) CRAP
Dark, French exercise of reckless, unlikable characters finding pleasure in incest and depravity. Rotten, pointless.
Macbeth (2007) CRAP
Bad acting with laser-sighted guns, drugs and tattooed naked girls. A straight retelling of Shakespeare.
New Rose Hotel (1999) CRAP
Incoherent, completely worthless adaptation of a William Gibson story. An insufferable, redundant waste of time.
National Lampoon's Barely Legal (2003) CRAP
Three high school guys attempt to make a porno movie. Vic Ramalot takes it personally.
Paradox (2018) CRAP
Daryl Hannah directs outlaw Neil Young in an experimental concert film of supernatural frontier nonsense.
Poison Ivy 3: The New Seduction (1997) CRAP
Simplistic thriller starring sinister seductress Jaime Pressly. Gratuitous nudity and irrational vengeance.
Prey (2007) CRAP
A poorly written movie about Americans in Africa who are stalked by lions. Embarrassingly bad.
S. Darko (2009) CRAP
Cash-grab follow-up to Donnie Darko. Huge plot holes and weak characters, but exceeded worst expectations.
Stranded (2003) CRAP
Astronauts crash onto the surface of Mars. Intriguing concept, but bad science and idiotic script.
Tad the Lost Explorer and the Secret of King Midas (2017) CRAP
An awkward explorer, with Peruvian mummy sidekick, versus a millionaire looking for King Midas' necklace.
Tart (2001) CRAP
Dominique Swain and Bijou Phillips are wealthy troubled friends at a private school in Manhattan.
Wild Girl Waltz (2013) CRAP
I want to support indie films, but this was almost unwatchable. Painful acting, unlikable characters.
Wrong Cops (2013) CRAP
Aggressively self-conscious inanity via wild, musical antics of a moronic, corrupt police force. WTF, Dupieux.
Statistical ratings distribution of these 366 films (22.8% of total rated films):
With enough films included, it usually approximates a bell curve with a mean near 6.5...
(especially when considering that CRAP is 0-4 combined).
Average rating for these 366 films: 7.
10: 3.8%
9: 10.7%
5: 7.4%
CRAP: 6.3%
Do you have any movie recommendations? Perhaps you have a complaint to file about the film ratings or 15-word reviews? Ladies and gentleman, one and all, feel free to air your grievances! There's no need to wait until the annual Festivus celebration. Take this opportunity to share.
Filmometer.com Suggestion Box Name:
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« INE.PR.A: Convert Or Hold?
Chinese securities regulators are preparing some of the world's strictest regulations on a trading practice at the heart of the global debate over high-speed computerized markets.
The draft rules are designed to prevent traders from flooding exchanges with orders they don't fill by charging market participants fees for habitual cancellations. The proposal, which could come into force next year, echoes a plan by U.S. presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton to discourage high-speed trading strategies that she says could destabilize markets.
As regulators around the world grapple with the most effective ways to police computer-driven markets, they have focused on how to stop traders from using bogus orders to unfairly move prices in their favor. Critics contend that the tactic makes markets less fair and enables some traders to engage in a manipulative practice known as spoofing. Opponents of the proposed taxes on canceled orders say they would harm legitimate market makers and raise costs for the average investor.
China's proposals on algorithmic trading, revealed around the same time in October as Clinton's, state that "frequently placing and withdrawing orders where the ratio of trades concluded is abnormally low" would be prohibited, according to a translation by law firm Linklaters LLP. Traders who cancel more than 40 percent of their submitted orders in any given day would be charged a fee of 2 yuan (31 cents) per transaction.
Other measures suggested by the CSRC include forcing traders who use automated orders to provide a detailed description of their strategies to regulators and wait for a review before they're allowed to execute trades. That proposal has raised concern among some international investors who don't want to disclose their proprietary trading algorithms, according to Calvin Tai, the head of global clearing at Hong Kong's stock exchange.
Clinton, the front-runner to win the Democratic nomination for president, called for a fee on canceled orders in October and explicitly linked the idea to curbing high-frequency traders. Her plan is designed to target "harmful" high-frequency trading that makes markets "less stable and less fair," Clinton's campaign said at the time.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with an exchange fee for cancelled orders. A 96% cancellation rate will obviously strain the system more than will a lower rate and require increased investment by all serious participants, in bandwidth and a ticker-plant. However, when charges such as China's $0.31/transaction become exorbitant it becomes clear that this is just a revenue grab that will lead to migration of the markets to more trader-friendly nations, as well as having all the usual effects of 'stamp charges' on market liquidity. Compare the $0.31/transaction fee to the Toronto Stock Exchange's Maker-Taker fees, which net out to $0.0004 / share. [I'll save you the trouble: that means the Exchange would charge as much for a cancelled order as for an execution of 775 shares].
However, it is quite apparent that Tobin taxes harm market quality. One possibility where the AR PL and I might have a meeting of minds is the potential for an exchange to impose a fee for the placement of an order – generally, once you're permitted to place orders on the exchange, the only fees remaining are charged for executed transactions.
High-frequency trading pumped out over 300,000 trade inquiries each second last year, up from just 50,000 only seven years earlier. Yet actual trade volume on the exchanges has remained relatively flat over that period. It's an explosion of head-fake ephemeral orders – not to lock in real trades, but to skim pennies off the public markets by the billions.
Added systems burdens, costs and distortions of rapid-fire quote activity: Ephemeral quotes, also called "quote stuffing," that are cancelled and reposted in milliseconds distort the tape and present risk to the resiliency and integrity of critical market data and trading infrastructure. The tremendous added costs associated with the expanded capacity and bandwidth necessary to support this added data traffic is ultimately borne in part by individual investors.
There are solutions. Today there is no restriction to pumping out millions of orders in a matter of seconds, only to reverse the majority of them. It's the life-blood of high-frequency trading. A simple solution would be to establish cancellation fees to discourage the practice of quote stuffing. The SEC and CFTC floated the idea last year. It has great merit. Make the fees high enough and they will eliminate high-frequency trading entirely.
However, I would support a charge for order entry (or simply order cancellation, assuming that executed orders get charged by other means) only to the extent that it is imposed by the exchanges to recover costs or as a source of competitive advantage. If, once you count amortization of all the required infrastructure, it costs $1 to process 1,000,000 orders, then by all means, charge $0.000001 to process an order. If you want to make a profit and the market will bear it, then by all means, charge $0.000002 to process an order. If your customers complain that they have to process all these orders too, then by all means offer them a kiddie feed at reduced price, transmitting orders only when they have been extant for 10 milliseconds.
But don't start imposing fees with grandiose visions of Better Living Through Higher Taxation. We all know where that ends up.
DBRS Limited (DBRS) has today confirmed the A (low) Issuer Rating, A (low) Unsecured Debentures rating and Pfd-2 (low) Preferred Shares rating of Fortis Inc. (Fortis, the Parent or the Company) with Stable trends. This action is based on DBRS's view of the Company's financial performance to date in 2015 (YTD 2015). The confirmations reflect Fortis' improved business risk profile following the completion of the Waneta Expansion hydro generation project (Waneta Expansion), no material changes in its regulated subsidiaries and its reasonable consolidated and non-consolidated financial profiles.
Fortis maintained reasonable consolidated and non-consolidated ratios in YTD 2015 and remained consistent with the current rating. These ratios are expected to improve by the end of 2015 and in the medium term since (i) $230 million non-consolidated debt was reduced after September 30, 2015, with proceeds from the sale of Fortis Properties; (ii) all regulated utilities are expected to maintain their leverage in line with the regulatory capital structure in their respective jurisdictions; and (iii) Fortis' equity injection to its utilities is expected to be modest and manageable over the next few years.
The cessation of tax-loss selling pressure led to a superb day for the Canadian preferred share market, with PerpetualDiscounts up 94bp, FixedResets winning 121bp and DeemedRetractibles gaining 87bp. The Performance Highlights table is enormous, naturally enough, with only one loser. Volume was very extremely awfully low.
TRP.PR.E, which resets 2019-10-30 at +235, is bid at 18.86 to be $0.91 rich, while TRP.PR.C, resetting 2016-1-30 at +154, is $1.19 cheap at its bid price of 12.30.
Most expensive is MFC.PR.L, resetting at +216bp on 2019-6-19, bid at 19.68 to be 0.45 rich, while MFC.PR.G, resetting at +290bp on 2016-12-19, is bid at 22.00 to be 0.54 cheap.
The cheapest issue relative to its peers is BAM.PR.R, resetting at +230bp on 2016-6-30, bid at 16.21 to be $1.60 cheap. BAM.PF.F, resetting at +286bp on 2019-9-30 is bid at 21.95 and appears to be $0.96 rich.
FTS.PR.K, with a spread of +205bp, and bid at 18.43, looks $0.70 expensive and resets 2019-3-1. FTS.PR.G, with a spread of +213bp and resetting 2018-9-1, is bid at 17.39 and is $0.80 cheap.
Investment-grade pairs predict an average three-month bill yield over the next five-odd years of -1.37%, with one outlier above -0.50%. There are two junk outliers above -0.50%.
RY.PR.Q FixedReset 25,850 Recent new issue.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 30th, 2015 at 4:16 am and is filed under Market Action.	You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.


text:
/**
 * Simple geometric models for use by the library.
 */
package nl.esciencecenter.neon.models;

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
El 10 Upper Bank Street es uno de los muchos rascacielos de Canary Wharf, en Docklands, Londres. El edificio consta de 32 plantas y mide 151 metros de altura, por lo que es décimo edificio por altura en la ciudad (2011).

La torre fue terminada en 2003, y es propiedad de la firma Clifford Chance que por ley tiene su sede en el edificio. El proyecto lo desarrolló la conocida marca de arquitectos de Nueva York Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates y fue llevado a cabo por la local Canary Wharf Contractors. En las inmediaciones hay dos rascacielos más de su misma altura: el 25 Bank Street y el 40 Bank Street. Heron Quays (donde se localiza la edificación) forma parte de la gran Canary Wharf de Londres, que es el principal distrito financiero del país, formado por los tres edificios más altos en el Reino Unido hasta el año 2011, One Canada Square, 8 Canada Square y 25 Canada Square, que fueron superados por la Heron Tower en la City de Londres

La mayor parte del edificio está ocupada por Clifford Chance, una de las firmas de abogados más grandes del mundo, pero unos cuantos pisos están alquilados para otras empresas, entre ellos el Grupo FTSE o KPMG. Infosys Technologies Limited tiene su sede central del Reino Unido en el piso 14, el piso 15 también lo tiene alquilado Infosys para su centro de desarrollo.

Referencias

Enlaces externos
 Skyscrapernews.com
 Emporis.com

Arquitectura de Inglaterra del siglo XXI
Arquitectura de Reino Unido de 2003
Edificios de oficinas de Londres
Rascacielos de Londres
Tower Hamlets
Rascacielos del Reino Unido entre 150 y 199 metros
Rascacielos del Reino Unido del siglo XXI

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


The reflective content of this session has been edited based on Chapter 2 of Fr James Martin's book, Seven Last Words. Used with permission from HarperOne.
As you enter into prayer now, become aware of your surroundings. It might be noisy where you are; it might be very still. Become aware of how you feel in this place. Comfortable? Content? Irritated? Confined? Just sit with this for a moment.
Now imagine yourself sitting in a beautiful place. Perhaps beside the sea, or surrounded my country hills or mountains. Wherever it is, just be there in stillness with the Lord.
Believing in the afterlife is a significant problem for many people, even some devout believers. And without a belief in the afterlife, fear of the unknown often takes over. It's one of the most common fears in the whole Christian life.
Jesus, who heard the doubts of people in his lifetime, understands doubt – even doubts about the afterlife. So the first thing that should convince us of the promise of the afterlife is this: Jesus tells us. And, needless to say, Jesus is not a liar.
The Good Thief shows us who the one next to him is. A man, yes. A man with a simple name, Jesus. But God too. The man who can open paradise for him. From the cross, Jesus tells the Good Thief, and us, about the future that is planned for us. Even in his agony, he offers the man a kind of spiritual healing. So one of Jesus's last acts before his earthly death is a healing. "Don't worry," he's saying. "There is a heaven." So we need to take Jesus at his word.
As St. Paul says in the Letter to the Romans, not even death can separate us from the love of God. One day, we pray, we will be with Jesus in paradise. We have Jesus's word on it. We have Easter proof. And we know that God would never destroy the relationships he has with us. And one day, like the Good Thief, we will see that it is all true.
How do you experience your relationship with God?
How do you feel about the afterlife? Excited? Scared? Or maybe doubtful? Sit with your feelings about this for a moment.
Now offer these feelings to God, expressing them in any way that feels natural to you.
How do you experience your relationship with God? Do you consistently feel his presence? Or is it sometimes difficult to really believe in his love for you?
In the closing moments of this session, offer all that has stirred you, to the God who calls us into Paradise.


text:
By Hentzau	gaming
Thoughts: Fall Of The Samurai.
Early spring, 1865: First battle of Buzen.
General Takamori's army is pushing up the eastern coastline of Kyushu. He's taken Hyuga and Bungo in a lightning campaign, and after weathering a harsh winter in Bungo his army has marched further northwards to take Buzen.
The Tsuwano, however, have other ideas. Buzen is garrisoned by 2600 men; mostly spear and musket levies, but they still outnumber Takamori's small force of 1200 professional line infantry and sharpshooters by more than two to one. Takamori is forced into a desperate defensive action, where the attacking spear levies tie up the line infantry in close combat while the muskets pound, pound, pound away with massed fire. The line is close to buckling. Things are desperate enough that Takamori is forced into a course of action that Wellington would find displeasing: he orders his sharpshooters to start sniping at the enemy commander. Apparently unsettled by having five-sixths of his hatamoto gunned down in under thirty seconds, the opposing general flees taking most of his army with him. It's a pyrrhic victory, however, as every unit that was on the main line of battle has come out of it completely gutted with less than half of its men remaining. Takamori is forced to withdraw from the siege and retreat back to Buzen to rest and rearm.
Late summer, 1865: Second battle of Buzen.
Takamori's force has reinforced itself to a strength of 1800 and ventures back up the road towards Buzen. Unfortunately the Tsuwano have likewise reinforced; Takamori is now facing a gargantuan army of 4500 men. After crushing the Tsuwano fleet in a pitched naval battle around the straits of Hyuga Admiral Sukena is now in a position to provide Takamori with some naval fire support, but without explosive shells the salvos prove ineffective, killing barely fifty of the enemy. Takamori's ground forces retreat from the battlefield without firing a shot.
Spring, 1866: Third battle of Buzen.
Takamori makes his third attempt to take Buzen, and this time he isn't messing around. His army is now supported by cavalry and cannon; the supporting fleet of Admiral Sukena has doubled in size and is now equipped with explosive shells. The peasant levies of the Tsuwano are scattered by shot and shrapnel, and the fleeing survivors are put to the sword by sabre cavalry. After over a year of warfare, Buzen has fallen.
This little saga neatly sums up Fall of the Samurai. It's an outstanding game, combining the best features of Shogun and Napoleon while adding not a few new elements itself, and one of the results is that cannon and fleets are no longer an interesting sideshow used for cracking forts and blockading ports. Instead they're an absolutely essential part of your war machine, with combined arms being a practical necessity if you want to win battles against traditional samurai armed with sword and bow, never mind an opposing modern army. It's the first time I've played a Total War where everything was so smoothly integrated. There's nothing that feels vestigial or unnecessary; no merchants sitting on trade nodes for fifty years, no collection of generals languishing back at your capital because they're too old to fight, no useless technologies you have to research before getting to the good stuff. Everything is streamlined. Everything is useful. Everything works.
It's probably best to start by describing how the technology tree has changed, because it's not really a tech tree any more – more of a collection of tech sticks. There's still some interdependency between certain branches of development, but for the most part you're able to skip straight to researching a line of technologies which gives you better guns or better farms without having to waste time improving your geisha first. Of course it's not quite as simple as that; the main factor determining what you can and cannot research is no longer how many techs you've already got. Instead, your clan is assigned a modernisation level. You start out at modernisation level one, and by building modern buildings and researching modern techs you can increase it up to level four. Each new level grants you access to new tech branches as well as a research rate bonus, but it will also give you a clan-wide unhappiness penalty as your people resent the rapid changes to the way they live. It's not massive, and I have to say it's not something I particularly noticed when I was playing the game on Normal, but on Hard it does make a difference, with most of my heavily-policed cities teetering on the border between barely-contained surliness and outright revolt.
Making these changes to something which lies at the fundamental root of the game has had knock-on effects for how the rest of it plays. For example, as it is now possible to research a specific naval branch of the tech tree without faffing around researching pointier sticks first (or whatever), the naval arms race that so dominated late 19th century Europe becomes a pressing concern in Japan as well. Fleets can now do much more on the campaign map; their cannon give them the ability to bombard enemy armies and province improvements inland as well as providing fire support to friendly armies that are in range. This makes a powerful fleet not just useful but practically indispensible — especially since the AI is now much better at using its own fleets to harass your provinces and land armies in your rear – and with researched techs giving you access to copper- and iron-plated ships, explosive and armour-piercing shells, and torpedoes, having the tech edge here can easily make all the difference between campaign victory or campaign defeat.
It helps that the Creative Assembly have really outdone themselves with the naval battles this time around. All of the ship models are absolutely gorgeous, from the adorable little gunboats to the numerous corvette classes to the hulking, brutal Kotetsu ironclad. The battles themselves are chaotic but satisfying; the mark of a good naval commander would be whether or not they can keep their fleet together and their fire focused. I can't do this, and so my battles tended to start with my fleet splitting to try and catch the enemy fleet in a withering crossfire before devolving into a series of individual ship-to-ship melees punctuated by the odd spectacular explosion as somebody's ammunition magazine ignited. The armour and ammunition really does make a difference, as well; while a copper-plated ship will still succumb to a concentrated barrage from three or four wooden ships, its extra armour will allow it to get into range to fire explosive shells that will set the wooden ships on fire, which spells doom for any ship that doesn't drop everything and focus all of its efforts on putting the fire out. And of course the Kotetsus come with several gatling guns mounted on their central tower which can literally saw a wooden ship in half. The modern era and the rapid pace of development means that technology matters, more than it ever has before.
On land the dichotomy between modern versus traditional is a little less pronounced, although it does exist. While rifle-equipped infantry has the ranged firepower you'd expect, traditional samurai units armed with melee weapons are absolutely murderous in close combat. A basic peasant spear levy unit has the same melee stat as line infantry. One unit of yari kachi will effortlessly chew through and rout two units of line infantry without taking significant losses themselves. I started to dread defensive castle sieges against attacking samurai; while my guns would make the enemy forces pay dearly for climbing the walls, once they were inside the tables would turn and my rifle troops would be massacred. AI armies fielding traditional troops seek to close with you as quickly as possible to make the most of their melee advantage, and so battles really do become a matter of routing the enemy army before they rout you. If you just slug it out on a 1:1 basis then, sooner or later, you will lose.
As your technology level progresses, though, the basic advantage traditional units have begins to vanish. The higher levels of rifle-equipped troops such as Shogunate infantry or the Imperial Guard have a melee stat that equals or exceeds that of basic samurai kachi, and while the elite samurai troops remain pre-eminent in close combat it's an advantage that is almost completely nullified by the advent of cannon. You start the game with the ability to build wooden cannon (yes, apparently these were a real thing) which are only good against fortifications, but you can tech up to Parrott guns and Armstrong guns – think classical 19th century artillery pieces – which fire explosive shells as a matter of course but which also have a deadly shrapnel shell ability. Two or three batteries can easily tear the heart out of a charging samurai army, and when you add in the new naval bombardment ability – which scales in area of effect and number of shells fired with the number of ships in the supporting fleet — the amount of firepower you can concentrate into a single area becomes truly ridiculous. Finally there's gatling guns, which are the holy grail at the end of the rifle tech branch, and which act as a kind of short-range Samurai-B-Gone. I can see traditional armies remaining viable throughout the game as long as they too utilised cannon and naval bombardments, but it would definitely be a harder option.
These improvements in battlefield technology and battlefield fighting are mirrored by numerous economical and political improvements on the empire map. By far the biggest one is that the original game's Realm Divide mechanic that so infuriated me is dead and buried (or at least rendered entirely optional). Instead the country is split into pro-Imperial and pro-Shogunate provinces, and pro-Imperial and pro-Shogunate clans. Having the same allegiance as another clan gives you a big boost to your diplomatic relations with them; conversely a different allegiance will make them hate you. This has the effect of giving you some neighbours who will always – at least broadly – be on your side as fellow members of the pro-Shogun/Imperial bloc. The allegiances aren't set in stone, and clans can switch allegiance from one side to another as the campaign progresses; having a nearby clan that you thought was loyal suddenly announce that they support the Shogun can really throw a spanner in the works. If you take a province from a clan which supports the other side you have to spend some time "convincing" the population to come around to your way of thinking (a process which can be sped up by the Ichin-Ishii/Shinsengumi police agents), and until you do that province will suffer a large happiness penalty. The fame bar is still present, and eventually you'll take enough provinces that you'll max it out. This is the point where the chips are down, the die is cast, and other such hoary old cliches. You're given a choice; either you declare for the Shogun/Emperor, in which case the alliance of pro-Shogun clans will fight it out with the alliance of pro-Imperial clans for control of Japan, or you declare that you're forming a Republic, which is basically Realm Divide redux and makes everyone hate you.
I find this to be a far more natural way of dealing with the political side of things, and it's one that reflects the actual events of the day; the Boshin war was not fought between individual clans but rather individual factions. Unfortunately while it is certainly better than what we had before, it's some way short of being ideal, with the biggest problem being that the Shogunate/Imperial struggle is largely out of your control. In my first game the Shogunate faction became pre-eminent without any intervention from myself, and I actually found it quite difficult to get the provinces needed for victory because everyone around me was pro-Shogun and thus showed up as Very Friendly in the diplomatic interface. In the second the Shogunate faction went even further and actually eradicated most of the pro-Imperial factions three years into the game, except this time I myself was pro-Imperial and found myself facing an uphill struggle through no fault of my own. Of course I didn't have to live with this — I could have just switched my own allegiance to the winning side, but I think that would have been more than a little bit unsatisfying. So it's a decent effort, CA, but it could do with a little more fine-tuning and refinement when you adapt it for your next title.
The last thing to talk about is agents. Thanks to the way agents levelled up in Shogun 2, and thanks to the way most of their abilities were active abilities requiring large sums of money to carry out, I found myself using just one super-ninja since only he had the experience to make the odds of success worth the investment of resources. Levelling up others would have required many failed assassination attempts and much wasted money, and while other agents could level up passively through boosting your town/province attributes the rate at which they did so was painfully slow. There was also the minor problem that any agents (or generals) who started out in middle age would eventually die from natural causes before the game was finished, making me less likely to invest time and effort levelling them up.
These are issues that I think have almost entirely disappeared from Fall of the Samurai. The game takes place over a much shorter 10-15 year period, meaning old age is a non-issue. The new agents – the secret policeman (combination monk/police/ninja), the geisha (monk/geisha) and the foreign veteran (some ninja attributes but mostly entirely new) – have new abilities, almost all of which are massively useful, and the passives are actually things you want them to be doing thanks to a much faster levelling system. For example, my spearhead army has all three agent types attached to it. The foreign veteran trains them on the march and makes reinforcement cheaper when they capture a town. The geisha boosts their morale. The secret policeman boosts their melee ability. Their individual skill trees give them further specific bonuses to the army as well. The north of my territory is littered with geisha and secret policemen, improving the productivity of my major money-producing towns and keeping the population loyal. The only reason I don't have more foreign veterans is because I don't have the trading port network to support them. All three types are immensely useful and I've maxed out the agent limit on each one because my empire can't get by without them.
These improvements – and others – make Fall of the Samurai the Total War game I've always wanted to play. It all seems so much more fluid and natural than even the perfectly-serviceable Shogun 2. This being the CA, though, the game is not without its issues. Ship AI is bugged, with enemy fleets occasionally sailing into land en masse at full speed (I'd make more noise about this if it turned up more often and if hadn't let me win a couple of crucial naval battles that looked hopeless). Coastal defence battles are also a bit iffy, with one of my fixed-position coastal batteries being situated just behind a small hill which blocked every shot they fired and rendered them utterly useless. Probably the biggest missed opportunity are the railways, though; as you'd expect they're intended to speed up troop transport immensely, but the problem is the route the railway takes across Japan is fixed and will inevitably pass through a province controlled by an AI ally. You can negotiate military access with them which will let you use their railway, but this is a completely redundant feature because the AI never builds railways. This scuppers the entire idea of a railway network, as the best you can do with it is move your troops maybe two provinces before they have to disembark and continue the journey on foot. Hopefully they'll fix that up in a patch; as it is it's a tragic waste of one of the features I was most looking forward to.
Regardless of these niggles Fall of the Samurai is a tour de force achievement for the Creative Assembly. They've distilled everything good about Total War into one game, and they've succeeded in filtering out most of the bad at the same time. If you like Total War at all; if you abandoned the series after the debacle that was Empire and you're convinced that it can't do guns properly; even if you are a Jim, you owe it to yourself to get this game. I suspect it may be the most fun I have with a PC game this year, and I say that knowing that, after a rather slow start, 2012 is shaping up to be an absolute corker with Diablo III, Heart of the Swarm and a whole host of promising Kickstarter-funded indie games on the horizon. Despite their likely quality, Fall of the Samurai is so good it may end up eclipsing them all.
Tagged A SHAMEFUL DISPLAY, Creative Assembly, fall of the samurai, shogun, thoughts, Total War
4 thoughts on "Thoughts: Fall Of The Samurai."
"So it's a decent effort, CA, but it could do with a little more fine-tuning and refinement when you adapt it for your next title."
That has always been CA´s biggest problem, they could never make diplomacy something natural, logical and pleasant. Whenever you play hard modes, you can be sure the game will always, one way or another, set you up completely.
And CA could also never develop a proper hard level; it is either too hard ( hard modes ) or easy-medium ( medium ). An ideal hard level mode would be one where AI would have more money, research faster and produce tough troops, and that is it. I will never understand the reason why CA always have to completely destroy diplomacy and send everyone to attack the human player simply because you set the game on hard and not medium.
hentzau says:
Fall of the Samurai is the closest they've gotten to the ideal, but it only manages this because it artificially organises sets of clans into two opposing blocs. In this one case it's acceptable because it reflects the era, but in terms of gameplay it's not particularly exiting. What I would like is for multiple blocs of clans to arise naturally and organically, and for the human player to be able to become part of one of these blocs giving them a set of AI players they can trust (within reason). I don't want to be fighting every other player in the game. Two-thirds, maybe. But not all of them.
After playing four (!) campaigns, I'm currently in the midst of a love-hate relationship with Fall of the Samurai. I prefer its period to the base game's, and its tactical battles, at their best, are superb. On the other hand, its campaign just doesn't seem anywhere near as tightly designed, and a great battle system is meaningless when 90% of the time, the AI just flings hordes of peasant levies at me. How have you found the AI's army composition?
I'm in partial agreement with anonymous above about the difficulty levels in CA games. I agree that, for Fall, "normal" is on the easy side while "hard" is brutal due to the AI's aggressiveness (and CA's new policy of making everything more expensive on "hard"!). However, I thought the difficulty was just right for the base game.
(Incidentally, are you the same Hentzau who posts at Broken Forum?)
You know, I can't say that's a problem I've ever particularly noticed. Certainly the AI does fling hordes of peasant levies at you but that just makes encountering a full army of professional soldiers or samurai a really nasty surprise, and the AI fields enough of those to make things a challenge. The peasant levies can occasionally be nasty too if they outnumber you two to one because their awful accuracy doesn't matter so much when there's two thousand of them all firing at your lines.
Normal difficulty is just a little bit too easy for me. I have more fun on Hard, but the weight of crap I have to deal with eventually mounts up to the point where I give up. Now, Normal is fine if I don't want to think too much about what I'm doing, kind of like playing a game of Civ IV on Noble, but the gulf separating it and Hard is just too big. It's probably the number one thing I'd say they have to look at for their next game — balancing their difficulty levels so that Hard is challenging, but not ridiculous.
(And yes I am, although I only posted there after the mass exodus from Qt3 and then kind of forgot about it. Although come to think of it it was also because I laid into a worthless puff-piece that had been written about XCOM only to realise that the guy who wrote it was the guy who posted it on Broken. Embarrassing!)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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We Must Avert Collapse Of Public Confidence In Judicial System, PMB Urges NBA
By Jonathan Nda-Isaiah
President Muhammadu Buhari has asked the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), to work with the government to avert the collapse of public confidence in the justice system of the country.
Speaking while receiving the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the NBA at the State House on Thursday in Abuja, the President in a statement by his spokesman, Garba Shehu warned that a collapse of public confidence in the justice system will have disastrous consequences for the entire country.
"Let me reiterate that the collapse of public confidence in the justice system will have disastrous effects on our democracy and will negatively affect the capacity of the legal profession to thrive and flourish in the country," he said.
In making a request to the NBA to ensure the highest form of discipline among its members, President Buhari charged the body to ensure that all cases of indiscipline and corruption are tackled effectively.
He expressed worries about allegations of the roles of some senior lawyers in attempts to corrupt judges and the judicial system.
President Buhari also gave assurances that his administration will continue to operate on a foundation of the Rule of Law.
According to him, "We are convinced that corruption and impunity flourish when due process mechanisms are disregarded. We, however, expect a corresponding duty on the part of all professional bodies such as the NBA to ensure the highest forms of discipline among their members".
The President urged the members of the legal profession, whom he described as opinion builders in their various communities, to work for the public enlightenment of the citizenry, and to support the initiatives of government in sanitizing the public services, improving standards of public accountability and the insistence on the normal standards of judicial integrity.
He emphasized that government will continue to dwell on its programmes of a vigorous anti-corruption campaign; ensuring the recovery of looted national assets; prosecution of an effective and sustainable anti-terrorism war; and the institutionalization of law and order in all aspects of our national life.
President Buhari thanked the members of the NBA for their support so far, and urged them to do more in that regard.
He noted concerns raised by the NBA President and assured of his readiness to work with the bar association and the Judiciary to achieve needed reforms.
In his remarks, the President of the NBA, Abubakar Balarabe Mahmud, SAN, had commended President Buhari for his confidence in the members of the association, considering the number of lawyers in high places in the administration.
These included the Vice-President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, SAN; the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha; the Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari; the Attorney-General of Federation, Abubakar Malami, SAN, and five other ministers as well as the Permanent Secretary in the State House, Jalal Arabi.
The NBA President also lauded the administration for its efforts, and expressed the Bar's continued support in the war against corruption, terrorism and general insecurity as well as the ongoing work to institute good governance and revamp the economy.
He, however, brought to the attention of President Buhari NBA's concerns on prisons' congestion, the need for compliance with judicial decisions and the modus operandi of some of the anti-corruption agencies.
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Drua
CAD Ndrua, based on the Sema Makawa
Drua, also known as Na Drua, N'drua, Ndrua or Waqa Tabu ("sacred canoe"), is a double-hull sailing boat that originated in the south-western Pacific islands. Druas do not tack but rather shunt (stern becomes the bow and vice versa). Both ends of each hull are identical, but the hulls are of different sizes and the smaller one is always sailed to windward. The main differences, compared to proas, are that the hulls have a symmetric U-form profile, and a second hull is used instead of an outrigger. When a float (cama) is used in place of the smaller hull, the craft is called a Camakau (or Tamakau).
The Fijian double canoe (wangga ndrua, spelt waqa drua in Fijian) was the largest and finest sea-going vessel ever designed and built by natives of Oceania before contact with Europeans.
— Canoes of Oceania Volume I: The Canoes of Polynesia, Fiji, and Micronesia[1]
Druas were large, up to 30 metres (98 ft) long, and could carry more than 200 people. Despite being called "canoes", they were not dugouts, but plank-built ships.
No written record exists of the diffusion of the drua design, but most anthropologists assume its origin in Micronesia, and it probably came to Fiji through the islands of Kiribati and Tuvalu. The only shunting boat type of Polynesian design is the Pahi of the Tuamotu archipelago, but it uses equal hulls and does not appear to be related to other proas. From Fiji, druas spread to Tonga (where they are called Kalia) and Samoa (where they are called 'Alia). Captain Cook visited Tonga in his second and third voyages, and noticed that druas were rapidly displacing the Polynesian catamaran design. Tongan chiefs taking part in Fijian wars would bring them back as prizes of war.[2] Drua construction eventually became a monopoly of Tongan shipbuilders living in the Fijian Lau Islands.[1][3]
War canoesEdit
Druas were sacred canoes in the sense that only aristocrats could own one. Their main role was as war ships, taking part in naval battles and transporting warriors during raids. They also had a representative role, and were used to collect taxes. Following Fijian custom, it was an insult to cross her bows, or to sail to her windward, where the mast stay could be easily cut bringing down the sail. It was also custom to paddle and not to sail in sight of another chief's territory. Launching a drua required a bloody ritual, including human sacrifices.[2][4]
With regard to the human sacrifice associated with the launching ceremonies, Wilkes (1985, vol. 3, p. 97) records that when Tanoa launched a canoe 10 or more men were slaughtered on the deck in order that it might be washed with human blood. Wall (1916) also says:
A new canoe was launched over men's bodies that mana might enter into it and make it swift and safe, but I can find no trace of living men ever having been used for this purpose; they were clubbed first. Certain small islands and districts enjoyed by hereditary right the doubtful honour of supplying the victims for these occasions, as for instance the island of Laucala for the launching of the vessels of the Cakaundrove chiefs.[1]
Sailing performanceEdit
The speed of druas became a legendary topic for western sailors, who sometimes confused "Fijian canoes" with "flying proas" (the latter being the original Micronesian design). The low freeboard of the hulls outside the central platform predates the "wave-piercing" bows of modern racing designs. The one course that could not be sailed, was with the wind directly aft; otherwise her bows would be driven underwater. Her performance upwind is unclear, with some authors claiming it to be fast and close to the wind, and others describing it as making too much leeway with the wind in the quarter. The steering oars were massive, and big canoes would carry one at each end because they were too heavy to transport to the other side while shunting. The steersman (or men) risked being crippled or killed when hitting big waves. The chief used to stand on the platform's top, being responsible for cutting the sheet to avoid capsizing.
HeritageEdit
"The disappearance of the double canoe of Fiji coincided with the close of the nineteenth century. Few if any were constructed after 1883, the year of the death of King Cakobau, for his grandson, Ratu Popi, informed me that the king's sons two or three years later broke his double canoes to pieces and buried them in a swamp that they may be preserved and kept from being used by anyone else"[1]
According to some sources, the last Fijian ndrua was built in 1943 on the island of Ongea and was intended to carry copra.[5]
Only two original druas appear to have survived, both of them small. One, named Sema Makawa, is in the New Zealand Maritime Museum. The second one is Ratu Finau, at the Fiji Museum in Suva. A new Drua, the i Vola Sigavou, was completed in 2016 and launched at Navua in Serua province on Viti Levu Fiji's main island.[6]
Today, drua are still a symbol of Fiji, and Fiji's telephone booths are decorated with the characteristic mast-tops of drua.
List of multihulls
^ a b c d Haddon, A.C.; Hornell, J. (1936). Canoes of Oceania Volume I: The Canoes of Polynesia, Fiji, and Micronesia. Honolulu, Hawaii: Bishop Museum Press.
^ a b Gravelle, K. (1979). Fiji's Times. A History of Fiji In Three Parts. Suva, Fiji: Fiji Times.
^ Routledge, D. (1985). Matanitu. The struggle for power in early Fiji. Suva, Fiji: University of the South Pacific.
^ Hocart, A. M. (1929). Lau Islands, Fiji. Bulletin 62. Honolulu, Hawaii: Bishop Museum Press.
^ "Oceania Voyaging Canoes". Retrieved January 2015. Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
^ "Largest Double-Hulled Canoe". fijitimes.com.
tongan Kalia
Sema Makawa
Drua, Pahi, others
New Drua
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Drua&oldid=902817899"


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Military personnel salute as the homecoming motorcade procession for the return of Capt. Brenden MacDonald, Capt. Maxime Miron-Morin and Master Cpl. Matthew Cousins, drives through 12 Wing Shearwater near Dartmouth, N.S. on Thursday, June 25, 2020. Six Canadian Armed Forces members died when a CH-148 Cyclone helicopter flying from the Halifax-class frigate HMCS Fredericton crashed off the coast of Greece while taking part in a NATO exercise in the Mediterranean. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan
Software glitch contributed to fatal naval helicopter crash that killed six
Canadian naval helicopter plummeted into the Ionian Sea in 2020, killing all six on board
Jun. 28, 2021 10:30 a.m.
A military investigation has found that a software glitch played a major role in the deadly crash of a Cyclone helicopter off the coast of Greece last year.
The military's flight safety directorate says manual inputs to the flight controls overrode the aircraft's automation system, causing the naval helicopter to plummet into the Ionian Sea, killing all six personnel on board.
The report lists several recommendations, including the need to modify flight control software and establish a working group to review operational requirements around complex turning manoeuvres for the new CH-148 Cyclone.
The Cyclones are typically deployed on board Canadian frigates and used for search and rescue, surveillance and anti-submarine warfare.
The crash of the Stalker 22 on April 29, 2020, marked the third incident involving a Cyclone, with defective software blamed for one of the helicopters' suddenly dropping several hundred feet during a test flight in 2017. Another had a "hard landing" on a ship in February 2019.
Several restrictions were placed on the helicopters after the 2017 incident forbidding crews from performing certain manoeuvres.
RELATED: Six Canadian Forces members killed in helicopter crash honoured at ceremony
MilitaryNavy Accident
Interior Health reports second-highest number of COVID-19 cases over weekend in B.C.
Work set to begin for major upgrades at city wastewater lagoons
RCMP scrutinize suspicious church fire in northwest B.C. for any links to Okanagan blazes


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APO Hiking Society Finds " A New and Better Way" in Achieving Peace
By: OneMusicPH Team | Feb 24, 2016 03:46 PM
APO Hiking Society's musical contributions and cultural influence will always be essential not only in the local music scene but in the Philippine history. (Photo courtesy of ABS-CBN News)
APO Hiking Society, formerly Apolinario Mabini Hiking Society, started in 1969.
Formed in Ateneo de Manila High School, the group was then comprised of 14 members such as Lito de Joya, Sonny Santiago, Gus Cosio, Renato Garcia, Chito Kintanar, Kenny Barton, Bruce Brown, Butch Dans, Kinjo Sawada, Ric Segreto, Goff Macaraeg, Doden Besa, Jim Paredes, and Boboy Garovillo.
As they advanced into college, Danny Javier joined the group. However, after graduation, majority of the members left to pursue individual careers, with only three members left -- Jim, Boboy, and Danny.
APO, for over four decades, captured the hearts of the Filipino music lovers with the 27 albums they released and most of them are award-winning. These albums include the all-time hits like "Batang-bata Ka Pa," "When I Met You," "Ewan," "Awit Ng Barkada," "Bawat Bata," "Blue Jeans," "Pumapatak Na Naman Ang Ulan," and name it... there is a whole lot more!
The group has a notable contribution to the Philippine history not only for their many "firsts" performances around the world but because of their participation during the People Power Revolution in 1986. Jim Paredes' "Handog ng Pilipino sa Mundo" inspired by the success of the People Power. The song became the anthem of the bloodless revolution. Did you know that he wrote it for only three minutes? It was recorded by 15 Filipino artists including the APO. It has also an English version, "A New Better and Way" that was launched in Australia. The lyrics of the song are inscribed on a wall of our Lady of Edsa Shrine, the center of the revolution.
In 2006, the album Kami nAPO Muna!: The Music Of APO Hiking Society was released to pay tribute to the group.
The album was a collection of unique renditions of the APO classics from Imago, Orange and Lemons, Parokya ni Edgar, Kamikazee, Sandwich, Sugarfree, Itchyworms, Sponge Cola, Boldstar, Sound, Drip, Rocksteddy, Top Suzara, Barbie Almalbis, Kitchie Nadal, Shamrock, and The Dawn.
Kami nAPO muna Ulit followed, with a new set of artists such as True Faith, Silent Sanctuary, Concrete Sam, Up Dharma Down, Chilitees, The Bloomfields, Scrambled Eggs, The Spaceflower Show, and Hilera.
The music of APO is absolutely timeless.
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