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The Wizard of Oz Most 'Influential' Film of all Time According to Network Science:
The Wizard of Oz, followed by Star Wars and Psycho, is identified as the most influential film of all time in a study published in the open access journal Applied Network Science.
Researchers at the University of Turin, Italy, calculated an influence score for 47,000 films listed in IMDb (the internet movie database). The score was based on how much each film had been referenced by subsequent films. The authors found that the top 20 most influential films were all produced before 1980 and mostly in the United States.
Dr. Livio Bioglio, the lead author, said: "We propose an alternative method to box office takings—which are affected by factors beyond the quality of the film such as advertising and distribution—and reviews—which are ultimately subjective—for analysing the success of a film. We have developed an algorithm that uses references between movies as a measure for success, and which can also be used to evaluate the career of directors, actors and actresses, by considering their participation in top-scoring movies."
Applying the algorithm to directors, the five men credited for The Wizard of Oz are all in the top eight, with Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick ranked third, fifth and sixth respectively. When the authors used another approach to remove the bias of older movies—which, because they were produced earlier, can potentially influence a greater number of subsequent films—Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg and Brian De Palma occupied the top spots instead.
When applied to actors, the algorithm ranked Samuel L. Jackson, Clint Eastwood and Tom Cruise as the top three. The authors noticed a strong gender bias towards male actors; the only female in the top ten was Lois Maxwell, who played the recurring role of Miss Moneypenny in the James Bond franchise.
[...] The authors suggest that their method could be used for research in the arts and by film historians. However, they caution that the results can only be applied to Western cinema as the data on IMDb are strongly biased towards films produced in Western countries.
Explore further: Automated method beats critics in picking great movies
More information: Livio Bioglio et al, "Identification of key films and personalities in the history of cinema from a Western perspective", Applied Network Science (2018). DOI: 10.1007/s41109-018-0105-0
(Score: 4, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday December 02 2018, @08:06AM (1 child)
- to church. I was five years old, it wasn't a Sunday School Class, but it was a church group for five year olds.
But Mom and Dad both told me I absolutely _had_ to stay home. I was bitterly disappointed but did not protest.
Then Dad turned on the TV as Mom called Jeannie into the living room. I have to miss church to watch TV? I was incredulous.
While my family had a Black and White TV, because Dad was an Electrical Engineer, he kept our TV in mint condition. From time to time he'd bring a small suitcase home from work, but inside there was no space for clothes. "It's a tube tester," Dad would say, but I did understand. Dad always cautioned me to stay well away from our television when he was testing its tubes.
Even so, the poor images on the screen were far, far worse than for example the news from Vietnam, or Jeannie's and my Saturday Morning Cartoons.
The screen was all grey, I didn't understand the images I was seeing.
Then I heard a calm voice saying some numbers, slowly and steadily counting down. From time to time there was a loud beep. I didn't understand that beep either.
But I understood full well when those mysteries grey images stopped shifting, and that calm voice stopped counting. He paused for a little bit, then just as calmly said:
"Tranquility Base Here. The Eagle has landed."
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 02 2018, @12:39PM
I can remember the (just) 5 year old me watching on our old B&W telly, my father might have been a communist and no great supporter of the US, but when it came to those things they did which advanced Humanity he was behind them.
The first time I listened to this song on an album I found on a quasi-random trawl of the interwibblez those memories came flooding back (with some tears as well for times and people now gone, I'm not ashamed to say)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWx8V4I8sis [youtube.com]