Are you interested in getting a movie recommendation or two? Consider signing up for my Patreon account. I’m starting to do them as a reward for supporting the site, and pledging to keep the movie recommendations coming. This week is for our new Patreon member Erika (Welcome Erika!! Everyone say hi!) THiNC. Bespoke Movie Recommendations – #3!!
A couple days ago I lost several days of comments and posts (three posts to be exact.) This is one of the posts that I lost. So if it sort of feels like I’m phoning it in, you’d be right. Last time I did this post I didn’t know if I had found Erika a winner. But right now? I know that we crushed it. So yeah, it’s a little anti-climactic! hahah. I am stoked though. It’s hard to find movies for people that you are certain they will like. But with this bespoke movie recommendation, the process apparently worked. And I’m learning that the process is sort of different every time I do this. I mean, just last night I found out that the movie Coherence did NOT work as a movie recommendation for my brother and sister-in-law. Not even like a little bit. We were sitting out at five guys, masks firmly in place and I was like, roundly ridiculed for that movie. I will wear those stripes with pride. That is such a good movie. But that shows the importance of figuring out who you are bespoking for. Right? Just chucking the same movies at people over and over again because they are your perennial favorites is going to fail.
How did it go down? Well, I chatted with Erika a bit, figured out what really mattered to her in a movie…and she gave a single word response that really stood out. Surprises. She really wanted to be surprised while watching a film. Mindjobs really excited her. But not movies that were evil for evil sake. Or mean for no reason. So, Erika, I’m guessing you weren’t into the surprise at the end of the movie Se7en?? hahah.
OK, once I learned she liked surprises, I compiled a list of like 50 mindjob movies that I loved, and that I may or may not have talked about here on THiNC. And she let me know which ones she had seen, and hadn’t. More importantly though – she told me which ones she LOVED!!! Liked. And didn’t care for. And from that I got a really really good feel for what kind of movies Erika was all about. And from those details, I created this – BEHOLD!
The movies on the right, were the ones she LOVED. And the movies on the right are the movies that she hadn’t seen yet. So I started sketching lines from one side to the other. Just sort of making connections to similar-ish movies. Making connections to styles. Connections between movies with similar types. (Closed Box, Mindjobs, Good Acting, you get the idea.) And then I began circling movies that kept coming up again and again. And I saw we were left with movies like Moon, Triangle and Time Lapse.
And out of that, I let Erika know that the whole list should be like a load star for her, that she could just keep going back to. I even let her know which movies she probably ought to skip based on what I learned about her tastes and reasons for watching, and they were:
- Under the Skin
- Goodnight Mommy
- Suspiria
- Tenet
- Hard Candy
But, the movie that I thought she would like better than any of the others? Time Lapse. One bonus of this post being recreated from scratch, you guys get to time travel a little, and find out what she thought about it right now. haha.
“Oh man!!!!! My mind is blown. I watched this with my daughter and we’ve been debating and talking for the last hour. I had a hard time grasping that second 8am time cycle, but my 15-year-old got it right away. Yes, she’s brilliant (I credit it to her father’s big brain and my breast milk). Get this…. she’s already seen Triangle. She says I probably won’t like it. I’m gonna watch it anyway, she don’t know me…… awesome job!”
Anyway, there you have it. Our Bespoke movie recommendations #3. Glad you loved it Erika. Keep letting us know what you thought of all the movies on the list. Just haunt all their various post pages on the site randomly commenting about the bespoke movie recommendations. I think THiNC. needs a ghost that haunts the various posts. Could add a bit of ambience to the place! hahah. Next time!
Edited by: CY
