Timewaster of the Day: Hollywood Trajectories

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Here’s a great new timewaster. Slate managed to talk the folks at the movie review site Rotten Tomatoes into giving them access to their database so that you can create graphs of how well various Hollywood luminaries have been reviewed over the past couple of decades. Let’s try it out. Last night I was watching Dangerous Liaisons on cable, so let’s check out Michelle Pfeiffer’s career. Here it is:

Interesting! Her role in Dangerous Liaisons is nearly her career high point (93% rating), second only to her star turn in The Fabulous Baker Boys (96%). After that her career takes a steep dive, bottoming out in 1996 with To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday (15%) and then steadily working its way back up.

Of course, this is pretty much what any film critic could have told you too. But this is much quicker and more quantitative, aggregating the preferences of thousands of reviewers over dozens of years. The graphing tool is here (scroll down). Have fun!

Via Doughnut Orbitals.

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PLEASE—BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

We’ll say it loud and clear: At Mother Jones, no one gets to tell us what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please do your part and help us reach our $150,000 membership goal by May 31.

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