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!
