This week’s most popular film is also its most highly ranked — Brazil’s Elite da Tropa (Elite Squad). In a rare honor for a high-octane action flick, it picked the Golden Bear at the most recent Berlinale Film Festival, and Criticker’s users have not shy in heaping praise on it. The film was never released properly into American theaters, so its appearance on DVD will be a lot of people’s first chance to see it — don’t miss it! In other new releases, Jenna Jameson stars in Zombie Strippers. I don’t know who’s supposed to be excited about that — can’t we please keep our porn stars focused on what they do best?
Elite Squad - 128 Rankings - Average Tier 6.69 In 1997, before the visit of the pope to Rio de Janeiro, Captain Nascimento from BOPE (Special Police Operation Battalion) is assigned to eliminate the risks of the drug dealers in a dangerous slum nearby where the pope intends to be lodged. Captain Nascimento is trying to find a man to replace him because his wife is pregnant and he intends to quit the command and become a trainer of the new recruits… Elite Squad @ Amazon
Zombie Strippers - 32 Rankings - Average Tier 3.50 In the not too distant future a secret government re-animation chemo-virus gets released into conservative Sartre, Nebraska and lands in an underground strip club. As the virus begins to spread, turning the strippers into “Super Zombie Strippers” the girls struggle with whether or not to conform to the new “fad” even if it means there’s no turning back. Zombie Strippers @ Amazon
Hell Ride - 15 Rankings - Average Tier 3.47 The story deals with the characters Pistolero, the Gent and Comanche and the deadly, unfinished business among them. Hell Ride @ Amazon
We’re happy to introduce a great new feature at Criticker: Tagging.
Last Tuesday, we quietly released tagging and in less than a week, Criticker users have associated over 3000 films with over 200 tags. The information is great… you can now browse a list of Best Picture Oscar Winners, Zombie Flicks, the AFI 100 and a whole lot more. You can even sort tag lists by PSI. Want to locate the best Oscar Documentary Winner which you haven’t yet seen? No problem.
Screenshot from Tag List Page Yes, the clicked-link colors reveal that I’ve visited tags Sex, Flodder, Mute and Gay — not sure what that says about me
The number of tags which users have already come up with is pretty staggering, especially considering it’s been less than a week and hasn’t had any real promotion or release announcement. From Film Noir, to Time Travel, to Dystopia, to Heist, to Medieval pics — the breadth of information already available is excellent.
And it’s just going to keep getting better and better. If you want to browse the tags which have already been created, click here. And please feel free to contribute yourself! You just have to be a member of Criticker and have ranked at least 50 films.
We can’t wait to see what kind of groups, sub-genres, categories and weird correlations you all come up with next!!
You’re aware of the usual drill… You discover that Criticker doesn’t list Sylvester Stallone as one of the actors in Rocky, and want to help correct the oversight. What next?
1) You write out a forum post detailing the omission
2) One of us notices your post
3) We process the update
4) We notify you over the forum
Those are a lot of steps for a simple thing like adding Sylvester Stallone to Rocky. And now, they’ve vanished. From now on, when you discover such an omission or mistake in our film information, you can make an update which takes effect immediately.
You can update film summaries, years, actors, directors, screenwriters, genres, trailers, and alternate titles. Your change will automatically go into effect and you’ll be credited with having last updated the film information.
Of course, any system which allows users to automatically update information is potentially dangerous, which is why we’ve taken steps to secure it. For example, you gain access to this feature only after having ranked 50 films. That should help hinder troublemakers who sign up only to make trouble. And admins are able to quickly back out any change. Further, we have the ability to revoke the privilege from any user — and we will use it without mercy, should the need arise.
But so far, the need hasn’t arisen. We quietly introduced this feature on Friday and, since then, have processed over 400 film information updates — 100% of which were valid. You guys rock!! A week ago, that number of updates would’ve taken us hours upon hours.
Some of you have already noticed a new feature we silently introduced yesterday, the TCI List page. Here, you can see your 50 most recently calculated TCIs and generate more. It is kind of a complement to the PSI List page.
Hey MajorTom — you have great taste!
On the TCI List page, you’ll be able to see where your newly-generated TCIs fall into your top 1000, and how many films in common you have. We think this is going to be especially useful for new users to Criticker, as well as anyone who ranks a bunch of films.
Take notice that this isn’t replacing the automatic nightly regeneration of TCIs — just acting as a complement to it. If you don’t want to use this tool, it won’t affect your recommendations.
If you find any bugs or problems, please let us know!
We’ve added links on most film’s information pages, which lead directly to the IMDB entry.
This was a quick little improvement that a lot of users have asked for. This will help you get further information that we don’t have in our database. The links are available for the great majority of films at Criticker.
Over the weekend, we introduced an enhancement to the way we store and display actors, screenwriters and directors.
In the past, these three types of filmmakers were kept separate in our database. This made things easy for us, but wasn’t the best way to go about it. For instance, users had to do 2 different searches to see all the films Clint Eastwood has starred in or directed. Likewise, there is no reason that the biography or profile picture for “Eastwood the Director” should be different from “Eastwood the Actor”.
Also, we used the opportunity to change the Filmmaker Page, so that you can regenerate and sort on PSIs, rather than just film year. You have to regenerate before the sort, because the PSIs can quickly go out-of-date.
As is the case with all new changes, there will probably be issues we didn’t catch. Some of you already have alerted us to a couple, and we appreciate that. Keep bug reports coming… and I hope you like the new enhancements!
We’ve just renovated the form with which users can submit films to Criticker.
The biggest change is that submissions are now automatically added to the database. No more waiting around for 2 weeks before we get around to processing your submission. They are, however, added in Preview Mode. This means that until the film is approved, only the submitter can view the film.
In order to allow this, a little more information is required on the submission form. First, the IMDB ID is necessary — this is to ensure that the film actually exists. And also, we are requiring a Plot Summary.
Finally, we’re giving users the ability to upload their own Film Images and Embed Trailers. We expect the latter to be particularly popular — especially for short films, many of which are available in their entirety. If you submit a film image, your submission will be worked on with priority.
All these changes are also enabling moderators to validate submissions much more quickly.
In 1997, before the visit of the pope to Rio de Janeiro, Captain Nascimento from BOPE (Special Police Operation Battalion) is assigned to eliminate the risks of the drug dealers in a dangerous slum nearby where the pope intends to be lodged. Captain Nascimento is trying to find a man to replace him because his wife is pregnant and he intends to quit the command and become a trainer of the new recruits… Elite Squad @ Amazon
On a quest to find out what happened to his missing brother, a scientist, his nephew and their mountain guide discover a fantastic and dangerous lost world in the center of the earth Journey to the Center of the Earth @ Amazon
In the not too distant future a secret government re-animation chemo-virus gets released into conservative Sartre, Nebraska and lands in an underground strip club. As the virus begins to spread, turning the strippers into “Super Zombie Strippers” the girls struggle with whether or not to conform to the new “fad” even if it means there’s no turning back. Zombie Strippers @ Amazon
The story deals with the characters Pistolero, the Gent and Comanche and the deadly, unfinished business among them. Hell Ride @ Amazon
During Harry Houdini’s tour of Britain in 1926, the master escapologist enters into a passionate affair with a Scottish psychic. The psychic and her daughter attempt to con Houdini during a highly publicized séance to contact his mother whose death has haunted him for many years. However all does not go to plan… Death Defying Acts @ Amazon
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