S Anand

On a related note, 60% of the search queries that lead to my site this year were Calvin and Hobbes quotes. “i can’t help but wonder what kind of desperate straits would drive a man to invent this thing.” topped the list (Calvin referring to a yo-yo), with i always catch these trick questions following closely.

People searching for Excel related stuff were next (20%): excel indirect(address(, row() excel offset address and the like.

A few were also looking for me by name or school (10%).

The last 10% ranged from the puzzling to the bizarre, including these gems.

• michalengelo hidden skull. Probably looking for the alleged hidden skull in Last Judgement.
• googlemail access between england and india. Why? Did he think there wouldn’t be any?
• greenwich meridien time for india. This is usually the same in Greenwich and in India. Rest of the world too.
• origin of monkey in fez. What?
• address of sexy girl in ahmedabad. But why my site?
• address of tool makers for converting html to xml in chennai. Do they have a license to convert?

On the IMDb top 250, you normally see a correlation between the number of votes and the rating for a movie. Better rated movies are more watched. The outliers are interesting.

The movies that are popular despite not having a high rating are:

• The Matrix
• The Sixth Sense
• Gladiator
• Star Wars 3: Revenge of the Sith
• Pirates of the Caribbean

I can understand why The Sixth Sense, Pirates of the Caribbean and especially The Matrix are on this list — geeks would have watched these and voted on IMDb, though their voting need not have been high. But why are Gladiator and Sixth Sense on that list?

Movies that are highly rated, but not as popular are:

• The Godfather 1
• The Godfather 2
• Seven Samurai
• Rear Window
• The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Seven Samurai and The Good, The Bad, The Ugly probably didn’t get the votes they deserve because they’re written in their Japanese and Mexican names on IMDb. I hadn’t seen them for a long time for the same reason. As for The Godfather, I personally think it’s just overrated. But Rear Window? That’s a surprise. Hitchcock thriller with all the classic elements…

Another correlation is between the rating and the year of the movie. Early movies get lower ratings than recent movies. Technique could be the reason, but I doubt it. In any case, some movies stand out of their time.

• The Shawshank Redemption
• The Godfather 1
• The Godfather 2
• Seven Samurai
• Rear Window
• Casablanca
• Citizen Kane
• Metropolis
• M
• Modern Times
• City Lights

I haven’t seen Metropolis or M. But among the others, I think Citizen Kane is the one that deserves to stand out, if only for portraying the anti-hero, and for not having a happy ending. The Shawshank Redemption was a bit of a surprise. Few people that I know have heard of it. And yet, there it is, right on top.