Q. What is ‘The List’
A. The specific list we’ve used is the IMDb “Bottom 250” list, sorted in descending order
Q. Why IMDb?
A. A lot of publications have lists of “best” or “worst” movies of all time, but IMDb had one of the only user generated ones. Also, despite its popularity, IMDb has kind of a unique userbase. The further we get into the podcast, the more it also becomes about learning about the tastes and opinions of the specific subset of people who are IMDb-review-leavers. And because it’s fun!
Q. So who chose the movies on that list?
A. That list is actually algorithmically created by taking all movies listed on IMDb with more than 10,000 reviews, and then taking the 250 with the lowest rating.
Q. Doesn’t that mean there’s movies on IMDb with lower ratings?
A. Yes!
Q. So then is it really the “worst 250”?
A. The nature of needing 10,000 reviews means it’s a lot more likely to be a list of movies that have a cultural impact of some kind, rather than just the dregs of cinema that are impossible to get a hold of anyway.
Q. I just checked out the list but it’s different than the episodes?
A. Because it’s not a list made or curated by anyone, but instead a constantly updated, algorithmically generated list, it’ll change as different ratings are made on IMDb for new and old movies alike. To avoid the problem of having to reassess what the movie is every week and potentially either doubling up on things we’ve already done, or missing movies we were looking forward to, we made the decision to freeze the list on the 31st June, 2020, right before recording our first episodes
Q. Doesn’t that mean it’ll get more and more out of date?
A. Yeah, but it also means it’ll become a kind of time capsule, giving us a tunnel into what the specific opinion was of IMDb’s userbase in 2020, which is kinda rad
Q. How can I check what’s to come then?
A. We’ve published the locked list on our website here
Q. Would you ever ‘un-freeze’ the list?
A. Probably not. We’ve thought about it, but there would be a LOT of logistical issues with doing that that we don’t have an easy answer for.
Q. Can you do ‘X movie’?
A. Part of the central premise of the podcast is that we don’t choose the movies we cover. However, we have occasionally done movies not on the list as ‘Bonus’ episodes. So, if there’s a movie you’re desperately clamouring for us to do, let us know and maybe we’ll cover it in a bonus episode
Q. Do you have list of your ratings or the recurring actors?
A. Currently no, but we do know some of our tireless fans have kept track of cool stats like that, why not hit them up on Twitter?
Q. Who wrote the music?
A. We both did! After much brainstorming and drinking, Abigail wrote the lyrics and melody while Michelle was playing the guitar. Michelle then added the other guitar layers and mixed the whole thing. She also later made the little segment intros you hear.