Top 10 Films of 2019

Yes, for the first time in ages I have actually seen enough films in a year to have a top 10.  I saw 12 new films, but the top 10, in reasonably final order are:

1 - Blinded by the Light
2 - How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
3 - John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum
4 - The Missing Link
5 - Captain Marvel
6 - Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw
7 - Gemini Man
8 - Avengers: Endgame
9 - Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
10 - X-Men: Dark Phoenix

No explanations yet, mostly just to annoy L.

Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse

(I do not care how Marvel spell Spiderman, they are wrong.)

I loved it.

I loved the colour, the style, the music, the sheer vivid inventiveness. This is a film which used its medium to the fullest. Too many cartoons are content to be live action plus. This was cartoon maximus. It saw the freedom possible and used it.

I loved it, because I am a film fan and a comics fan. It’s an excellent film and it’s an excellent Spiderman story.

I loved that they took SpiderHam and Spiderman Noir and made them work. (Oh my heart, did it make them work.)

I loved the rolling “and this is how I became Spiderman” pages, and that horrible two ticks before the film told us who Gwen’s dead person was.

I loved Miles Morales, and his Dad and his Mum and how much they loved each other despite not always seeing eye-to-eye. I was so worried when Miles’s Dad turned up at the end fight.

Someone involved in the film seemed to have hated One More Day even more than the rest of us, and that vigour made them clever. The film showed that you can tell a story about a +30-year-old Spiderman and still make it interesting, without removing all the history between him and Mary Jane. Peter B. was just a glorious vision of what superhero-ing costs and doing it any way. He’s such an interesting contrast, not just to Miles, but to a lot of other superheroes.

I was hopeful that I wouldn’t have to see Uncle Ben die, again. Dear film, replacing uncles with other uncles does not help that problem!

I liked the film’s take on the seductiveness of doing bad things, and I thought that what they did with Kingpin was interesting. They made it very clear that nothing he did was justifiable, even if it was understandable.

I saw the film shortly after Stan Lee’s death and I just was not prepared for that scene. I was fine until “It always fits. Eventually.” It’s that mix of salesman, and the truth about superheroes, and then I cried.

I liked the film’s take on Aunt May. Maybe in this ‘verse, she’s the physicist. I also loved Liv Octavius, bound only by what she can achieve. Science never asks if it should!

I loved every marvellous minute and I am not alone. From comments at work, this is the superhero film for people who do not like superhero films, because it’s so different, because it’s bright, colourful and stylish.

Utterly recommended for everyone.

Favourite film of 2019

No post yet, because I live in hope of seeing the new Star Wars film over Christmas.

Euro 2020 Draw

Normally I'd do a post about the draw for the Euros, but what it would look like if it was done according to the team's FIFA rankings.  I can't do that at the moment because the play-offs haven't happened yet.

On the other hand, it does mean that fans who are travelling to the matches can book their flights and accommodation earlier. That should help the fans and I've said for a long time, an earlier draw is a good idea.

Also, the Germany/France/Portugal/Someone else group sounds like it will be excellent fun.

For the full draw, and more information about Euro 2020, please see here.

Updating the 2019 Rugby World Cup Network Diagrams ... And Future Plans

Now that all the changes to the squads have been added, admittedly after the tournament has finished, I can update the figures. In general, the changes made very little difference.

The quarterfinals:


(Sorry to any New Zealanders for cutting off the N of the country name.)

The only difference adding Rob Herring for Sean Cronin for Ireland makes is that Leinster and Munster now both have the most players left in with 12, followed by Crusaders, Scarlets and Saracens with 11.

All 8 teams are their own communities.

Japan are the team closest to the centre still, but Yamaha Jubilo are now the team closest to the centre.
In the total players used up to the quarterfinals diagram, Canada and France have still added the most (4), then Ireland, Italy, Samoa, Scotland, South Africa and Tonga with 2 then Argentina, Fiji, New Zealand, the United States and Wales who have all added one.

All 20 teams remain their own communities.

Jaguares have the most (27) players at the World Cup, followed by Welwitschias (20) and Glasgow warriors and Benetton (16).

Scotland and Pau are the teams closest to the centre.

Semifinals:

The addition of Owen Lane for Josh Navidi changes nothing because it swapped a Cardiff Blues player for a Blues player. Therefore, the teams in the centre haven't changed from the previous version (England and Harlequins) and the teams with the most players haven't changed.

In the total players used up to the semifinals diagram, Canada and France have still added the most (4), then Ireland, Italy, Samoa, Scotland, South Africa, Tonga and Wales with 2 then Argentina, Fiji, New Zealand and the United States who have all added one.

All 20 teams remain their own communities.

Jaguares have the most players at the World Cup (27), followed by Welwitschias (20) and Glasgow warriors and Benetton (16).

Scotland and Pau are the teams closest to the centre.

Final:
No changes to the diagram showing just the finalists because I made the Ben Spencer for Willi Heinz change in the original diagram. I made it because it had an effect on how close the teams were to each other as Willi Heinz and one of the South Africans both play for Gloucester while Ben Spencer plays for Saracens.

In the total players used up to the final diagram, Canada and France have still added the most (4), then Ireland, Italy, Samoa, Scotland, South Africa, Tonga and Wales with 2 then Argentina, England, Fiji, New Zealand and the United States who have all added one.

All 20 teams remain their own communities. Jaguares have the most players (27), followed by Welwitschias (20) and Glasgow warriors, Benetton and Saracens (16) (due to addition of Ben Spencer of Saracens for Willi Heinz).

Scotland and Pau are the teams closest to the centre.

~~~~

I wanted to see if there was any correlation between final result and players named to the squad. Obviously, teams that went further in the tournament played more games which increases the risk of injuries. Therefore, I divided the numbers of total players (and total players/original players) by the number of games played to try to account for that. If you look at total players named to squads divided by games played versus the team final positions it looks like this:

You can see an obvious pattern. There is a similar pattern if you plot starting number of players named divided by total players named then divided by games played against final positions.

I'm not sure what to do with the information.

Dividing by the number of games played has a huge effect and I don't know if the effect is out-sized. Also, it's all well and good to be able to see patterns at the end but it would be interesting to see if you could predict final positions from this sort of information at the end of the group stage.

Another interesting question, raised by L, is whether you can predict anything from number of players actually played and which teams maintained the most continuity, in terms of players who were on the pitch with each other. It's something you could probably work out from easily available data, but it will take time to do so it is being put into the future plans folder. Watch this space, but don't hold your breath ;)

Other forthcoming plans for this data include trying to make a video showing the changes throughout the competition - the first few dry runs look very pretty but that might also take some time to perfect, but the results of that should be out sooner than the other analysis.

Rugby World Cup Final 2019 Network Visualisation

Trying to get this out before kick-off and failing (just).

This is the figure where I have updated the team with the change (England) because it affects the diagram. Willie Heinz, who has been replaced due to injury, linked England to Gloucester, while they are linked to South Africa by Franco Mostert. Therefore, there are now fewer links between the two team.

The addition of Ben Spencer to the England team to replace Willie Heinz means that the club team with the most players in the final are Saracens with 10 (9 for England, 1 for South Africa). They are followed by Stormers with 9 (all for South Africa) and Bulls, Bath and Leicester Tigers (Bulls all South Africa, Leicester all England, the Bath players are from both). Of the club teams, Sale Sharks are closest to the centre.

Rugby World Cup 2019 Semifinal Network Visualisation

(With some spoilers of the results of the semifinal matches themselves)

England are now the team closest to the centre, with Harlequins the club team closest to the centre. New Zealand are the team floating out on their own, and given both theirs and Ireland's relative under-performance, it does suggest that rugby union is becoming more like football, ever more inter-linked, and that inter-linking is vital for performance.

The club teams with the most representatives are Crusaders, Scarlets and Saracens (11), followed by the Stormers with 9 and the Ospreys with 8. All four teams remain separate communities.

No update on the all players diagrams but that should be coming soon. There will be a slight delay for RL reasons, but hopefully the quarter, semi and final versions of that should be up before the end of November.

Rugby World Cup 2019 Quarterfinals Network Visualisation

Notably, all the teams with players unattached went out in the first round, which suggests my theory that the teams that have to rely on players with no club team are weaker is correct.

Leinster are now the club team with the most with 13 (all the players who player for Jaguares, Welwitschias, Benetton and Glasgow Warriors played for eliminated teams), followed by Munster with 12 and then Crusaders, Saracens and Scarlets with 11. Yes, I find the lumping of Crusaders and Saracens hilarious.

All 8 remaining teams are separate communities, and the teams are held less tightly together. Fiji, Samoa and Tonga were providing a lot of the connections that held the others in place.

Japan are the national team nearest to the centre, and NTT Communications Shining Arcs are the club team closest.

I've not updated the total players diagram yet, because I am aware that some replacements have not yet been updated on the Wikipedia page I am using as my information source (noticeably Rob Herring for Sean Cronin before I made the update) so there's a good chance it's slightly out of date. I will update the total players once the semifinals are sorted out, in the hope that all updates will have been made by then.

End of the 4th Round of Group Games Update to the World Cup Network Visualisation

The changes up to the end of the fourth round (again, as accurate as Wikipedia can make them):

Italy - Giosuè Zilocchi and Danilo Fischetti for Simone Ferrari and Marco Riccioni.
Argentina - Gonzalo Bertranou replaced Tomás Cubelli.

After fourth round of group games, the diagram looks like this:

Jaguares still have the most players with 26, followed by Welwitschias (20) and then Glasgow and Saracens (15). Two Benetton players have been replace, and both replacements play for Zebre.

The closest teams to the centre are either Samoa or Scotland and either London Irish or Pau.  In both cases, I can't tell.

In the community view, France and Fiji have become one community:  

I'm sharing the non-labelled one as well, because I think it's just so pretty.

Looking at the total players named:

Jaguares have the most (27), followed by Welwitschias (20) and Glasgow warriors and Benetton (16). Samoa and Pau are the team closest to the centre.

From original teams being named to start, Canada and France have added the most (4), then Italy, Samoa, Scotland, South Africa and Tonga with 2 then Argentina, Fiji, Ireland, New Zealand, the United States and Wales have all added one.

In the community view, the teams are back to being 20 separate communities.

Venom the film

I was dubious about Venom, because I knew Spiderman/Peter Parker couldn't even be mentioned because of Sony's deal with Marvel.  I felt that you could probably make a Venom film without Spiderman, but I couldn't figure out how you'd make an Eddie Brock film without Peter Parker.  Because it's Brock's obsession with Peter Parker that leads to his downfall.  He fixates on Peter to try to hide his own shortcomings from himself.  Hating Peter Parker becomes his raison d'etre.

The film worked round this in way that was quite clever.  First, they have an unspecified New York incident move him away from Peter Parker, the Daily Bugle and events in New York, then they move his knee-jerk dislike to Carlton Drake (or I-can't-believe-it's-not-Elon-Musk*), and finally, they actually have Eddie admit his faults.  I actually liked Eddie Brock!

A good chunk of that was due to Tom Hardy, who appeared to be having all of the fun.  He's got charm enough to burn, and can do lovely but feckless so extremely well.  And he's good enough to sell you on Eddie Brock's repentance.  Which is just as well, because some serious repentance is required.  And I like that.  The film makes it clear that Ann is right to be angry with Eddie.  It's a film where actions have consequences, no matter if those actions come from good or bad intentions.

I also like that Doctor Dan is a good guy.  The minute he sees that Eddie is ill, he immediately tries to help him.  All hail Doctor Dan.

Other actors who seem to be having all the fun include ... Tom Hardy as Venom.  Venom's alienness makes the occasional FX weakness easier to take, as does the way Tom Hardy makes Venom completely different to Eddie Brock (and I wonder if that challenge was how they got him to sign up for a minor superhero film).  The other interesting thing about how they do Venom is the sound just before he appears, which is (probably deliberately) reduced as Eddie and Venom get more used to each other.  The falling sensation some people experience as they're drifting off to sleep that catapults them awake is called a hypnic jerk but some people get sounds as well/instead.  Mine sound just like the noise of Venom's appearance.  Which led to an interesting if peculiar cinema experience.  I know it's coincidence but I'd love to know why that particular combination of sounds was chosen.

The end fight, although weak as tends to be the case in minor superhero films, had some enjoyable details in the lead up to it, like Venom using a dog as his way to get out of hospital, and then Ann letting him use her to bodysurf to Eddie.  I also liked that Ann:

1 - remembered stuff
2 - did fight dirty.  She got that Drake/Riot had to be stopped, by any means necessary.

Basically, I just liked Ann.

As well as finding the end fight underwhelming, I didn't like one of the two end credit scenes.  Not "Into the Spiderverse" which looked amazing, but the Carnage one.  I think it's because that's not what Cletus Kasady sounds like.  It's not Woody Harrelson's fault.  He'd make an excellent Cletus Kasady given the opportunity, but they seem to have told him to play it that way.

So in short, Venom was good, stupid fun and far better than it had any right to be.

*I know Drake is a scientist in comics, and it's not Elon Musk's fault that a lot of his plans sound like supervillain schemes, but ... it's a remarkably close portrait.

Speaking French is bad for your health - a network diagram update after the 3rd round of group games at the 2019 Rugby World Cup

The changes are:

Ireland: Jordi Murphy replaced Jack Conan. Ireland are literally doing it to themselves, as Conan was injured in training.

Canada: Guiseppe du Toit and Theo Sauder replaced Nick Blevins and Ben LeSage. This change occurred between games 2 and 3 but was only updated on Wikipedia today (6th October). No, I am not sure why they've swapped a centre for a fullback.

Kainoa Lloyd replaced Taylor Paris.

South Africa: Damian Willemse replaced Jesse Kriel, who was injured in the first match. This was what I was meaning when I said I thought teams were waiting to see how bad injuries were before sending players home. This was a swap of a fly half for a centre.

United States: Chance Wenglewski for David Ainu'u. Again, this happened earlier but the Wikipedia article was only just updated.

France: Christopher Tolofua for Peato Mauvaka, and Vincent Rattez for Thomas Ramos - The latter change was a wing for a fullback.

The removal of Canada's link to Castres and Ireland's shift up and to the left may explain the changes in which teams lie closest to the centre. Samoa and Scotland are the national teams closest to the centre, and London Irish and Pau are the club teams closest to the centre. I can't tell which is closer between either pair.
 

All the teams are in different communities.

If we look at all players named at any point up to the end of the 3rd round of group games, it now looks like this:
 

France and Canada have used the most players, 35, with Samoa, Scotland, South Africa and Tonga next with 33. Apparently, playing rugby for a country that speaks French is bad for your health.

Labelled, it looks like this

Either Samoa or Fiji are the national team closest to the centre, it's too close to tell. The club team closest to the centre are Pau.

Looking at the community view, France and Fiji are now one community for reasons I do not understand.
 

Quick update after the second round of group games

A very quick update, because nothing has changed. As some have teams have since swapped out players that were hurt in the first round, I think that if teams had their weakest opponent in the second or third round, they've rested those players to see if they will recover and only replaced them if they haven't.

There will be changes after the third round.

Rugby World Cup 2019 Network Visualisation Up To The End Of The First Round

The following players were replaced after the first round of games:

Samoa: Alamanda Motuga for Afa Amosa
Scotland: Magnus Bradbury and Henry Pyrgos for Hamish Watson and Ali Price
South Africa: Thomas du Toit for Trevor Nyakane
France: Pierre-Louis Barassi and Cedate Gomes Sa for Wesley Fofana and Demba Bamba
Tonga: Latiume Fosita and Fetuli Paea for Kurt Morath and Nafi Tuitavake
Wales: Bradley Davies for Cory Hill

These changes make the figure look like this:

There is one less unattached player, Nafi Tuitavake has no club listed while Fetuli Paea plays for Tasman Mako in the New Zealand Mitre 10 Cup. The unattached players left are Canada and the US (5), Samoa (4), Fiji (3), Georgia (2) and Italy (1).

As nothing has changed with Argentina, Jaguares have the most representatives with 26, followed by Welwitschias (20) and Benetton (16). With regard to Benetton, they already had 16 and I made a mistake in the original calculation. Benetton are alone on 16 because Glasgow lost a player when Ali Price had to withdraw.

Samoa remain closest to the centre and London Irish are still the club team closest.

Looking at the total numbers of all players named in the squads up to the end of the first round, that diagram now looks like this.

The following teams have named replacements since the original squads were announced: Samoa, Scotland and France (2), NZ, Canada, Fiji, South Africa and Wales (1).  Like the 2015 World Cup, Samoa and one of the teams in the group with them have added the most players (so far). Not sure if France have just been unlucky.

In this diagram, Samoa are the closest to the centre (just, it's very close with Fiji) and London Irish are the club team closest to the centre.

Rugby World Cup 2019 Network Visualisation

(This is late because I spent most of the build-up to the World Cup on holiday. I would recommend a visit to Andalusia to anyone and everyone.)

For the Rugby World Cup, you're going to get more images than usual in this kind of post. This is because the governing body, World Rugby, demand that the squads are finalised before the final warm up match (no, I have no idea why).  In a sport like rugby, it's very easy for people to get injured in a match, so there are often changes between the squad being finalised and the start of the tournament.

Below is the original squads, in red and white in honour of Japan.

The labelled version is here:

As you can see, Samoa are the team closest to the centre, with London Irish being the club team closest to the middle.

Jaguares are the club with the most representatives (26), followed by Welwitschias (20) and Glasgow Warriors (16).

Because of the regional way rugby union works in several countries (New Zealand, Ireland, Australia, Wales) pick all their players from very few teams (4 for Ireland, 5 for New Zealand).

Ireland are the team floating on their own. In the men's football equivalent of this diagram, being so isolated is a predictor of poor performance but I don't think this will be in the rugby (this was written before Japan Vs Ireland, possibly it is more prophetic than I thought.)

The number of unattached players is higher than football. USA and Canada have the most with 5, but several other teams also have unattached players (Samoa, Fiji, Georgia, Italy and Tonga).

All 20 teams are their own communities.

However, as I said players get injured and several teams had to replace players before the start of the tournament. The diagram on the first day of the World Cup (20th September), looked like this.

The main difference is that Namibia have moved further in because they have a player (Janco Venter) who plays for Jersey Reds, and Lee Roy Atalifo, who was a replacement for Fiji also plays for them. 

This means that Fiji are now the team closest to the centre, while London Irish are still the club team closest to the centre. The clubs with the most players hasn't changed.

Rugby union also does something interesting with regard to replacing injured players. In international football tournaments, teams may only replace injured players until their first game. In the rugby union world cup, teams may replace injured players throughout. I think this is because players are more likely to get injured in rugby and because there are certain positions where you need a specialist player. These positions tend to be the front row (Hooker and Props). If a team cannot field a recognised hooker and props, scrums become uncontested for safety reasons. Backs are more interchangeable and, theoretically you can play a non-scrum half at Scrum Half, it just might not end well. (I mock with love, and no one can say that Mauro Bergamasco didn’t give it his all, because he is lovely beyond words).

With the changes that have come after the first round and will undoubtedly come after the second round, I will make more diagrams. I am also very tempted to find a way of making an animation of the changes and then do the same for a diagram of all the players who have been named in the squads. For the time being, below are all of the plays that have been named in any of the squads from the naming of the squads to the start of the tournament.

At the 2015 World Cup, Wales and Samoa went through the most players and I suggested that reflected something about the way the two teams played. This time, New Zealand, Canada, Samoa and Fiji have already had to add players, 1 each.

More soon.

Film Locations

Yes, this was supposed to be done at the start of August but everything this year is late. It covers all films mentioned on the blog up to March 2nd 2016.

All the real locations in those films:

UK and US located films make up more than half of the films, although the exact percentages have gone down since the last time.

Including fictional locations:

This trend of fewer films set in the US/UK or more films set elsewhere also occurs if you take fictional locations into account. Last time US and the UK locations made up more than half of those as well, but it's now the US, UK and France make up half of locations.

It would be interesting to see if the locations change over time as more films need multiple production companies and those sometimes require non-US/non-UK locations as part of the agreement for funding. Not sure how I'd measure that since obviously the films I watch are a very small microcosm of all films.

UK film locations:
 

Are still all England and Scotland and mostly England.

There will be a delay to the Rugby World Cup Network Visualisation

Because I am going on holiday the day after the squads are announced, and will not be back for at least a week.  Sorry about that!

Terracotta Warriors

In October, I took advantage of going home anyway to visit the Terracotta Warriors exhibition at Liverpool Museum (which is now called the World Museum for reasons I do not understand. I mean the one next to the Walker Art Gallery).

It was really good. They did a really good job of setting the Qin Emperor in context, admittedly, tidied up for international consumption, but still context, and why he was so important. And why he was the sort of person who was buried with 8000 odd terracotta soldiers. (I feel I need to add that we were encouraged to take photos, provided we had flashes turned off. If they'd told me earlier I would have brought my camera, but instead I had to use my phone.)

On to the stars of the show.
 


These horses are up to something

The warriors themselves come in a variety of different poses, to represent different parts of the Emperor's army.
There are figures of infantry generals -

Lower ranking infantry officers -

And plain infantry men -

As you can see in the background, the warriors were originally painted, and had glorious uniforms. 

Outside the exhibition, there was an example of what they think the General's looked like in full colour.

This one is a chariot warrior, minus his spear -

Chariot driver -

A kneeling archer -

and a standing archer -

Probably my favourite not-actually-an-artefact was the "how the warriors were made" diorama that ran along the wall opposite where the individual warriors were placed. It was very stylised but I did like the foreman figure going "argh! You've dropped one of the heads!!!" Which was remarkably clear given they were stylised blank-featured figures.

There were also really interesting artefacts from the grave of a later emperor. I promise that once I've found the exhibition guide book, I will update this with the name of the Emperor in question.

 
Some of these had movable arms, but they were made of wood and therefore lost to history  

Also, a menagerie -
 

There was a very interesting bit that dealt with how little we know about the history of the time. For instance; it wasn't clear whether this Emperor had smaller grave goods because he wasn't as powerful as the First Emperor, or because by then fashion and faith had changed so you didn't need life-sized grave figures. 

I was lucky enough to visit after the Golden Horse of Maoling was put on show.

The Horse was the last major exhibit of the exhibition, and led into the last room. I shall leave that as a mystery, in case a similar exhibition is put on near anyone else and they get the chance to go.