So here’s the idea – isn’t De Niro past it? Doesn’t he just make bad films now? I thought I might look at the good vs the bad of his flicks through the IMDB user ratings they received. But it turned out there weren’t actually that many truly bad films – just quite a few average ones. So rather than forcing the negative this is about plotting where those good ones are (or were).

And while we’re at it, lets compare Al Pacino. The two big method actors of their generation are usually talked about in the same breath (especially with their big breaks in the Godfather films). And he too seems to have been going through something similar in his career – where have the classic films been in the last few years?

For the data I’ve plotted all the films on their resume’s with an IMDB ratings over 7. Because if it’s over 7, it’s a pretty good film (over 8 and it’s great). The vertical bars are really what you’re comparing from one to the other. The markers are an extra bit of information showing the actual rating – where I’ve labelled their highest scores. Both of them had a year in their careers featuring two classics on the same rating, which I’ve marked on there too.

The outcome? De Niro’s has done more films overall (about twice as many) and more good films (28 – 17), basically non-stop from the 70s to mid-90s, before a slump between ‘98 and ‘07. But now he’s even having a bit of a revival with the recent peak being Silver Linings Playbook. Other than Scarface, Pacino actually had a bit of a barren 80s and is having a very empty last 10 years, without a critical hit since 2002’s Insomnia.

Just how many of Arnie’s films have been in the action genre? More or less all of them, right? I took to IMBD and found all the films he has starred in (it’s 28 ignoring cameos) and found out what the esteemed site describes as their genres. I then visualised the results in a vaguely scientific way (it’s his career formula after all) to see if any patterns could be spotted.

And yep, 23 films or 82% of his career has been in action. If it’s not action it’s because he’s deliberately playing against type in a comedy, or in his first credit, a family film. More precisely it’s mainly the action-thriller sub-genre (12/23) followed by 6/23 in the action-sci-fi segment. Thus by this assessment the most typical Arnie films are the action-thriller-sci-fis of the Terminator series. Though being his most famous films, obviously you didn’t need me to point that out…

It’s easy to forget that the Harry Potter films could have been shit. Some haterz may argue they were anyway but an American studio landing on a very British fantasy story could have easily not ‘got’ it at all. And the casting is a prime example. Imagine, Eddie Murphy is Dumbledore! John Travolta is Voldemort! And Sylvester Stallone is the new Defence Against The Dark Arts teacher!

Instead watching these films was like having a ridiculous parade of British talent popping into every scene. Well of course the bad guy needs to be played by Alan Rickman, hire him. Well duh Julie Walters, the nation’s kindly auntie, plays the kindly sort-of auntie role. And yes the gothic maniac witch had to be Bonham Carter. Every time a new character turns up on screen, you just nod in agreement: ‘that makes sense.’

So here it is. In the style of film poster credits, here’s all the British actors who pop up (some of them just voices) in the series, weighted by number of appearances. Yep, it’s only Rickman, Coltrane and Davies who are in all eight of the films, making an intriguing trio in themselves. Surely a sitcom waiting to happen. Whilst sounding like a jazz group.

It’s like a fantasy football line-up. I salute you, Potter casting directors.

I haven’t done a musical yet so what’s the interesting story here? To my mind it’s who of the cast does the actual singing. And in regards to how they’re billed in the credits: so do those who get their names right at the top do more work? And who performs with who?

In the end I’ve tried to achieve a purely visual representation of the film with little Cluedo-like heads as the characters and each column representing a song. The only labels being the location it takes place to help give a hint as to what those songs are (if you don’t know the running order in detail, it’s based on the full soundtrack*). It’s also stacked to get a sense of the rousing and quiet bits. Being a proper musical with virtually everything sung, this then acts as a scene-by-scene breakdown of the story.

So what do we learn? Jackman earns his top-billing by singing the most and being the main presence in the start of the film. As the action hits Paris it becomes more of an ensemble piece. Crowe pops up here and there throughout the film but does a lot less work than Jackman for his second place. Hathaway does all her work in a handful of songs before dying (and popping up at the end). Redmayne belies his lower billing with a lot of work throughout the middle and end of the film (and twice as many songs as Crowe), while Seyfried pops in midway only to disappear for most of the second half.

In terms of combos despite there being several character pairings who share five songs (Mr & Mrs Thenardier, Marius & Eponine, Marius & Enjolras, Javert & Valjean), it’s the lovebirds Marius & Cosette who get to spend the most time singing at each other with six.

*Minus the tracks ‘Turning’ (barely long enough, no main cast) and ‘Beggars at the Feast’ (effectively part of the song before).

This was inspired by the fact that since discovering the show back in the day, I keep finding Jason Bateman cropping up in everything Hollywood has made in recent years (Michael Cera pops up a lot as well). So I wanted to know just how many films have the Arrested Development family made between the show starting in 2003 and 2012. And yep, my hypothesis was correct and Bateman is the leading man in that group. In fact all the men have had a lot of film work out it, with only young Michael Cera being out-performed by Alia Shawkat in the match up of his generation of the family.

Data from IMDB.

This little graphic is the filpside to my previous Bond Girls number. Whilst in that I focussed on the lover side of the different James Bond actors, here it’s all about him as a fighter (or killer in fact). I’ve been holding on to putting this up until the week of the film release (keeping things topical) but in the last few weeks annoyingly I’ve seen a few different places doing their own version of James Bond’s stats in infographic form. The data seems to be slightly different but the main point still remains: Pierce Brosnan got really quite carried away with a gun in his hand. I look forward to seeing if Craig can get his average up in Skyfall…

The data for this and The Bond Girls infographic has mostly come from a rather excellent spreadsheet on bondmovies.com.

This one came about purely because I wanted a map showing where the characters in the Lord of the Rings films go. There are plenty of maps of middle earth but I couldn’t find anything showing where they travel to. There are numerous other characters but I’ve focussed on the nine of the fellowship and have grouped a few of them together to make it more readable. Hopefully the graphic holds up on its own but if you want it, here are the details around what’s happening at each point:

The Fellowship of the Ring

1. The four hobbits leave Hobbiton and get things underway.
2. Aragorn/Strider joins the fun at Bree.
3. At Rivendell the Fellowship is assembled.
4. They get as far as the mines of Moria before losing Gandalf to the Balrog.
5. The rest of the Fellowship make it to Lothlorien and Galadriel, before hopping on boats down the river.
6. They make it to roundabout Argonath where they are attacked by Orcs, Boromir’s journey ends and the Fellowship split.

The Two Towers

7a. Merry and Pippin are taken to the plains of Rohan by the Uruk Hai who are attacked by Eomer’s riders enabling the hobbits to escape into the trees. Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas give pursuit but miss out on them only to bump into Gandalf (now the White)…
7b. … at the same time Sam and Frodo pick up Gollum in making it to the Black Gate of Mordor, where Faramir and his men capture them.
8a. Merry and Pippin get to know the Ents in Fangorn forest…
8b. …while Gandalf, Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas find their way to Edoras and King Theoden.
9a. Gimli and Legolas goes with the main party to escape to Helm’s Deep. Aragorn gets their a bit later via being washed down a river but in time for the big battle. Gandalf had set off to find Eomer’s men before arriving at the battle in time to swing things…
9b. …whilst all this is going on Frodo and Sam are taken to Osgiliath by Faramir before being freed.

The Return of the King

10. Gandalf, Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas meet up with Merry and Pippin (carried by the Ents) at Saruman’s tower in Isengard.
11. They all then regroup back at Edoras before Gandalf first sets off with Pippin to Minas Tirith (hence these hobbits’ split line)
12. Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas raise an army under the mountains via the Paths of the Dead before reaching Minas Tirith whilst Merry sneakily joins Theoden’s Army for the big finale battle.
13a. After winning the scrap at Minas Tirith Aragorn leads an army with Gimli, Legolas a, Merry and Pippin to the Black Gate to distract Sauron…
13b. …while Frodo and Sam have overcome Shelob to reach Mount Doom and toss in the ring before Gandalf arrives with some giant birds to bring them home.

Hey, those quirky Coen brothers like to use the same actors in all their films don’t they! Don’t they? Sort of.

Here are all the actors who have appeared in more than one film by the brothers with those nearest the top being the ones who appear in the most. Going left to right we have the films with the most frequent collaborators to the least. The honours of most frequent actor appearances are shared between Frances McDormand, Steve Buscemi and Jon Polito with five. The film with the most regulars in is possibly their most famous picture The Big Lebowski with nine, followed by O Brother Where Art Thou and Barton Fink with eight.

Plotting this I started with the obvious stars but when I included all the actors (which meant all the smaller names) it soon became clear that over half of them only appear in two films so hard to call them that ‘frequent’. So there are thirteen actors who appear three or more times over fifteen Coen films. A bit of a troupe but overall their acting picks may not quite be as predictable as is made out.

Data from IMDB and this handy Wikipedia list.