'If you enjoyed this title, our database also recommends!'

So. Has anybody else noticed this? Now, while I'm all for the concept of a computer database telling me that I might enjoy various other titles based on some particular title, I cannot think of nearly anything more absurd than the five films recommended (at the time I write this) on the page for La règle du jeu! This is the list is present, in order from left to right:

1) The Razor's Edge (1946). OK, OK. It's the Goulding version, after all, it's in France, it's even in black and white. Nothing really in terms of style or plot, per se, but I guess not the worst recommendation.

2) Johnny English (2003). Hmm. I appear to be mistaken again. Clearly the farcical elements of Jean Renoir and class divisions draw clear ties to the comedy stylings of the ex-Mr. Bean star Rowan Atkinson (who, clearly, is merely playing the role of an updated André Jurieux in the body of the unacknowledged offspring of Julien Carette). Oh, and it appears there is some French in this movie as well. Also, there are guns. Alright, well I know it gets bad here somewhere along the line.

3) Just Married (2003). Ah!, but yet ANOTHER brilliant choice! For who among us can lay claim that there is, alive today, a greater inheritor of the wit of de Beaumarchais, The Rules Of The Game and, indeed, the thinking buffoon's cinema than Ashton Kutcher? I know that I can't. I cannot imagine once when I have asked someone for their advice on what to see after watching The Rules Of The Game when Just Married has NOT come into the conversation, so I would be a fool to argue against it's place on such a page. That said, if you have ever seen The Grand Illusion, you will almost certainly enjoy Night At The Museum which, if I'm not mistaken, probably has somebody wearing a monocle somewhere in it. (Just Married, I have also realised, while writing this, is the only film I can lay claim to knowing of wherein the first names of the first four credited cast members begin, sequentially, with the letters A, B, C, and D, which is something Renoir was clearly unable to achieve in the primitive cinematic atmosphere of late 1930's France [which, unfortunately, begins with an 'F' anyways, although that could be different in French, I'm not entirely sure].)

4) Gosford Park (2001). Well, nobody's perfect. Fortunately, however, this is in color, in English and a period piece (as opposed to a contemporary drama) made 62 years after La règle, so at least it could perhaps stand some chance of relieving the tedium imposed on the viewer by the opposite qualities in the earlier film.

5) Tom Jones (1963). Farce. Class Conflict. Love. Aunt. Chase. Country Estate. Dog. Hunting. Poacher/Poaching. These are the ten—count 'em!—TEN matching keywords of the Internet Movie Database which coïncide with both Tom Jones and La règle du jeu. AND!, while the latter includes 'Servant', the former elucidates with 'Master Servant Relationship' (along similar lines, while the former has 'Squire', the latter has 'Squirrel'). Has anyone else noticed this?! Why, with so much in common, I would argue that these MAY, in fact, be The Same Movie! Matter of fact, HAS anyone ever attended a screening in which both of these films were projected in the same room at the same time? No?! Ah! Scandal! Intrigue! Drama! I rest my case.

And, of course, it must be noted that Tom Jones is, of course, a product of the screenwriter John Osbourne, who is also famous for his notorious first play from 1956, Look Back In Anger, the first of the plays about the so-called 'Angry Young Man':

OF

WHICH

I

AM

ONE!!!

I mean, come on! Ashton Kutcher?! Somerset Maugham?! Mr. bloody BEAN?!?! If I let a blindfolded monkey loose in a Blockbuster, I have an equal—nay, potentially better—chance that the first five movies he flings poo at will be as appropriate of recommendations as most of these! Oh; but it seems the IMDb has already thought of such methods; how unoriginal of me.

Now, I admit, this is a extremely trivial cause to have roused my ire to such a great and silly extent. And, really, I did just completely waste those minutes of my life I spent comparing the keywords of Tom Jones and The Rules Of The Game (which also include, between them, Drunk, Charm, Imagery, Airplane, Swinging Single, Wench, Wipe, Dinner, Face Slap, Rabbit and, of course, Fall From Tree; I'll leave you to piece together which to which). However, my point (if I have one) may be that, if you're going to have a computer totally at random throw together films that have absolutely nothing to do with each other (while I admit, thematically, that Gosford Park seems rather similar to The Rules Of The Game, the two are so far apart in terms of their age, style [in acting, writing and directing] and purpose as to render them, at the very best, more kissing cousins than immediate kin), then why even bother having it do it at all? There is a very friendly note on the 'How we pick our recommendations' page about how a complex formula is used in place of being able to hand-select recommendations for all the IMDb films, and how it uses both the votes and the direct recommendations of users to calculate these selections (in addition to those dad-blasted, insipid 'Keywords'), and I suppose it is, somehow, really down to us that such things come about, when there really could be a great, user-driven set of recommendations, rather than rambling message board tirades and discussions, that could be sent forth from what must be the largest single gathering of cinematic knowledge in the world by now (I refer to both the users and the database).

But, frankly, I really did not set out for reform. I just wanted to point at Just Married and Johnny English and laugh. How far from our intentions lie our actions!

—Marc-David Jacobs