Hofmeyer sometimes presents his findings as "dumb data," and to be sure, most of his reports would collapse under close scrutiny. But the numbers themselves don't really matter. The real appeal of his write-ups is the way they combine two major passions of online film-nerds: A deep, affectionate nostalgia for the films of the '90s and '00s—even the bad ones—and an increasing fascination with movie metrics. At a time when Rotten Tomatoes verdicts and IMDb scores are vexing studio heads, euthanizing some already-dubious releases, and even being weaponized, Hofmeyer's quasi-scientific missives almost feel like a goofy rebuke to the idea that a movie's quality can somehow be quantified.

At a time when Rotten Tomatoes verdicts and IMDb scores are vexing studio heads, euthanizing some already-dubious releases and even being weaponized, Mark Hofmeyer's quasi-scientific missives almost feel like a goofy rebuke to the idea that a movie's quality can somehow be quantified.

Still, he takes his research seriously. In one study, he attempted to figure out how far Stellen Skarsgard's character traveled through the undersea station in Deep Blue Sea after he was chomped—and then dragged underwater—by a genetically modified super-smart shark. The movie is an especially important one for Hofmeyer, who's been obsessed with film since childhood. Growing up in Florida, he says, "I was the kid with the Columbia House VHS club membership. I was watching Reservoir Dogs when I was 11 years old, and I skipped school to go buy Fight Club on DVD." By the late '90s, he was working at a movie theater, which is where he first encountered Deep Blue Sea. "That Sam Jackson death scene gets all the love," he says, "But that other one was really gnarly."

Deep Blue Sea, 1999 AF Archive/Alamy

Yet there are only so many ways to dive back into a cult film like Deep Blue Sea, which has already been GIFed and retroactively praised on the 24-hour nostalgia machine that is the modern web (it's even been the recipient of some shallow writer's mindless thinkpiece). For his study, he consulted screen shots of the station's perimeters, as well as freight-elevator data, eventually determining that poor Stellan traveled about 1.12 miles before he was turned into a human battering ram.

His report likely wouldn't be approved by a structural engineer, nor would it likely please a fact-checking super-shark. But it does find a new conversational entry points into a beloved movie, at a time when the web could use them. The online movie-chatter ecosystem has been around for more than two decades now—who among us didn't spend time on AOL's Star Wars boards in the early '90s?—and yet so many forum discussions still adhere to the same three talking points: 1) MOVIE NAME was awesome!!! 2) Could someone please explain the ending and/or twist in MOVIE NAME?!!; or 3) Did you ever know this arcane bit of production trivia about MOVIE NAME?!! And the influx of numbers from sites like Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb, and Metacritic haven't exactly livened up such talks, as they all too often lead to chilly, data-driven conclusions (many of which boil down to "My favorite movie scored higher than your favorite movie—therefore, I win!")

Hofmeyer's antic-metrics approach offers an alternative approach—one that proves that by taking a not-so-serious movie as seriously as possible, you can rediscover and reassess it. In the coming weeks, he plans to determine how the amount of actual sawing in the Saw movies affects their respective critical reception. He's also hoping to determine just how much distance Nicolas Cage covers while wearing his Wicker Man bear costume. "I want people to laugh when they read these," he says. "Not the biggest laugh, but at least a little chuckle." And if they let out a little bees-scream, all the better.

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