As sheer escapism, movies invade my life in any sense of the word.
They are portals to different worlds where I am always able to travel from the past to the most possible futures. I see movies as companion more than just for fun. Lines, plots and characters are all reminders to me of the possibilities to be saved in a holy new world where I am allowed to forget about the biggest truth in life which is, life is all about solitude.
I moved to United States last August and I still remember for the first few months I felt like myself an infant because I have to learn everything from the scratch. Being away from motherland makes me feel very much lonely at first and people take time to acclimate to a new country. I am of no exception.
One way I have been trying to deal with the lack of intimacy with family and friends is to watch a lot and a lot of movies, escaping from the real world to pretend to be busy in life (because I'll have a movie night schedule with myself :D)
So I looked back on my film tracking list and found a fun fact: though I chose films based on my moods (technically speaking each time was a random choice 🤔), there is still a subtle pattern that can be observed or it can also be considered as a self-reflection trace of how I begin to accustomed to my new home and know what to expect from the surroundings in this new country.
Before we look into the data, you must know, I am a crazy thriller movie goer. I love all kinds of horror/suspense/mystery/crime movies. So don't be surprised when the data is telling you perhaps for the 90 percentage of time I was watching people killing people, which doesn't really mean I was stressed out or hitting the rock bottom in life or I was dead inside. It is literally on the opposite of the case —— I am starting to navigate my new normal.
Throughout the past year, I watched 45 movies and 34 tv shows in total.
The numbers are not extremely surpring but they do inspire me to further explore more than the numbers themselves. I am wondering during which period of time my engagement in movies was most active and what are the possible reasons behind the most common movie languages in my list. Also, is it really true I spent 90 percentage of the time watching people killing people as I thought to myself? Uh...Maybe yes, maybe no.
Just scroll down with me.
Movie Equilibrium: Stable Or Unstable?!
my movie activities from August 2021 to July 2022
The main reason I chose to analyze the data starting at August 2021 is because that was the first month of my relocation in this new country and the curve of the movie activities somehow mirrors how my anxiety went up and down during the first few months.
Jun 2022
19
During June 2022, I watched 19movies/tv shows in total, reaching a climax amongst the whole year's movies activity...
Feb 2022
13
Last November is considered to be one of the months with lowest movie activities during which I only went to watch Dune(for Timothée Chalamet!!!) and Hellboneon Netflix.
May 2022
9
Sept 2021
7
Oct 2021
7
Jan 2022
6
Dec 2021
5
Mar 2022
4
Apr 2022
3
Jul 2022
3
Aug 2021
1
Nov 2021
2
From Aug 2021 to Dec 2021 , the average number of the movies I've watched every month is 4.4, which actually quite makes sense 🧐 because during my first semester at school, I was struggling to balance school work and my new life abroad, having little time to enjoy movie nights with myself —— since I wasn't mentally secured then, one way I tried to deal with it was to spend more time with people around me instead of watching movies alone at home 🎦.
As the curve has shown, about six months after digesting everything gradually, my movie activities climbed up a little bit 📈 starting at Jan 2022, but winter break may contribute to the increase as well.
There was a sharp decrease starting from Oct to Nov 2021 during which I only watched one movie and one tv show in total. Anxiety can be a part of the reasons but more importantly, I was busy preparing for my final exams back then. Same reason to explain the decrease from Mar to April 2022 😰.
June 2022 was a super delightful month ✨ because I was able to watch 19 movies/tv shows in total 😯.
This finding kind of tells a fact about me: over time, when I became less anxious about the surroundings (or finished building a new comfortable zone), I would somehow stop exploring the new world 🤚 and spend more time with myself again 🌃.
Anatomy Of My Movie Languages
Well...nine different languages have been subconsciously selected
It is no surpring that English is featured as the main language among all the movies I counted in my list. Of 79 movies/tv shows in total, 39 are English based (nearly up to 50%). This is not only about personal choice but also because English-speaking countries have dominated global cinema for decades, which helps explain the growing popularity along with the accessibility to English due to the high production of the movies.
Hover on the stacked bar below to see different languages' percentage👇:
Korean has been featured as the second most common language in my list, which actually makes great sense to me as a Chinese girl who grew up with great familiarity with K-pop culture and watching bubbly K-dramas💗 all the time throughout my teenagehood.
One of the reasons why I didn't spend that much time on Mandarin-based movies/tv shows this year (only 8 out of 79 in total 🤔) is due to the regional lockout policy mostly targeting streaming devices.
However, I've also been aware that my actual language environment plays an essential role on my choices of movies language. Since I'm now living in U.S. where mainstream movies are mostly English and people around me are also most likely to talk about Marvel, DC, Hollywood other than any other languages centered films production.
So, to make sure I was able to keep up with people's movie tastes around me, I kind of placed more attention on English centered rather than movies that donminated by my native tongue.
Am I A Real Thirller Movie Goer?
Let's go and check!
As a matter of fact, I'm not obsessed with thriller movies alone but also a big fan of any horror, mystery, suspense and crime film. However, when you look into the sankey chart below, you will be noticing drama is the biggest tag here (43 out of 79), instead of thriller as expected.
This is because each movie usually has more than one category tag, many thriller / horror / mystery / suspense / crime movies also get a chance to be classified into the drama or any other category.
14 tags have been calculated in total and I also translated them into English as following: Action, Adventure, Comedy, Crime, Costume, Drama, Fantasy, Horror, Mystery, Romance/Love, Sci-fi, Suspense, Thriller, Other.
Note: Other category includes tags of disaster, biography, history.
When we look at the thriller data alone, 26 (out of 79) movies/tv shows take up 32.91 % of total, followed by 22.78% with Crime tag, 12.66% with Suspense, 11.39% with horror and 6.33% with Mystery.
Well...only about one-third of the movies are 'officially' thriller labled 🤔, which kinda disproves my previous assumption that for the 90% of the time I was watching people killing people 🙃 (okay...I am actually soft and warm inside as unexpected!!)
However, I do wonder during which periods of time of the year I was watching my favoruites and were these the moments with less stress in my life? Also, I am assuming I intended to watch popcorn comedies during my extremely busy exam months, so I extract the comedies data and compare it with my favorites categories 🔍...
As you can see, most of the dots clustered around late Autumn in 2021 and early Spring and Summer this year.
October could be seen as a starting point to slow down my life pace a little bit after having two extremely busy months when I first arrived. Then Feburury's density might explain the fact that I was kind of stepping into the third phase of moving to a new place which was 'gradual adjustment', after experiencing the stages of honeymoon and culture shock. June was when I finally reached to the last step of relocation: feeling at home —— I'd rather spend more time with myself instead of interacting with friends to improve my sense of security.
So YES, I tended to watch my favorites when I was less stressed out but I didn't spend that much time on comedies during the busiest months. In the case, it's a bit surprising (and sad!) to know comedies are not really a release for me to take a breath from the exams as I thought they should be (how pathetic...).
