Make your personal online movie diary
Your personal online movie diary
Are you obsessed with movies? Are you obsessive about ranking and cataloging them? (Is that just me?)
If your first two answers are “yes,” let me direct you to a couple of online web tools that will elevate your cinephilia.
Sites like Get Glue let you “check in” to movies via social media, but a site called Letterboxd provides you with everything you need to complete a virtual filmgoing diary.
Let's say you happen to have every movie ticket stub you've purchased since 1995. (I may or may not fit this description.) With Letterboxd, you can enter the title and date on each stub, add a star rating and sorting tags, and write a review of any length. You can also make themed lists of movies to share with other users and create a watchlist of movies you want to see in the future.
Speaking of lists, we movie fans are seemingly obsessed with them. Every critic presents his or her top 10 list at the end of every year, the American Film Institute creates TV specials around their lists, and nearly every nerdy site on the web relies on them to drive traffic.
Flickchart helps you make the definitive pecking order of every movie you've ever seen. When you start, two random titles will be shown to you. You choose the one you like better. This goes on and on and on, pitting movie against movie, creating your own personal, all-time best ranking.
This can lead to some astonishing discoveries, like the fact that “Titanic” is No. 11 on my personal chart. (What can I say, I'm still head over heels for Rose DeWitt Bukater.) It also creates some “Sophie's Choice” moments; how does one choose between “Ferris Bueller's Day Off” and “Planes, Trains and Automobiles”?!?
Have fun with those websites, but don't blame me when your boss catches you ranking movies instead of completing your TPS reports.
10 years? Already?
I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes ... “Love Actually” is all around us, and so the feeling grows.
Writer/director Richard Curtis — whose new film, “About Time,” expands to suburban theaters Friday — gave us an early Christmas present 10 years ago this week when his ambitious, hilarious comedy, “Love Actually,” hit theaters.
The ribald romance is now available in a 10th anniversary edition Blu-ray package that includes a new digital transfer of the film and a rather cheap-looking Christmas ornament. It will look smashing in a gift bag adorned with a cinnamon stick and a sprig of holly, wink-wink.
The Blu-ray also includes the customary audio commentary, deleted scenes, behind-the-scenes featurettes and music videos, but the real joy of revisiting this film lies in spotting all of its iconic actors in both large and small roles. Only “Love Actually” can bring together Bilbo Baggins, Betty Draper, Davy Jones, Rick Grimes, Severus Snape, Mr. Bean, Qui-Gon Jinn and King George VI.
Of course, those of us with a Netflix subscription needn't bother with the Blu-ray; it's available for streaming.
• Sean Stangland is a Daily Herald copy editor and a tireless consumer of pop culture. He needs Kate, and he needs Leo. And he needs them now. You can follow him on Twitter at @SeanStanglandDH.