Is there a good tag-based list maker out there?

September 10, 2005 9:20 PM

Help me list every movie I've ever seen. What application, preferably web-based, would suit my needs?

I love film. Lately I've been thinking about the amount of movies I've seen in my twenty-one year old life, and I've come to the conclusion that I'd have trouble even coming up with an estimate. So I've decided to make a list. A long list of every single movie I've ever seen. I've already come up with some strategies in trying to remember what movies I've watched; that's not what I need help with. What I need help with is finding an application, preferably web-based(and if that's not availible I'm using OS X), that will allow me to make the list in the way I'd like.

So after coming up with this idea, I've searched the internet for other people who've tackled such a task. This guy has a list setup(alphabetized, etc) that I wouldn't mind using, but I'd love to expand on it.

Here are some of the things I want to include:

Some sort of tag that indicates whether I saw it on TELEVISION, VHS, DVD, or at the THEATRE. If I've seen at a more than one, TELEVISION overrides VHS, DVD overrides VHS, and the THEATRE overrides DVD. The tags should be sort of like del.icio.us so I can click and find out all the movies I've seen on VHS or THEATRE or whatever.

A tag or category of the genre of the movie.

A tag or indicator of whether I've seen it in its entirety.

And perhaps a simple rating tag or indicator of whether it SUCKED or DIDN'T SUCK.

And definitely the ability to add more tags/indicators/categories as needed.

Does anything exist that could possibly allow me to do this without having to figure out how to program it myself?

posted by defenestration to media & arts (18 comments total)

Take a look at http://rinkworks.com/checklist/, which looks interesting.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 9:34 PM on September 10, 2005

Imdb tracks the rating you give every movie in one list, and you can rank them by your rating, perhaps a simple way to start your list. It is what I use anyways.
posted by Quartermass at 9:41 PM on September 10, 2005

Seconding the IMDB ratings.
posted by Jairus at 9:43 PM on September 10, 2005

Wow, I've always loved imdb, but never bothered to register. It's not exactly what I wanted, but I think it'll do the trick.

The checklist is a cool site, too. If anyone else knows something that might help me, please share!
posted by defenestration at 10:36 PM on September 10, 2005

> Does anything exist that could possibly allow me to do this without having to figure out how to program it myself?

Do you have Microsoft Excel on your computer? There you go. It's ugly, but it works, and it's a snap to export the data to various formats if you decide on another solution in the future.
posted by jtron at 10:42 PM on September 10, 2005

Get a copy of OmniOutliner. I've started using it as a project organization tool; it would be very easy to craft an outline to fit your needs.
posted by nathan_teske at 10:56 PM on September 10, 2005

Excel. Duh.
posted by blindcarboncopy at 12:52 AM on September 11, 2005

You might try Movie Collector. You can set it up to search different online databases (including IMDB), and it makes a summary page for each movie. There are different fields you can manipulate as well. You can export the list as an html file.
posted by Yorrick at 1:17 AM on September 11, 2005

I did this via imdb. Not only is it easy to keep track of all your films and rate them, it's easy to crossrefenrence the actors, directors etc and find out what other films you'd forgotten you'd seen. When I thought I had remembered all I could I just started searching for big name actors and director, then searched their resume to see if I had forgotten any of their films.
posted by fire&wings at 1:51 AM on September 11, 2005

I made a MySQL database of all the movies/shows I own, and have slowly been trying to download/rip copies of things that I've already seen whenever I find them. Filling in the gaps of my memory isn't as important to me as filling in the gaps of my collection.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:17 AM on September 11, 2005

Ok, since I've seen this question I've kind of been obsessed with it myself. I downloaded the Movie Collector software that Yorrick mentioned, and I played around with the IMDB thing.

The software is nice, but I have to enter in every movie I've ever seen one at a time. Of the thousands of movies I've seen, that's quite a chore, one I'm likely to get bored with. I'm still pecking around for some comprehensive search/database of movies, but as is this just doesn't seem worth it. AmbroseChapel's link is interesting and more what I'm thinking of, but a pay service. :(

Sorry for the whining, if I find something else I'll be sure to post here.
posted by zardoz at 5:59 AM on September 11, 2005

I use my Netflix queue. It has the bonus of recommending stuff similar that I may not have seen. I list any movie I've seen in it, regardless of format/location in the review area.
posted by macadamiaranch at 6:54 AM on September 11, 2005

That should read: I list any movie I've seen in it regardless how, making notes of format/location in the review area.
posted by macadamiaranch at 6:55 AM on September 11, 2005

All Consuming is designed for this purpose. I'm using it and it's satisfactory. You can tag items with whatever you want.
posted by stuart_s at 7:28 AM on September 11, 2005

http://www.imediaman.com ....a work of splendor....
posted by Voyageman at 10:47 AM on September 11, 2005

You could just use del.icio.us and bookmark the individual movie pages at IMDB. Then you could give each movie page all the tags you want.
posted by patgas at 12:43 PM on September 11, 2005

Personally, as a subscriber to netflix, I use that. Although far from every movie I've ever seen, it's basically most I've seen in the last few years--even if I didn't see it because of netflix, I rate it.
posted by Lockeownzj00 at 3:16 PM on September 11, 2005

Hmm.... I wish there was a way to export the list of movies I've rated in Netflix.
posted by exhilaration at 12:58 PM on September 13, 2005