Choosing what movie to watch

[daddydave]

For this poll, family can also mean any group of people you watch movies with (although I would expect a group of friends to be more individualistic than a family). I am curious about other people's movie watching habits. Based on the assumptions made by movie tracking software, movie watching seems to be treated as purely an individual activity. For example, often there is a "wish" toggle showing someone wishes to watch the movie. But not a way to specify if it is one you alone want to watch, or one you want to watch with your spouse, or one you want to watch with the whole family. Sometimes you can work around this if the software is customizable enough, usually it isn't.

The idea is that there are people who just want to watch a movie, but have no idea what movie to watch, so someone else falls into the role of deciding what movie to watch.

Also, I am thinking mainly of movies watched at home. If you watch a movie at a movie theatre, you are limited to the choices there and it tends to be an impulse decision I think, so there is probably not much of a perceived reason to keep a list.

[JavaJones]

Picking what movie to watch is actually a fairly annoying problem at my house. Whether I have friends over or it's just me and my girlfriend, we often had a hard time deciding. It's not even so much a matter of disagreement, just of figuring out something we actually want to watch. Strange probably, but that's how it is over and over again. I thought letting us browse by genre would help so I've worked on setting up better movie cataloging systems, but most of the data sources for genre have movies in several different ones anyway, so you end up with a lot of overlap, and it's still hard to pick a movie from 100 "action" films, for example. Sometimes the limited choice of the theater is *good*!

- Oshyan

[J-Mac]

The only time it's easy at my house is when my wife is out for a few hours.     Then I can watch whatever I want! Otherwise, it goes something like this:

Me: "What do you want to watch tonight? Not much on but I have about 300 DVDs I'd like to see."

My Dear Wife: "Oh, I don’t know; you pick."

Me (know damn well that a trap has just been laid in front of me!):  "Uhhh... Wait a minute.... Uhhhh... How about we start watching The Wire; after all we've had the entire series DVD set for a year and a half now!"

My Darling Wife:  "Mmm... What's it about?"  (Another trap, I think...  She has asked this every time I have suggested it and I apparently still haven't found the correct answer since I STILL HAVEN'T SEEN THE DAMN WIRE YET!!  OK; I'm OK now. Really."

Me: "It's about a special team of Baltimore Police detectives who....."

Wifey:  "Oh yeah. Well, maybe I can sew buttons on something... Or..."

Me, resigned:  "Oh, wait a minute... Look! Here's another rerun of Law and Order... OK?"

My Loving Wife:  "Oh... if that's what YOU want to watch."

Me.....  "Drppp, drppp..."  (The sound of drool as my eyes glaze over to the sound of ...  "In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally....."

(I STILL haven't seen one stinking episode of The Wire..... Aarrgghhh!

Jim

[lanux128]

hmm.. never heard of the Wire, what is it about?

[CleverCat]

I'm in charge of the PVR 

I've lived at home my whole life, so I know exactly what Mum likes! She never complains and trusts my Movie Selection....

 

[40hz]

Selection is an informal team effort for us

For ideas I have these sites set up in my RSS reader:

• For "normal" movies, I'll check here about once every other week.
• For abnormal movies I'll check here about once every other week.
• For snarky reviews I'll go here for a rundown on anything mainstream.

Where our "resident redhead" goes for movie info is anybody's guess. But she makes some stellar choices however she finds out about them. Her latest score was a neat little mystery/fantasy film called Ondine. (see below)



A lyrical modern fairy tale that tells the story of Syracuse (Colin Farrell), an Irish fisherman whose life is transformed when he catches a beautiful and mysterious woman (Alicja Bachleda) in his nets. His daughter Annie (Alison Barry) comes to believe that the woman is a magical creature, while Syracuse falls helplessly in love. However, like all fairy tales, enchantment and darkness go hand in hand.

Trailer here.

================

Once either of one of us finds something that looks good it's off to NetFlix (we have the three at a time subscription) - or Amazon.

We like to surprise each other with what we've selected. Friday and Sunday are "movie nights" at our place.  

[J-Mac]

hmm.. never heard of the Wire, what is it about?

-lanux128 (January 29, 2011, 11:48 PM)

It is a TV series that was aired on HBO for five years. Some critics hailed it as "the best show ever on television". It's basis is generally on the same book that the TV series "Homicide: Life on the Streets" was based on. Same author involved in the screenplay. Brief write-up on TV.com:

In chronicling a multi-generational family business dealing illegal drugs and the efforts of the Baltimore police to curb their trade, this series draws parallels between these organizations and the men and women on either side of the battle.

The words of Gary W. Potter, Professor of… More Criminal Justice and Police Studies at Eastern Kentucky University, in writing about the savings and loan scandals of the 1980s, can also be used to illuminate some of the central premises of the show:

"There is precious little difference between those people who society designates as respectable and law abiding and those people society castigates as hoodlums and thugs. The world of corporate finance and corporate capital is as criminogenic and probably more criminogenic than any poverty-wracked slum neighborhood. The distinctions drawn between business, politics, and organized crime are at best artificial and in reality irrelevant. Rather than being dysfunctions, corporate crime, white-collar crime, organized crime, and political corruption are mainstays of American political-economic life."

Tim Goodman, the television critic for The San Francisco Chronicle, summed the show up perfectly when he wrote: "This show is precisely the reason you pay for HBO."

In New York's Newsday, Diane Werts says: "Most TV crime series aspire to John Grisham's level. 'The Wire' aspires to Dostoevsky's."

Season Themes

Season One centers around a family of drug dealers and the inner workings of their empire. It also follows the detectives who are trying to catch the high members of the empire. Season Two steps away from the drug trade (while still mentioning characters from the previous season) to a case of dead prostitutes which turns into a look at the corruption surrounding the Port. Season Three investigates politics and finishes the main stories that were left open in season one. Season Four focuses on four middle school students and their journeys through the public school system and continues to address the politics of an inner-city and the issues of an election. Season Five is rumored to be about the media's role in Baltimore. Season Five will be the show's final season.

Here's a few links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wire

http://www.hbo.com/the-wire/index.html

http://www.slate.com/id/2149566/

Jim

[lanux128]

It is a TV series that was aired on HBO for five years. Some critics hailed it as "the best show ever on television". It's basis is generally on the same book that the TV series "Homicide: Life on the Streets" was based on. Same author involved in the screenplay...

-J-Mac (January 30, 2011, 12:28 AM)

sounds like a good premise for a tv drama, too bad it has gone under the radar over for more publicity hungry series like Lost, Heroes, etc.

[J-Mac]

sounds like a good premise for a tv drama, too bad it has gone under the radar over for more publicity hungry series like Lost, Heroes, etc.

-lanux128 (January 30, 2011, 12:43 AM)

True, but then again it was only on HBO, which cost an added premium to watch. Sometimes that helps, sometimes not.

Thank you.

Jim