Friday, May 6, 2011

Listing Fiend

Listen--I lack the patience to go through my past blog posts in order to verify this, but I'm pretty sure that I once blogged about Goodreads.com, and perhaps Library Thing and Shelfari, as good tools to help you remember what books you want to read as well as what you've read [1]. You remember better than I do, because it likely inspired you to create a Good Reads account right there on the spot. I'm charismatic.

I'm also a listing fiend. I love being able to make note of something I want to read, and later to look over that list of possibilities as a approach the end of a book--gotta have the next one available for when I hit that back cover. I'm neurotic.

I'd been wanting a comparable tool for movies, and had tried a few, but hadn't hit on any that stick. So, last week, I was thrilled to discover that the Internet Movie Database had created "Watchlists." Finally, I can remove the bung from my mental movie inventory and let it flow onto IMDb's servers [2].

No longer will I have that experience where I remember on my way out of the library that I don't have any DVDs to watch at home, then cruise over to our DVD collection, and then stand there spinning, a lighthouse attempting to warn away all the movies I don't want to see in order to reveal the ones that I do. Why can I never remember anything I've been wanting to watch when I need something to watch? Someone call Malcolm Gladwell to investigate [3].

But now I don't have to, because as I sit at a computer and recall the title of something I want to see, I go to IMDb.com. I log in to my account and I search for the film. Once I've got the film's page up, I click the "Add to Watchlist" button. While writing this post, I remember that I've been wanting to see David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises, starring Viggo Mortenson and Naomi Watts [4]. Look, here's proof:

How do you like that, eh?
I know I'm irrationally excited about this. I'm aware of that. And if you don't get it, just pass it by. But to those of you who do get, and I know some of you compulsive list makers are irrationally excited with me, pass it on to our brethren and sistren. They'll be happy you did.

What follows is a list of links referenced in the above
1. Library Thing - good site for maintaining a catalog of books you own
    Shelfari - good site for book-reading list makers who like virtual bookshelves
    Good Reads - Imho, the best site for tracking books read, being read, or to be read. I'll be brave and offer you the chance to check out my Good Reads list, so long as you promise not to stalk me.

2. IMDb - THE Internet Movie Database. If this is the first time you've heard of it, welcome to the information superhighway.

3. Malcolm Gladwell - He really is the sort of guy who would go talk to behavioral psychologists and write an interesting article about why we can't remember, say, what we need from the grocery store while standing in the cereal aisle. I'm sure stores like this tendency as I suspect it results in more liquor purchases. Anyhow, you owe it to yourself to read a Gladwell. Blink is about our gut instincts and subconscious thought processes, and it's fascinating. The Tipping Point is about, well, the tipping point--little things with big impact. Outliers considers whether geniuses are born or made. 

4. Eastern Promises is about a London woman who has the diary of a young Russian woman who dies in childbirth, as well as the child. She cannot read Russian, but serendipitously meets a Russian man who can read it to here. Serendipity's not all it cracks up to be as the Russian is a driver for the same crime family that has connections to the newborn's dead mother. Check it out from our collection, or learn more at IMDb.
blpost

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm still super excited about this! Thanks for tipping me off... now let's hope my Watch List doesn't get as long as my Goodreads "to read" list!