The Film-Lover's Check List

May 3, 2011 2:41 PM

The Film-Lover's Check List This is a simple but neat website for marking off the movies you've watched based on "Best" movie lists. You can choose from a wide variety of lists at the site or you can create your own.

You need to sign up to use it, so I've created a mock Metafilter account, to show you what the lists look like and so you can view the page with all the user-created check lists.

Here are some of the most popular Best Movie lists and their checklists at the website.

1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die (FLCL)

The New York Times Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made (FLCL)

Empire Magazine's 500 Greatest Movies of All Time (FLCL)

IMDb top 250 (FLCL) (FLCL)

American Film Institute's 100 Years...100 Movies (FLCL) (FLCL) (FLCL)

Academy Award for Best Picture (FLCL)(FLCL)

Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film (FLCL) (FLCL)

BAFTA Award for Best Film (FLCL)

The British Film Institute's 100 Greatest British Films (FLCL)

Sight & Sound Magazine's Top Ten Poll 1952-2002 (FLCL)

Palme d'Or (FLCL)

Empire Magazine's 100 Best Films Of World Cinema (FLCL)

Entertainment Weekly's 100 Greatest Movies of All Time (FLCL)

Time Magazine's ALL-TIME 100 Best Films (FLCL)

The 100 Best of Rotten Tomatoes (FLCL)

Village Voice's 100 Best Films of the 20th Century (FLCL)

Films selected for preservation by the National Film Registry (FLCL)

posted by dgaicun (27 comments total)

This is a pretty awesome tool, aside from the fact that it looks like it's from 1992 and displays my password in the URL.
posted by Madamina at 2:47 PM on May 3, 2011 [8 favorites]

displays my password in the URL.

ON EVERY PAGE
posted by shakespeherian at 2:48 PM on May 3, 2011

displays my password in the URL.

ON EVERY PAGE

I'm glad these guys from Sony can still find work.
posted by TrialByMedia at 2:50 PM on May 3, 2011 [18 favorites]

I was all "yay!" because I've been wishing imdb would do this for years (maybe it does? I don't really pay enough attention) so it would do something like highlight the movies I've seen for when I'm trying to find the guy in that movie who looks so damned familiar I'm sure I've seen him in something before now what was it etc etc etc...

But then I saw that my password is on every freaking page. Wanting to warn others, I come in here only to see that every single other person before me has come in to gripe about the same thing.

Grr...
posted by phunniemee at 2:54 PM on May 3, 2011

This is a pretty awesome tool, aside from the fact that it looks like it's from 1992 and displays my password in the URL.

Truth. And ye gods, it says the site was redone at the beginning of last year! I cannot even imagine what it must have been like before.
posted by grapesaresour at 2:56 PM on May 3, 2011

Rinkworks! It's looked exactly the same since at least at least 1999, and probably earlier. I used to think their one-minute movie and book summaries were a riot.
posted by theodolite at 3:05 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

But then I saw that my password is on every freaking page. Wanting to warn others, I come in here only to see that every single other person before me has come in to gripe about the same thing.

Why should we be concerned that our password is compromised? There is zero personal information on the site (aside from your movie list(s), I suppose, and your actual password, but who cares about that?).

Seriously. What's the vulnerability/liability here? I love simple sites that work like this (not that I love this site--it's a little ... primitive, and Netflix serves well enough for me...)
posted by mrgrimm at 3:33 PM on May 3, 2011

is it weird that the NYT list doesn't have Tarkovski's 'Solaris' or 'Stalker'? Am I crazy for thinking these painfully lovely films deserve a spot? Was there some cold war film embargo I don't know about?
posted by serif at 3:38 PM on May 3, 2011

I think the password thing should be stressed in the above the fold description. I went there directly, without reading the other comments, and almost gave them my info.
posted by Omon Ra at 3:41 PM on May 3, 2011

Why should we be concerned that our password is compromised?

Because if I ever want to look at the site with anyone else present, they're going to know my password. Or if I sign in on a public computer and don't clear my search history. That wouldn't be a problem if I had used a unique-to-the-site password, but I used the mostly-bullshit stock password I use for all of my random maybe-this-is-an-interesting-site-I-don't-know-yet signups. It would be an even bigger problem for people who use one password for everything, including bank accounts.

I sent an email to the feedback link asking to change my password (because I don't see that as an option anywhere). We'll see how that goes.
posted by phunniemee at 3:42 PM on May 3, 2011

From their privacy policy:

RinkWorks takes reasonable security measures to protect the loss, inappropriate disclosure, and misuse of the information under our control. However, should a breach in security occur and information stolen or altered by anyone, RinkWorks cannot be held responsible for this loss or theft.

Try harder.
posted by jenny76 at 3:52 PM on May 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

I've been using icheckmovies for this very purpose, which is very similar but more modern looking, also has lists, personal watchlist, etc.

I'm still not totally sure if i'm happy with it (making a browser extension to do everything you do in that site from imdb itself is on my to-do list, i guess i'd be a bit happier then), but seriously, this should be baked into imdb already...
They added a watchlist recently, which isn't too bad, but it lacks integration with mymovies, and mymovies itself sucks horribly.
posted by palbo at 3:54 PM on May 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

Related: my first ever AskMe question.
posted by defenestration at 4:06 PM on May 3, 2011

Wut? No Worst lists? I think I'll start my own list of "1001 Movies You Must Die Before You See." And the undisputed winner for worst film ever made, unchallenged for the #1 spot for decades:

1. Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean

Ok, that's enough threadjack, unless someone can find a Worst Films list on this site. I generally find Worst lists more informative (and entertaining) than Best lists.
posted by charlie don't surf at 4:06 PM on May 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

RinkWorks is classic. Their content is the awesomest thing you'll find still online in a mid-'90s package. I love The Duel of the Ages. I used to frequent the forum over there years ago but haven't been back in a long while. I wonder if they'll ever actually update the design? I suspect that all the content there is hard-coded, and there's a LOT of it, which could make for a difficult migration.
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 4:26 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Oh man. I haven't thought of Rinkworks in a while, though every other year or so I remember its existence.

Don't miss the adventure games, though, yeah, don't use a "standard" username/password.
posted by kagredon at 4:42 PM on May 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

I made a list of every movie I ever saw and was able to check them all off. Then I made a list of every movie I haven't seen and it's like, jeez, why even bother?
posted by tumid dahlia at 4:51 PM on May 3, 2011

Thanks for the link to icheckmovies. I like the Rinkworks site all right, but the password thing unnerves me.
posted by immlass at 4:52 PM on May 3, 2011

An AskMe from last February by turgid dahlia asked for movie recomendations, movies that had to be seen, 127 responses, a great AskMe. And then stupidsexyFlanders put up a great MetaTalk post that put all the recommended movies into a public google spreadsheet that ssF had created -- cool. And THEN grouse copied that spreadsheet and inserted links to any/all movies that you can watch instantly on NetFlix.

One of my all-time fave metafilter combination of posts...
posted by dancestoblue at 6:40 PM on May 3, 2011 [6 favorites]

I like Sight & Sound's old lists, because they are cited in The Book of Lists.

Most cited by 20th century critics:

Citizen Kane
Bicycle Thieves
Battleship Potemkin
The Rules of The Game
Passion of Joan of Arc
Vertigo
L'avventura
posted by ovvl at 6:52 PM on May 3, 2011

I still use the site Lists of Bests for things like this.
posted by JauntyFedora at 11:14 PM on May 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

Wow, I would use the HELL out of this, but not with the password problem.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 11:15 PM on May 3, 2011

I like Sight & Sound's old lists

I hate the way they are usually presented as a single top 10 for the decade, since the individual critics' lists make for a much more interesting long tail.

With apologies for the self-link, if anyone is interested, I OCR'd the lists from the relevant Sight & Sound issues a few years ago. (Sorry, there are still some OCR-induced errors.)
posted by ffrinch at 2:57 AM on May 4, 2011

And the undisputed winner for worst film ever made, unchallenged for the #1 spot for decades:

The Apple
posted by mrgrimm at 7:02 AM on May 4, 2011

Hey, I thought I'd let you guys know...

He added a "change your password" option (just log in and you'll see it) and is working on fixing the URL display. Yay!
posted by phunniemee at 9:08 AM on May 4, 2011

I OCR'd the lists from the relevant Sight & Sound issues a few years ago

Thanks. For a shorter long tail, here are all the movies which got 5 or more votes from critics and directors.
posted by dgaicun at 9:52 AM on May 4, 2011

Web 1.0: Web 2.0::Rinkworks:I√Movies

I haven't tried I√Movies yet, but it looks interesting...
posted by mrgrimm at 11:03 AM on May 16, 2011