I love watching movies! It is undoubtedly one of the greatest joys in life. In fact, I can’t think of a more appealing, more affordable form of entertainment. Isn’t it wonderful to be whisked away into another world? Fully immersed in an epic story, fully invested in the tragedies and triumphs of its characters. To quote Roger Ebert: “We live in a box of space and time. Movies are windows in its walls”.
Ever since I bought a projector last year, I’ve been voraciously consuming motion pictures from small arthouse films to epic summer blockbusters. Nothing like having a 85” screen in your living room. I try to restrain myself from overconsumption, but lord knows I have a spotty record when it comes self-control. I usually watch about two films a week, and I have several major 2023 film openings marked on my calendar.
Instead of using streaming services like Netflix or HBO, I curate an ever-growing list of films I want to watch, then I rent them out on Amazon Prime Videos for $4 each. The cost works out to be the same, but I get the added benefit of protecting my attention. I hate the feeling of mindlessly scrolling through millions of hours of content and yet still feeling like “there is nothing to watch”. Being deliberate with my media consumption has worked out incredibly well!
I don’t know what compels me to keep a list of almost every movie I’ve ever watched. I suppose I just enjoy keeping lists. Maybe I was a librarian in another life. Lists bring me a sense of order, a feeling of clarity, like I am somehow reversing the process of entropy. Now I think about it, maybe a lot of my hobbies can be described that way: attempts to bring order to chaos, clarity over ambiguity, improvement over deterioration.
I’m getting sidetracked here… The idea of a personal movie gallery has been on my mind for quite some time. When I discovered AirTables, I knew it was the right tool for the job! I was able to append additional info to my movie list with the help of an open-source IMDB query tool on GitHub: PyMovieDb. Fun project!