Over the last few days, I've been looking at different ways to get films in the database that are likely to be "good". That's obviously a fuzzy target. What's amazing for one person may be garbage for the next. I don't really love the idea of trying to scrape a "score" that another site has come to algorithmically. That's really not the point of this database anyway. Mainly, I just want to find ways to nudge the movies people find in the "likely to be interesting" direction.

One idea I had was movies that have won (or been nominated for) awards. That info is publicly available, not tied to another sites algorithm, and there are a lot of sources to pull from.

It's also—as I've since found out—a lot of manual work to find settings and time periods for the winners. But it still seems like an interesting thing to explore. There are some fun directions it could take, like adding winners of The Razzies (films that are so bad they're good), or winners of weird nice awards like the Palm Dog (Best dog actor).

This week I added all winners for every category and every year of the Sundance Film Festival. It took a lot longer than I wanted it to, but I have a few ideas for ways to speed up the process.

I also rewrote most of the verification code to make sure imported movies are matched correctly. This should make it easier to import from different sources, and open up some interesting doors for non-english sources.

A movie I came across that I'm really excited to check out

Psycho Goreman: Set in a small town somewhere in Canada, a brother and sister accidentally resurrect—and subsequently enslave—a murderous ancient alien overlord. Looks like the perfect spooky/silly way to cruise into the Halloween weekend.

Milestones

• 34 USA States now how over 100 movies or series set in them.

State of the Database

• Total films with a location: 35,566

• Total films with a time period: 16,871

• Total films with both a location and time period: 13,684