Intro

You know when a meme isn't good anymore after you've seen it a billion times? That's what it's like watching most popular movies that I've already seen to death, whether good, bad, ugly, or spectacular. Tremendous as some movies may be, they're a timesuck - especially when I know there are many great movies out there yet to be discovered. Popular or fringe, big budget or indie, new, recent, old, or classic - and in so many genres.

Movie Night™

x0x7 has led the way by developing and orchestrating the popular-vote for our GoatMatrix.net's Pop MovieNight™. (See also: s/MovieNight & s/MatrixEvents.)

Alt Movie Night™

Many times I've been critical of watching painfully familiar pop material and not watching new, alternative, or challenging content. x0x7 suggested, "We'll start a movie discussion thread [...] Each user only gets to make one movie suggestion to make sure they bring their best." I like this idea a lot.

Help needed

However, it does not necessarily solve the problem of watching reruns. Also, I think "Voting is lazy. [...] I want people to bring suggestions and discuss to find a consensus on the best option. [...] I don't even know who I'm watching with, what their preferences are, or what would be best to recommend to them." Thus, first I'm asking for ideas to help with these dilemmas.

For example

I want passionate people to compel me to bother watching their choice, whether they've seen it before or not. State your case. Give me a paragraph, or an essay, or at the very least some high ratings and a good trailer. If everyone pitched their one or few top choices WITH their powerful reasons why it should be seen, then we'd likely feel better about engaging at all.

Another example

We could vote to narrow down the selection to a genre we all like. And/or we could overlap genres (ie. Western + Sci-Fi, Comedy + Political, Dystopia + Romance, Period + Swashbuckler, etc.). Or instead of genre it could be about the director, actor(s), style, topic, etc. Whatever the criteria, we could reach a consensus narrowing the limitless into a target.

Another other example

We could develop rules to veto choices somehow. Vote ranking is good. But I'm at the end of watching reruns - so simply not-participating is currently my only option. Having a veto is a step between all-or-nothing. If we've selected a batch of good choices, and everyone gets a veto, then there's a good chance we can still settle on a good movie we all actually want to see.

Outro (for now)

To respect your time I'm cutting this ramble short as I'm also pressed for time, but this won't be my last word on this, especially if you contribute some ideas on effective, fun, and worth-while participation. Maybe I'm hoping for the unattainable - especially in this modern era of convenience, vast options, woke-media, and dumbed down masses - but I really believe we can do better.

Let's figure this out.