Flickchart or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Pick the Better Film

I have a new addiction and if you are fan of the internet and a fan of movies you may have heard about it. In fact you may already be addicted to it as well. That new addiction is Flickchart. The site itself is deceptively simple. After signing up you are presented with two films and you have to pick which film you like better. After picking you are then given another two films and you have to make the choice again. You then repeat this process a few thousand times.

I know what you are saying, "that seems pretty boring, what is the point?" Well, as you make more and more choices the site builds a list of your favorite movies. Now you question why you need a site to make these choices for you. You know what your favorite movies are and you can make your own list. Well, you would think so but if you ask me, making a list of favorite films is actually pretty hard to do. I know what films I really like but what order do I put them in? How do I rank movies that are so different.

Well, Flickchart forces you to make hard choices. When given the choice between two movies that you love you have to choose one. You may doubt that the choices would be that hard but you don't know what a tough choice is until you have been forced to choose between Ghostbusters (1984) and Back to the Future (1985). There is no option for "I like (or hate) both of these movies equally." You have to give it some thought and make a choice. After making quite a few hard choices you might just be surprised by the list Flickchart creates for you.

Of course the problem is that once you start rating movies it is hard to stop. You say to yourself, "Ok, one more match and then I am done for awhile." Then the next match up comes and you are presented with a choice that you can't resist making. So you give it some thought and make your choice and then are presented with another irresistible choice. This is how you end up spending several hours on the site just rating movies and wondering where the day went.

The site is still in its beta testing so you can't just go to the site and immediately sign up for an account. You can put in your e-mail address to sign up for the beta version of the site but you might not get your invitation right away. The other way to get in is to know someone that has an account and get them to invite you (sorry, all my invites are spoken for).

So, if movies are your thing and you always have trouble really making a list of your favorite films, or if you are just looking for a good time waster, sign up for the beta and try to get an account on the site. It is pretty fun but it can be addictive and may eat up a lot of your time. I personally can not be held responsible for the time you waste on the site though.

You can check out my profile on the site by clicking here. The list it has created for me needs a little work but is getting more and more accurate as I rank more and more movies. The site is missing some of my favorite foreign and independent films but as I understand they are working as fast as they can to add as many movies as they can.

Have fun.