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Movie Mentor for Palm OS
July 28, 2003
At its heart, Movie Mentor is a list of lists that is designed to help you make the best of your (presumably limited) time to watch movies. Most of us do after all have jobs and/or kids, go to school, or have other significant activities that take a lot of our time, so we may not get to see as many movies as we would like. So how do we keep track of the ones we want to watch, or where do we go for more information about films we think we may want to see? Movie Mentor handles all of this by giving you lists of films currently showing in theaters, recent and pending video releases, top rental and box office titles, and future releases. It even keeps track of what you’ve seen as well as the titles you’ve marked as things that you really want to see in the future as a “watch list.”
So how do you make sure to avoid the junk? Movie Mentor has an integrated ratings system with two variations. One lists loves from 1-99, with 1 being the best movie and 99 being the “last” movie to see, but not necessarily a bad one. It all depends on individual tastes, after all. You can also choose to stick with the standard 1-5 star system, with 5 being the best of the best, 4 very good, etc. Depending on how much memory you have left on your Palm OS handheld, you can also choose to download complete plot information for every movie, or just cast information. I decided to download ALL information for seven weeks of theater and video movie listings, including all movies from 1980 and newer, which takes up 1300K on my device. You can choose to have movies dating all the way back to 1930 if you would like, and up to 14 weeks of theater and video listings. You can add your personal notes to any movie listing, and I like the fact that the mini reviews of each movie also include a very brief description of why the movie got its rating. That’s great for parents who want to carefully choose what their children are allowed to see. Spy Kids 3D, for example, mentions “action sequences and peril” while the new Tomb Raider film has “action violence and some sensuality.” This extra ratings info is available only for the more recent films, however.
Movie Mentor is a subscription based service, which makes perfect sense. After all, the information does need to be kept constantly up to date, or you’ll end up with a database of nothing but “oldies” after a while. It costs $11.95 per year for a subscription, and detailed payment information is available on the Movie Mentor web site. This is a great application for anyone interested in the movies, something that’s always up to date and very easy to use. I wish that it had some way to hook up with Showtimes or Pocket TV Browser so that I could pick the movies I’m interested in AND find out exactly when/where/what channel they’re showing on. Movie Mentor does well as a standalone, but we can always dream, right?
PocketGoddess Rating for Movie Mentor: 
