Do something different this holiday season. Check out
my list of 34 great gifts you can make yourself!
Custom Movie Listings with RSS
Sunday, 14th January 2007 (by J.D.)This article is about Hints and Tips, Odds and Ends
If you're new here, you may want to learn what this site is about. I encourage you to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Kris and I went to see The Queen yesterday at a local second-run movie house. It’s an older theater, and it reminds me of the places we used to go when I was a kid. It’s clean, cozy, and the snacks are reasonably priced. Parking is easy. “Why don’t we come here more often?” I asked after the film.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I guess it’s because we never know what’s playing here.”
She’s right. We don’t take a paper, and we never check to see if the movies we want are playing there.
“You know,” I said. “I’ll bet I could create a custom RSS feed that would keep us updated on which films were playing here. It’d make a great cheap date. A movie and popcorn for just ten bucks!”
I was shocked at how easy it was to create my feed. Here’s how I did it.
- A site called iSnoop offers a free script that polls Google to find what’s playing at your local theater. You enter a zip code and the script generates a list of nearby theaters.
- After generating the list of theaters, click on the name of your favorite venue to see which films are currently playing and — the key to this hack — to get an RSS feed for that location’s schedule.
- It’s simple to add feeds for each theater you like to your feed-reader. I created a group called “Movie Schedule” into which I directed the feeds for ten movie theaters we’re willing to attend.
This is exactly what I wanted. I’m now able to sort the movie schedule by both film and location. If you haven’t explored the world of RSS yet, now may be the time to try it. Google Reader offers cross-platform RSS support. If you’d prefer a stand-alone application, try NetNewsWire on Mac, or FeedDemon for PC. Use this tip to create your own custom movie schedule. And while you’re at it, subscribe to Get Rich Slowly!
Now, if you’ll excuse me, we’re off to see Casino Royale again. (My favorite Bond film ever.)
13 Responses to “Custom Movie Listings with RSS”
Leave a Reply
Subscribe to comments on this post via RSS feed.
January 14th, 2007 at 11:03 am
Hah - Thank you! Not only is this incredibly useful (we don’t take a paper either) but your zipcode’s close enough to mine that I can just borrow your list. (We’ll be off to Casino Royale at the Moreland any day now…)
January 14th, 2007 at 11:47 am
That’s fantastic! I’m always looking for easier ways to find movie listings.
I just wrote about another RSS hack I use involving del.icio.us and Firefox, if anyone’s interested.
January 14th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
I’m with you on CR, it’s great, and I love the parkour in the beginning chase seen.
In Seattle there’s this hidden gem of a theater, the Big Picture, it’s downstairs from a nice restaurant - movies are only $5, it’s adult only, as you can drink there…in the theater. I’m going with a group of friends Monday night to see Casino Royale…again!
Thanks to your tip, I’m keeping tabs on all the Big Picture flicks.
January 14th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
I agree he’s HOT! I haven’t been able to see it yet as the day before it opened, I snapped a toe in two and have been in a cast since. Going to a theater with jostling, etc would hurt!
January 14th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
Oh that is a good tip. We usually just look by zip on yahoo, but it would be nice to have a feed.
Just got back from We Are Marshall. It is a good one!
January 14th, 2007 at 7:25 pm
That does seem helpful, but I’ve always used “My Yahoo” to see what’s playing at nearby theaters and read reviews to decide whether it is worth watching.
January 15th, 2007 at 3:19 am
That looks like a good movie. I will have to check it out!
January 15th, 2007 at 6:32 am
I’m plugging my favourite feed reader. If you’re of the penguin persuasion try LiFeRea, short for Linux Feed Reader, it’s quick, neat and pretty, and let’s face it looks count!
January 15th, 2007 at 8:05 am
What a great idea! My new home is close to a handful of McMenamins theaters I like to visit.
January 15th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
[...] Now get those feeds into your reader. If you’ve searched for them in the reader itself, then that should be straight-forward. If you’ve found it in your browser and want to read it using your browser’s feed reader, clicking on a subscribe link or on the RSS icon on the browser itself will usually do the trick. If you want to move a subscription link from your browser and into an external feed reader, right-click on the link, and select “Copy Link” or something to that effect. Go to your reader and manually add a feed. Paste the subscription link in and that should do the trick. Repeat that with all the feeds you want, and you’re done. Check it at your leisure, but if you subscribed to some active feeds, you could find a lot of feeds waiting for you if you forget to check it for a few days. This guide is very, very vague. If you’re really interested in trying out RSS feeds and can’t follow these directions, follow the help files for your feed reader of choice. People have done all sorts of neat things using RSS feeds, one of which I just recently subscribed to that allows you to subscribe to a custom feed of movies at your local theater. Interestingly enough, I found out about it through my RSS subscription to a personal finance blog. Here is a link to the blog post. Explore posts in the same categories: Site Stuff, Life Stuff, Cool Stuff [...]
January 15th, 2007 at 10:44 pm
Similar (but different ;)): I use “xmltv” to download TV listings in XML format. You can then search through them in various ways.
I have one program that looks through our various movie channels for movie titles I have previously setup as “wanted”, and others that list by genre and so on.
February 26th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
[...] Your google-fu is weak. Custom Movie Listings with RSS ? Get Rich Slowly [...]
March 30th, 2007 at 10:36 am
I know you can use isnoop to get a zip code box to find movie listings but I am trying to have within our design a box that whenever you click the zop code you will get theatre listings then when you click theatre it will give you movies and times and when you click movie it will show you trailer picture and summary description.
How do you get info from serveral places and where?