

Ask HN:Do you have a hack that helps you discover the best movies/books/music? - jcslzr


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LarryMade2
Heh, one of my personal "best" movies is Plan 9 from Outer Space... With that,
here's my trick to find books/movies/music in more specific (or somewhat
peculiar) genres: look for reviews or go shopping for the ones you already
like/have.

IMDB has related movies/suggestions as well as Amazon (read the comments also,
there might be more mentioned.)... sometimes you find other gems along the
same line you were thinking.

Look at the production company, director, author and see whatever else they
are attributed to.

One place I can recommend to finding a good movie blind is looking through the
"Criterion Collection" videos and DVDs (Hulu has many of em, but not all),
which is like the ultra-fan special edition of classic films, most of those
are notable for some reason or other.

Lastly there have been several threads here on great books movies, do some
searching and you will find em.

For music (besides amazon) - if you like particular genres check out some
streaming radio stations - i.e. for the jazz fan Play Misty For Me radio or
Luxuria... There's a streaming station for just about any interest. Shoutcast
is a good place to start hunting for streaming stations.

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Wilduck
My "hack" is to ask strangers the following questions:

"I'm going to watch a movie tonight, what's a really good movie that I
probably haven't seen."

This works best with strangers or people you've just met. I find that people
who know me always recommend movies that I've either already seen, or decided
that I don't want to see. If the stranger has any affinity towards movies,
they can almost certainly come up with a gem that you've never heard of.

I discovered this works when I asked this exact question of someone on a whim
and they recommended "Castaway on the Moon". It was a darn good movie, that I
never would have found/watched on my own. I've since asked this question of
all sorts of people with great results.

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lifeisstillgood
Before the Kindle came out I would read the covers of books of people sitting
opposite me on the Tube. If it looked interesting I got a copy. The only major
fail I remember was Dan Browns The Davinci Code.

