Introducing CinemaToast
Tuesday, August 17, 2004Ladies and gentlemen: meet CinemaToast.
Part of my absence over the past week was due to me finishing this new site. It’s part blog, part film journal. I’m a full movie geek, and wanted to keep track of everything I watched. I thought about creating a physical paper film journal, but turning into a blog was the ultimate result. Since it’s a movie journal and not an actual review-site, I’m writing about movies as I see them, whether they be on video or in the theatre.
Instead of MovableType this time, I’m using Textpattern. The reason is that I needed content-management software that gave me more entry fields other than ‘title’ and ‘body’ (for the movies’ year, director, rating, etc.). I tried Wordpress and hated it. Textpattern doesn’t fully support multiple entry fields (yet?), but a handful of plugins did the trick. The site needs some tweaking still, but it’s suitable for public consumption. I haven’t fully tested it out on different browsers, but a trial BrowserCam trip fixed any glaring errors… let me know if it breaks your browser.
The code is probably the quickest (and cleanest) I’ve ever written, especially since I designed the layout specifically so I could write the HTML without any browser hacks. The real trick was learning Textpattern, which is still in gamma and has no manual. And like the Incredible Hulk (also in gamma) it’s a little unruly at times.
Anyway, you know the drill; bookmark it, baby. Also, can anyone recommend any additional “flavours”? (Red October? Blue Lagoon? Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid?)
Zombie Claire says:
I LOVE CINEMA TOAST !!!!!!!!!!!
I thought about creating a physical paper film journal
But how could we post in that?
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Sembazuru says:
Legally Blonde.
Oh, and what TxP plugins are you using?
Zombie Claire says:
I request:
THUNDERDOME COLOUR!
Robot Johnny says:
Legally Blonde—that’s good! I wanted yellow, and I thought maybe “City Slickers 2: The Legend of Curly’s Gold” was too long!
As for the plugins, I’m using “rei_show_custom” for the custom entry fields, and “btx_excerpt” to hide the majority of an article behind a “more...” link.
Brian B says:
Why didn’t you like Wordpress?
Robot Johnny says:
The custom entry fields in Wordpress had to manually be added via a dropdown menu every time I made a new entry, whereas in Textpattern they are constant and static like any other entry field.
That, and I didn’t like the “feel” of the software; it lacked a certain indefinable elegance that MT and Textpattern both seem to share…
jeremiah says:
green = “The Color of Money”
orange = “A Clockwork Orange”
umm ... dang I swear I had another one.
jeremiah says:
D’oh ... you already have green ... and orange ...
Zombie Claire says:
He doesn’t have a WELCOME TO THE THUNDERDOME one yet though!!!
paperfingers says:
trois coleurs: rouge, blanc, bleu
soylent green
yellow submarine
mazel taf. this is a massive undertaking.
kevin says:
dude, I want a review of Dead + Breakfast!
tonya says:
it seems a bit dark to me. maybe it’s just the huge contrast going from this page to that one…
eh..
it is, as you say, only…
my two cents
Robot Johnny says:
No, you’re right. I’ve noticed that it’s pretty dark on some monitors. The problem is that on my new Apple flatscreen display, the colours are so bright that my work ends up looking dark everywhere else. I’ve lightened up some of the images just now, and am going to calibrate my display to better match an average monitor’s contrast.
tonya says:
apples make everything look brighter...and prettier…
Ryan says:
Here’s a suggestion
james says:
I love it! And it will provide a place for us all to argue about movies. What could be better? (by the way, I really need to ask you nicely sometime to help me with graphics for my second site, http://www.runner-up.org).
james says:
Hmm...noticed that my comment on Battle Royale hasn’t shown up on the site. Any idea why? I posted it yesterday…
Robs says:
I think its am awesome Idea. I plan on posting on it, as a lot of your top 25 are on my list too. Have you seen Napoleon Dynamite?
Chris says:
Nice work; Very impressive.
As for colours ... how about “Meet Joe Black”
anagrama says:
CinemaToast is wonderful.
My list of movies I’m dying to see has grown now.
how about “Deep Blue”?
Steph says:
I love the new website! How about:
-- The Thin Red Line or The Red Violin
-- Purple Rain
-- Blue Velvet
-- Single White Female
And I second Yellow Submarine! After all, you did give A Hard Day’s Night five stars. (And I must say I agree.)
I noticed that you are missing a lot of the silent comedies on your “hoity-toity critic” lists (have you only seen The Freshman?). You must go rent those movies! Keaton, Chaplin, & Lloyd are like nothing that exists today. Help spread the word! Plus, being a fan of fonts, I think you’d really dig the title screens.
Kim says:
“Black And White In Color” directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud
perfect golf swing says:
I ate one slice of toast and some nachos and cheese at the cinema today. I walked 2 hours 5 mins today (not including walking around school) I was tapping my foot all day and have done 350 star jumps and 32 ab crunches. Will I have burned more calories than I consumed? I am 15 5 foot 2 and about 96/95 pounds.