Trying to order a movie for a group larger than two is an exercise in futility. You’ll slowly find that most of your night will be spent scanning the menu and endlessly watching previews.  You’ll find a potential movie that excites you only to be instantly vetoed by a friend who happens to have beef with the film’s star actor.  Your alternative movie selection might get your friends initial approval before being shot-down by another member of the group whose elementary school sized attention span cannot handle the difficult task of following a plot more than 90 minutes. Before long, the group starts to form political alliances with other member who share similar cinematic tastes. It’s also likely that these alliances are formed simply you and a friend are still bitter at your other friends for slandering your number one choice. Once the atmosphere reaches this stage, the success rate of compromising on a film becomes as likely as congress agreeing on a budget plan.

My group of friends encountered this experience so often we devised an elaborate system of film selection based on several rounds of rankings and limited vetoes. This process often overshadowed the experience of watching the film itself and became the focal point of the night. We enjoyed this process so much that we soon utilized it for restaurant and bar selection.

Although our complex system worked with my eccentric group of friends, I found it seldom transferable to future groups of friends. Emotions fly and you’d be surprised how personal ones taste in movies can be taken. Furthermore, selecting a film can be a difficult task even when not complicated by having to reach a consensus with others. If time is money, than selecting a movie is an investment that far exceeds the price of ordering the film. We've all experienced the psychological impact of loss aversion when we force ourselves to sit through a three hour movie we knew we could not stand by the second scene.

For the movie snobs out there and you know who you are, this experience is usually remedied by a quick visit to their favorite film review sites. These sites rate the films for you and often include ratings by professional film critics such as the late Robert Ebert. These professional critics have seen a lot more films than we have, so we put trust in their opinions. I have certainly used these sites in the past but I can’t help but wonder if these professionals share the same perspectives as I on what makes a good film. I often wonder how great it would be if there existed a person with the same exact movie tastes as I. This imaginary cinematic surrogate could preview every film for me and know exactly what I wanted.

The next best alternative to surrogate would be a network of friends whose movie tastes closely resembles yours. These potential cinephiles could be your friends or complete strangers but they do exist.  If dating sites can in fact connect you with suitable dates, then surely the magic of the internet should be able to match you with someone to recommend a movie. Websites such as “Yelp” and “Rotten Tomatoes” are great for quick reviews but there’s no way of knowing that the anonymous reviewer has similar tastes as you.

 More importantly, there’s exists a deep fascination for what others are watching and what they think about it.  An application allowing everyone to publish their film opinions would gratify the movie snob in all of us. It could be integrated not only into other social media networks but also at the sites where viewers consume their films. One could browse movies through searching their network’s ratings and comments or could search by films containing network member’s comments below the film’s synopsis.

This same premise could easily be applied to other areas of special interest such as food. If you’re more of a foodie than a film guru, perhaps you’d rather see how others with similar palates feel about a newly opened restaurant.  In an increasingly self-absorbed world where everyone considers themselves s connoisseur of something, such an application is more effective than screening ‘tweets’ and ‘feeds’ to see what others think about what they’re consuming. It would be nice to have your own custom network of reviewers at your disposable to help you with your consumption choices.  Review sites have become a popular place to visit when trying to decide on what to watch, eat, or buy next. There is no reason why the concept of a social network specifically tailored to your tastes can’t help you with such decisions.