My new favorite web based movie themed online game is Cinematrix, currently presented by Vulture.com, but which appears to have originated at MovieGrid.io. The gameplay is simple. Every day you get a nine-square grid, with one axis listing three actors or directors, and the other axis listing three descriptors for movies like "1995-2004," "Academy Award Nominee" or "co-starring Will Ferrell." Your job is to fill in all the squares with movie titles. If you're especially ambitious, you can try and fill in the most obscure matching films that you can, because the game keeps track of the most common and the rarest answers, and will score you accordingly.
I'm not very good at Cinematrix, and only manage to fill out the entire grid about half the time. The most difficult part of the game is that it allows no mistakes - you only have nine guesses. I have an especially tough time staying within date ranges. However, I consistently score in the top 30% of players anyway, which suggests that the average Cinematrix player is similarly prone to the same kind of mistakes I make. However, that's what keeps the game fun for me. I like to think that I'm pretty knowledgeable about movies, but I'm definitely more interested in some kinds of movies than others.
It's very clear where the limits of my movie knowledge are, trying to remember a Richard Gere movie with "A Title Starting with I or J," or any movie starring Julia Roberts that came out after 2010. I'm usually so focused on directors that I have real trouble keeping character actors straight. I regularly mix up Regina King and Regina Hall, Jon Bernthal and Joe Manganiello, and I'm still not entirely convinced that Mary Stuart Masterson and Mary-Louise Parker are different actresses. Cinematrix does one of those little post-game stats reviews at the end of each game, so you can see where you rank, the hardest squares to fill based on how many players got them right, and the most obscure correct titles that people managed to come up with. I think I've only gotten one of the most obscure titles once, which really helps to keep my movie nerd ego in check.
I have a few things on my side, however. My secret weapon is animated films, which often have large casts and multiple sequels. I might not remember the efforts of Adam Sandler and his regular crew in many live action movies, but they were in three "Hotel Transylvania" movies together. Cameos and narration jobs count, including all those dubs of Ghibli movies with star-studded casts. I'm also an avid Academy Awards watcher, and Oscar-related categories come up pretty frequently. An awful lot of popular films count as Oscar-nominated when you look at categories like Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Editing, and the ever nutty Best Song categories.
Most of the other movie-related web games I was playing a few years ago after the Wordle boom have slipped out of my regular rotation. I don't know if I'll play Cinematrix for much longer. But for now, I look forward to a new grid every day, along with NYT's Connections and the occasional round of Wridges. I like that Cinematrix offers a lot of variety and the categories can get very challenging - one of the Thanksgiving categories wanted movie titles that included the names of NFL teams - so I'm definitely not bored yet. And I like that I'm getting some entertainment value out of my hopeless movie nerdery.
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