Movies API

I am taking an Advanced JavaScript class at the local community college. To tell you the truth, this class sucks. I am just not learning JavaScript, let alone advanced JavaScript. Nevertheless, the final project seems interesting. We need to implement a movie rental system like Blockbuster or Redbox. The real coup is that we are using a movie API from Rotten Tomatoes (which is a brand of Flixster).

To use their API, you need to obatin a key. This is done by registering. You will get a long alphanumeric string that must accompany every API request you send over the web. You are limited to 10 calls a second, and 10k calls a day. But that is enough to play around with. I love that you can send in a query and get all this movie data.

The movie data is returned in a JSON format. That is really easy to parse with JavaScript and jQuery. Here is an example of the JSON file you get back. They also provide some sample JavaScript code. If you are going to use this service, I have a couple hints for you. The default query results set is 30. So if you send in a query and do not specify the number of movies, it will give you the details for up to 30 movies. It will also tell you how many movies in total match your query. You can control the amount of movies returned with a parameter. However they limit the amount to 50 max per request.

There are a lot of terms of service you need to abide by. But this is a great source of tons of movie data. Yee-haw. I know our final project for the college class is going to rock with this data source. Maybe I will post the link to our final project here. I know my friends want to take a look at my Redbox killer.