Movie Blaze is a Windows Phone 8 app that delivers a considerable amount of movie information to your Windows Phone. Through Movie Blaze, you can find out what’s currently showing in theaters, what titles are heading to the big screen and search out information on older movies.
Movie Blaze will let you track movies you have seen, tag movies you want to see, discover new movies, back-up your favorites/watch lists to SkyDrive, and sync with your The Movie DB account. The only thing missing is the ability to check out local show times and buy tickets. Movie Blaze is a respectable movie app for Windows Phone 8, well worth trying.
Main Layout
Movie Blaze's Main Pages
Movie Blaze taps into TheMovieDB film database and compliments this information with data from IMDb, Flixster and Rotten Tomatoes. The main pages for Movie Blaze include:
- In Theaters Page: This is a listing of the top movies currently showing in theaters. You can toggle between a movie poster thumbnail view for twelve titles and a list view that will show a much longer selection.
- Coming Soon Page: Same set-up as the In Theaters page where you can view a movie poster thumbnail listing of about twelve titles or a list view of a longer list of movie titles that are close to release.
- Menu Page: This is a collection of tile buttons that will display your favorites, watch list, popular movies, top rated movies, search the full database, unlock the app, sync your TMDB account, access the help pages and view the about screen. You can also access Movie Blaze’s settings.
Movie Blaze's Settings
Settings for Movie Blaze include general settings to run the app in the background and set the update frequency plus:
- Live Tile settings to customize the Live Tile appearance and performance
- Home settings to tweak the amount of information displayed on the home pages.
- Visible data settings to customize what information is displayed
- Lockscreen settings to configure what is displayed on your Windows Phone lockscreen
- SkyDrive settings to configure your data backup
Please note that some of these settings cannot be saved unless you unlock the free version of Movie Blaze (more on this in a second).
Movie Information
In tapping any of the movie title thumbnails from Movie Blaze’s main pages you will be sent to a series of pages for that movie. Pages that will provide the basic information on the movie, video trailers, cast and crew information, still images from the movie, reviews of the movie, and a listing of similar movie titles. If the movie is part of a collection, you will also have a page listing the other movies in that collection.
Movie Blaze's Movie Pages
Along the bottom of the movie pages, you will find four control buttons to track the movie title, add it to your watch list, mark it as seen and pin the title to your Windows Phone Start Screen.
Up under the three-dot menu on the movie pages you will find options to refresh the pages, share the movie title, add a reminder (e.g..., when you need to head to the theater), view the TMDB or IMDb pages for the movie and a link to go to movies web page (if available).
Unlocked Version
Movie Blaze is a free, ad-supported app with an ad banner running across the bottom of most of the pages. You can remove the app through an in-app purchase of $1.49, which also unlocks a handful of features that includes:
- Removing the ads
- Pin movies, cast and crew to your Start Screen
- Activates the background agent to keep the Live Tile updated
- Permanently save settings for Live Tile, Home View and sorting settings
While unlocking Movie Blaze opens up a decent amount of features, the ad-supported version isn’t too shabby.
Overall Impression
Movie Blaze is one of the more appealing movie database apps for Windows Phone 8. The app does a nice job of sorting out current run movie titles, upcoming titles and throws in the ability to search out older titles. Video trailers help you decide if the movie is worth watching and images can be saved locally.
Movie Blaze's Movie Info, Reviews and Similar Pages
Movie Blaze pulls information from top movie databases and delivers it all under one roof. It could be better by providing local searches for current movies and purchasing tickets (maybe through Fandango integration?). As is though, if you need a movie database option for Windows Phone 8, Movie Blaze should be on your short list of choices.
Movie Blaze is a free, ad-supported app that is available for Windows Phone 8. You can remove the ads through a $1.49 in-app purchase. You can find Movie Blaze here in the Windows Phone Store.
