The One Million $$ Challenge

I have been reading about lot of stuff lately trying to find something exciting to me Finally I have got something to excite Me with 1 Million good reasons to do so :) Yes, I am talking about the Netflix challenge. In short

"Netflix provides movies recommendation to its user based on movies simillarities and user preference The challenge is to optimize/improve Or find new recommendation system to get 10% better results than the Netflix strategy"

The Grand Prize is 1 Million USD. The current leaders are listed here. I like competitions they give you a focussed goal to apply your passion. My strategy is to understand why does people watch movies ?? and what makes a good movie ??

Few related questions I have in mind is

1. What makes two movies similar ?
   
2. How much overlap we have in individuals movie taste ?
3. How does our movie choice change with time ??
4. How much an individual ratings differ from the crowd ??
   

ending this blog with a quote I read somewhere

"Tell me your passion and I will Tell you a reason to live"