It's all a matter of goals. If your goal is to make something that is most useful to you, and then to share that with others, that is one thing. And there is nothing wrong with that goal, and in fact a lot right with it. I certainly couldn't quarrel with it. On the other hand, if the goal is to make the program appeal to the widest range of people, and to increase the number of people using it, I think it would be a mistake to dismiss the ever growing I-tunes, I-Pad crowd who are used to more "sexy" views of their media. (I personally detest I-tunes and wouldn't have it on my system, but that's just me). Anyway you are the final word on the subject, as it should be, and your willingness to even entertain ideas on the matter is a plus, and all my posts are meant only to explore ideas, and should not be taken as some sort of demand (a sly reference to my other thread that was shut down).
As for the ideas mentioned by Rick, I think the Pop up on hover might be the best way to handle such a view, but a re-sizable window where the movies are currently listed might be good enough, or maybe the ability to have a scrollable window for movie data in lower portion of the screen. Of course a compatible and compact template would need to be made to display movie data in either case. The very simplest of ways to have something of a cover view, would be to have a single vertical column of covers where the movies are currently displayed, but that would be a terribly inefficient way of displaying movies, but there are people who would like this.
Cheers