IMDb

That_Guy · 06-02-2012 2:42pm

As someone mentioned above, I use IMDb for resources rather than opinions. I never go by ratings as I'm more than capable of forming my own opinion on a film rather than being swayed in one general direction.

I like the fact that you can check cinema listings for various cinemas on the one page instead of having to navigate away from the website to check two or three cinemas to find a time that suits.

Ironman76 · 06-02-2012 2:46pm

Have been a big fan of IMDB for a long time. One of the very first websites that got me appreciating the internet. The ratings used to be accurate enough but then you had these little campaigns like "Lets get Shawshank Redemption to number one", which it now is. Also what did it for me was Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind getting huge ratings yet when I watched it it was one of the worst movies Ive ever seen in my life, so I dont pay any attention to the ratings.

Having said that as a movie database its class. You could read the movie trivia part for weeks its that interesting. Its also handy for tracking progress of a movie being made that your looking forward to and seeing the budgets of certain movies and how much they made in the box office.

For the record I thought Source Code was excellent

OldeCinemaSoz · 06-02-2012 3:22pm

paddy kerins wrote: »

The boards on American Psycho are gas. Just people quoting every line from the film. It's even funnier when there's someone new there who hasn't a clue what's going on

Have you ever seen the boards for THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY?

Some clown thinks Peirce Brosnan is from the Italian Mafia?!?!

:eek:

Er, end titles, read... "1st Irishman...Pierce Brosnan..."

Aidric · 10-01-2014 7:55pm

I noticed that the NY Times is no longer aggregated in the metacritic reviews on IMDB. Anyone know why this is?

branners69 · 10-01-2014 8:24pm

I have been using IMDb for over 12 years. I have never really used it for the ratings but last year I watched "The Impossible" solely based on the rating of 8 it had received. How it got over 4 is mind boggling to me, it was the biggest pile of sh1te!

So now I use IMDb for the message boards (some poster are funny/scary) and the Watchlist!

vidor · 11-01-2014 1:30am

Never use it for ratings (or any site for that matter) but find the message boards there to be a lot better than people give credit for. Sure, there's the odd idiotic post, but there's some really good info in there if you go searching.

Dirty Dingus McGee · 11-01-2014 8:57pm

Warper wrote: »

I used to respect IMDb for movie reviews until I saw they had Source Code at 7.5. Wow, that is one bad movie. Do people rate IMDb? They are gone off my radar after that.

I agree disgraceful review, it should have been 9.

I used Rottentomatoes more for reviews and it usually gives good indication if a film is good or not. IMDB is great for finding out if you spot an actor have know you have seen him/her someplace else but can't work out what it was you saw them in.

KilOit · 11-01-2014 10:43pm

branners69 wrote: »

I have been using IMDb for over 12 years. I have never really used it for the ratings but last year I watched "The Impossible" solely based on the rating of 8 it had received. How it got over 4 is mind boggling to me, it was the biggest pile of sh1te!

So now I use IMDb for the message boards (some poster are funny/scary) and the Watchlist!

Switched it off half way through, it just rubbed me up the wrong way in that it was an Asian disaster with the main focus on westerners on a holiday

11-01-2014 11:08pm

I used to use IMDB for ratings, until I saw that people would vote a movie down if they didn't like something about the movie rather than the movie itself - I remember that before The Wind That Shakes the Barley was released, it was voted down tremendously because people saw it as being Anti-English an that it had an English director. Now I just use it if I see someone attractive in a TV show/movie and I want to find out their name and if they've appeared in anything else.

john the one · 12-01-2014 3:39pm

You cant fault the imdb app, its one of the best apps available. I have rated about 200 movies on it and have a watvh list of about 250.

gandalf · 12-01-2014 6:30pm

I have used the IMDB for years. Its scoring and reviews tend to be all over the place with some films like the one the OP mentioned (which I haven't seen yet) getting overinflated reviews whilst others getting far lower reviews than I would have expected them to.

I don't use it for reviews. I primarily use it on my tablet whilst watching TV to get trivia and cast information about films and TV series as I watch them. I find it fascinating seeing a good performance from an actor in a film/ TV show and then checking what else they have been in and maybe finding another film/series to check out from that secondary search.

Or in the case of another film me and the missus watched a few weeks ago where we were debating where it was filmed. A quick check on IMDB and we confirmed what we suspected.

e_e · 12-01-2014 7:21pm

Way too many fanboys (The Desolation of Smaug is ranked higher than Persona and Stalker FFS) and the userbase I think has such a ****ty, ignorant attitude towards movies. The kinds of people who think the top 250 is some sort of "my franchise is better than yours!" sport. Don't get me started on the fact that films like Tokyo Story, Passion of Joan of Arc and Harakiri aren't even acknowledged on the top chart because they don't fit the criteria of 25000 ratings, flat out ridiculous.

I use IMDB for the trivia first and last. If you want a much more open-minded and pro-debate film community check out Letterboxd.

darced · 13-01-2014 5:04am

This post has been deleted.

Kirby · 13-01-2014 7:05am

Ratings everywhere are fairly meaningless, not just on IMDB. I find IMDB a great source of unbiased information though. And I do love a good random factoid. :P

Oh, and I quite liked Source Code.

e_e · 13-01-2014 9:40am

darced wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

I can think of a few, but my main problem is with the mediocrity that fills the top 250 and cancels out so much better stuff (in my inferrence).

Bipolar Joe · 13-01-2014 6:42pm

IMDB is good for the trivia, and that's about it. There's one list someone has made full of films I'd never heard of that's very good, too. Every other list is either "Sexiest (Gender)", "All the movies I have seen" or "Movies you have to watch", which always contain he same movies you don't need to be told you have to watch, like The Godfather or whatever. Some mook made a list of every American film ever made. Why the fuck would you do that?

As far as ratings go, everyone else has said it here, especially Karson Mushy Shortcake. Uwe Boll has made some amazingly awful films, and people hate him, voting down Stoic and Rampage just because he made them despite the fact that they're very, very good. Fanboys vote up any old shit Tim Burton (Or whoever) makes, crap gets a great rating because some actress with nice tits is in it. As a place to find films you might like, it's crap.

lazza14 · 13-01-2014 9:08pm

I find it a good way of checking if a film is bad,
a highly rated film won't always be good - but has a good chance of being so !

A badly rated film however is always rubbish !!

highgiant1985 · 13-01-2014 9:13pm

I always check IMDB, if a film doesn't get at least a 7 I don't make any special effort to watch it.

mike65 · 13-01-2014 9:23pm

I use it for its database mainly, a good way of checking out the back catalogue of producers, technicians etc. but will read reviews for less well known films and tv series.

e_e · 13-01-2014 9:39pm

highgiant1985 wrote: »

I always check IMDB, if a film doesn't get at least a 7 I don't make any special effort to watch it.

Some very good films rated lower than 7 because they're either polarizing or aren't just obvious crowd-pleasers. Like: Bad Lieutentant, The Grey, Ain't Them Bodies Saints, Killing Them Softly, Spring Breakers, The Tree of Life, Margaret, Valhalla Rising, Upstream Colour, Computer Chess, Cosmopolis, Meek's Cutoff etc etc.

In fact I'd go so far as saying that the films that IMDB collectively rates 6-7 are a lot more interesting than some of those rated 7-8. :pac:

highgiant1985 · 14-01-2014 1:05am

e_e wrote: »

Some very good films rated lower than 7 because they're either polarizing or aren't just obvious crowd-pleasers. Like: Bad Lieutentant, The Grey, Ain't Them Bodies Saints, Killing Them Softly, Spring Breakers, The Tree of Life, Margaret, Valhalla Rising, Upstream Colour, Computer Chess, Cosmopolis, Meek's Cutoff etc etc.

In fact I'd go so far as saying that the films that IMDB collectively rates 6-7 are a lot more interesting than some of those rated 7-8. :pac:

never heard of any of those!

As said I'd make no special effort to watch a film if it didn't get at least a 7 but if it was on any way I'd watch it.

14-01-2014 1:10am

highgiant1985 wrote: »

never heard of any of those!

As said I'd make no special effort to watch a film if it didn't get at least a 7 but if it was on any way I'd watch it.

No offence but if you've never heard of any of those films then you're obviously not much of a fan of cinema.

Kirby · 14-01-2014 3:59am

Deleted User wrote: »

No offence but if you've never heard of any of those films then you're obviously not much of a fan of cinema.

That's a bit snobbish.

And statements that start with "No offence but....." are usually intended to insult. If you don't want to cause offense, rethink the sentence that follows the words.

catallus · 14-01-2014 4:05am

Kirby wrote: »

That's a bit snobbish.

And statements that start with "No offence but....." are usually intended to insult. If you don't want to cause offense, rethink the sentence that follows the words.

What a ridiculous post!

It is not snobbish to suggest someone who has never heard of The Grey or The Tree of Life or Killing Them Softly is not a fan of cinema; hell I've heard of them all and I don't even consider myself a cinema fan.

Kirby · 14-01-2014 5:16am

catallus wrote: »

It is not snobbish to suggest someone who has never heard of "Insert film here" is not a fan of cinema

Yes, it is.

catallus · 14-01-2014 5:18am

Kirby wrote: »

Yes, it is.

No it isn't and you know it!

e_e · 14-01-2014 9:55am

I'll never get "never heard of it!" as a criticism/defense. If anything it's a chance to see something new and broaden your horizons. They're not even all that unknown either, hell some of them topped the box office here.

"Never heard of it." Then start hearing of it! :pac:

FloatingVoter · 14-01-2014 12:34pm

Bad Lieutentant - Harvey Keitel version is considered a classic. Haven't seen the remake due to a Nicolas Cage allergy.
The Grey - Liam Neeson with wolves and ice. On my will watch sometime list.
Ain't Them Bodies Saints- heard of, haven't seen.
Killing Them Softly - average certainly a 5 or 6 but no more out of ten on my list
Spring Breakers - not off the top of my head.
The Tree of Life - arthouse with Brad Pitt. Anybody I know who saw it said it was boring. Famous for having a famous director.
Margaret - I know its not the Thatcher movie with Maryl that you mean but I haven't seen it.
Valhalla Rising - ?
Upstream Colour - ?
Computer Chess - ?
Cosmopolis - I've heard of Metropolis (the 1927 classic but not this one) Meek's Cutoff -?

Thats without cheating and looking them up on IMDB. I'm neither a film buff nor clueless.

mikhail · 14-01-2014 12:40pm

e_e wrote: »

Some very good films rated lower than 7 because they're either polarizing or aren't just obvious crowd-pleasers. Like: Bad Lieutentant, The Grey, Ain't Them Bodies Saints, Killing Them Softly, Spring Breakers, The Tree of Life, Margaret, Valhalla Rising, Upstream Colour, Computer Chess, Cosmopolis, Meek's Cutoff etc etc.

In fact I'd go so far as saying that the films that IMDB collectively rates 6-7 are a lot more interesting than some of those rated 7-8. :pac:

highgiant1985 wrote: »

never heard of any of those!

As said I'd make no special effort to watch a film if it didn't get at least a 7 but if it was on any way I'd watch it.

You're in for a treat. Bad Lieutenant is a story of a corrupt cop drowning in a orgy of drug abuse, alcoholism and compulsive gambling. The Grey has a simple action/thriller premise: some oilmen survive a plane crash only to be hunted by wolves, but it's actually a moving story of how people face death. Valhalla Rising is the film Refn made before Drive (which you must have heard of). It's a moody, almost silent story - like a bad dream caught on film. Upstream Colour is the second movie by the guy who made Primer (an obscure, but celebrated science fiction movie). It's also SF, and has been well received. The Tree of Life is Terrence Mallick's second latest movie. He's made six movies in about 40 years, two of them last year. All of them are celebrated. Killing them Softly features Brad Pitt as a hitman for the mob, but it's really a simple metaphor for the breakdown of American society. I could go on, but I'd highly suggest just chasing down that list. You won't like all of them, but you'll love a few of them.

Skerries · 14-01-2014 1:16pm

Spring Breakers is one of those films that after watching it you go WTF did I just watch!? but then a days or weeks later you find yourself still thinking about it and would consider it in my top 5 films of last year

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