IMDb Theaters Expands

July 24th, 2008

With no fanfare whatsoever, the “IMDb Theaters” program has expanded. When I logged into Withoutabox yesterday, I had links to upload Camera Noise and Two Night Stand to their respective IMDb pages. The Epic Tale of Kalesius and Clotho doesn’t have a link, although I suspect that’s because in IMDb it’s listed with the full subtitle “A Meditation on the Impossibility of Romantic Love in a Rapidly Expanding Universe” so without an exact title match it can’t automatically make the connection.

I like the idea of IMDb Theaters, but so far it’s really a quarter step into the new web world. IMDb is still the resource for answering questions like “how many movies has Christopher Walken been in?” (about 100) but its complicated system for submitting updates and changes has really held it back in the age of Wikipedia. For example, when I recently wanted to remind myself what happened in “The Cheever Letters” episode of Seinfeld, I went straight to Wikipedia where there are several pages of description. IMDb’s rigid structure doesn’t really allow for that sort of completeness although there is a very brief outline of the episode.

To be fair, IMDb includes comprehensive credits for people like me who don’t even rate a Wikipedia entry. So there’s that.

I like the idea behind IMDb Theaters, but so far it’s just a little video icon at the top of the page. Also, it doesn’t seem to track views or allow comments, so it’s a little like throwing it out into the void, which was one of my many problems with submitting to film festivals. There’s no feedback unless you get accepted and actually attend the festival. And even then it’s extremely limited.

Anyway, I’ll be keeping an eye on this thing.

Entry Filed under: News