The Michigan Daily - Thursday, October 24, 1996 - 11A


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Internet browsers find entertainment at the fingertips

Film sites offer World Wide Web surfers a bit of movie madness

By Ryan Posly
ily Arts Writer
For ;any self-proclaimed "lover of all media," the
Internet may seem like a dream come true. In fact, its
unlimited scope of available information, growing
every minute, appeals to almost anyone with a curious
interest in something, a specific question or just some
time to 1ill in Angell Hall. While true film buffs usual-
ly shy, away from any new entertainment medium (pre-
ferring to live in the
good old days of thet
cinema), the Internetj
a bountiful source
of information and
entertainment for
true cinephiles and
plain moviegoers
alike._. "Braveheart"'s web site
The:. primary stands out among other film-
source of informa- specific pages on the web.
tion (and'fun) on the
Internetis the World Wide Web, which contains thou-
sands of sites related to the cinema. For anyone who
Arels daunted at the prospect of searching through the
tisane number of movie sites available, the easiest
way to browse is by using a hierarchically organized
search engine such as Yahoo! This provides an enor-
mous cross-referenced selection of links to almost
every movie site in
existence.
If it's strictly
information that you
are looking for (a
film's full credits or
a director's, actor's
or even editor's fil-
mography), then
- there is. no better
place to look than
the Internet Movie
Database, a gargan-
tuan international
database of practi-
Bruce Willis' Butch Coolidge cally everybody in
appears on numerous "Pulp the world's film
lction" Internet sites. industry.
_--- If you want more
than just the basic facts, a little more effort is required.
For information on movies in general, a site like
Movieprevievws.com is quite common. It provides a
good list of films currently playing, plus those to be
released in the coming months, including links to their
trailers and official websites.
For more intelligent Web browsing, there are two fan-

tastic sites that deserve a visit. Film.com is a huge data-
base for film writing and criticism. It has over 30 pro-
fessional writers and critics contributing, with complete
reviews of every film from the past few years. Film.com
also features updated box office reports, film news,
director profiles and inter-
views, information on film fes-
tivals and an online store selling Selected fil
rare and out-of-print video and
laserdisc titles. Yahoo! (Movie
The other visit-worthy site www.yahoo.com
focuses more on film history. MoviesandF n
The Film 100 is a cleverly
designed, totally engrossing site ~ Internet Movi
with information and links on www.imdb.com
"the 100 most influential peo-
ple in the history of the cine- ~ MovieprevIO-W
ma." www.imdb.com

ies)
n/E

In addition to these general
sites, Yahoo! can also point
you in the right direction to
find complete screenplays to a
varied selection of films on the
Web, as well as the innumer-
able sites devoted to your
favorite actors and actresses.
While a handful of these sites
are interesting, most of them
are rather boring unless you're
really into celebrity idolization
and adoration (one site is
titled: Gillian Anderson -The
World's Sexiest Woman).
For specific movie titles,
there are basically two paths to
choose from: Private sites
devoted solely to the film and
the official studio sites. The
studio sites are generally more
fun to play with because of
their higher budgets and
power. They tend to include
more pictures, clips, neat gad-
gets like games and access to
behind-the-scenes stuff. But
the information is usually quite
limited and the purpose of the
whole site is strictly commer-
cial.
Universal Pictures' site is a
perfect example. It has a snazzy

V Ilm.eonm
www.film.com
~ Film 100
www film oO. com
~ Universal Pictur
www.mca.com/un
~ Sony Pictures
www.spe.sony.coa
SonyMovies/index
~ 20th Century F
www.fox.com
~ MGM
www.mgmua.com,
~ Miramax
www.miramax.con
~ Paramount
wwwparamount.c
V Warner Bros.
www.movies.warn
~ Braveheart
icarus.uic.edu/-
Braveheart mko.)
design with coming

Sony Pictures, 20th Century Fox, MGM and
Miramax are all similar in content, although MGM and
Miramax at least try to add humor to their previews in
an attempt to keep Netizens online. Almost all studio
sites include a store as well, where shirts, hats and other
useless items can be purchased
with the studio logo on them.
,web sites The best sites are those that
get creative with their films. At
Paramount you can log in to
Tntertainment/ the "Star Trek: First Contact"
site as a Vulcan, Klingon or
whatever. And Warner Bros.
patabase contains a "Twister" site that
takes you on an imaginary
Internet tornado emergency.
corn Private movie sites, in con-
trast to studio sites, are gener-
ally packed with more infor-
mation and links to other relat-
ed pages (including the official
studio site itself), like those on
the actors. They also include
analysis and discussion of the
res films.
iversatpictures For instance, "Braveheart"
has one of the largest selec-
tions of sites, including one
m/Pictures/ that ingeniously shows the
.html drastic difference between the
regular (pan-and-scan) and
'ox letterboxed versions of the
video. However, "Pulp
Fiction," to nobody's surprise,
boasts more than 25 different
/motionpictures pages and is a perfect example
of how most of these private
movie pages are very similar.
m' It would be a waste of time to
look into every nook and cran-
om/homemp.html ny of them all.
In Yahoo!'s listing of the pri-
vate movie sites, older films
erbros.com are found right alongside the
requisite newer releases. It is
not hard to find rare and
kol/ bizarre flicks as well. In fact,
html every movie ever made by any-
body seems to be represented
on the World Wide Web, which
is in itself an endorsement for the Internet. Whatever
it is you're looking for, you can be sure that you'll find
it amongst the Internet's limitless bounty. Even if you
are a nervous old film buff.

~~4
Courtesy of sPV
Log on to a Web 'zine
Entertainment-oriented web "magazines" are popping up all over the
Internet's World Wide Web. Unlike the typical genre- or celebrity-specific
pages, these handy sites allow anyone from arts fanatics to average trivia-
meisters to search for news and Information on all sorts of entertainment
and pop cultural issues. SPIV (pictured above) is one such site that offers
web users a plethora of browsing options. After calling up the page
(http://wwwspiv.com), fact finders may select from a variety of indexes for
music, film and even sports information.

.

attractions and an inside look at the upcoming sequel
to "Jurassic Park,""The Lost World" It is packed with
information, but mostof it is not of much interest.

diverse music pages sound off on the Internet

By Victoria Salipande
For the Daily
With more people getting Internet access, visiting music-
related Web sites is becoming one of the more popular ways for
music juikies to get their daily fix of information. From music
indus".news to sound files, the amount of information on the
web iseinough to
keepIyone lost Selected music web sites
in cyberspace for
*our3C Addicted to Noise
Oig plus to www.addict.com
musi related
Web trs is that V Sonicnet
they 2 updated www.sonicnet.com
and 'an be
accessed daily at ~ Pollstar
any tnie. The use www.pollstarcom
of 7 dvanced
audio-Vual soft- V RocknTV
, ware'flIke Real www.satahmo.com/rockonty
udioalso helps ~ E Records
draw- .ple to www.Elektracom
certarPages.
Oro site,
Addfg$ to Noise, gives daily news updates on what's going
on irt music industry in Real Audio. At the same time, the
Sonilt site uses Real Audio to broadcast concerts on a
monttI basis along with music news and reviews.
Unrie sites that take advantage of new technology, pages
like te.Pollstar tour database and RockOnTv are simply just
hand0-&-have when you need to find out about concert dates

or television appearances of bands.
While record labels like Elektra and Subpop have web sites,
they often lack the thoroughness and personal touch of most
sites maintained by fans of a band or even a band itself. These
seem less like advertisements and tend to have more items like
photos, detailed discographies and any other items that fans of
that band would

like to
online.
example,

see
For
fan

V Subpop Records
www.subpop.com
V Jawbox's site
www.his.com/-desoto/jawbox.html

interaction plays
a large role in the
web site the
band Jawbox
maintains.
Similarly, the

V Throwing Muses' site

wwwthrowingmusic.com members of
Throwing Muses
V Ultimate Band List have been
www.iuma.com known to post
comments on the
V Underground Music Archive feedback board
www.ubl.com of their fan-
of teir fan-
maintained site.
Band Web sites are also a way for people to find out about
unsigned bands and lesser known bands out there. Both the
Ultimate Band List and the Internet Underground Music
Archive contain links to literally hundreds of bands seeking
exposure. But the Web - with all its golden nuggets of
sonic information - is, essentially, just a form of adver-
tisement for those bands.

A CUT ABOVE THE REST
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University Musical Society
of the University of Michigan * Burton Memorial Tower * Ann Arbor

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