This week I focused on what I have determined as essential film sites on the web. In selecting these personal top ten film sites, I will analyze each by following web judging criteria set out by the Webby Awards (or, in the case of a blog, the IMSA Criteria). The Webby Awards judging criteria: content, structure and navigation, visual design, functionality, interactivity, and overall experience, must be considered as an essential element of each site and in weighing these criteria, will determine the significance of that site. Ultimately, considering that each of these sites relate to the modern film industry in a specific way, while also effectively embodying the desired subject of this blog (observing the modern digital film industry), it is my duty to consider the supreme effectiveness of each site with regard to it's usefulness in the modern digital film industry. Please note that the ten sites are located to the right of this post under the heading "linkroll."One of the web's premier film blog sites, /Film (or "Slashfilm"), brings current film, celebrity, and business news to its readers while creating a stylized platform for discussion on these topics in an easy and accessible fashion. This is a great site for anyone interested in learning current film news and discussing it with others, but could be improved with a better focus on a visual and aural experience. Another one of the web's most popular film sites, Ain't it Cool News founder and reporter Harry Knowles has even become somewhat of a national celebrity, being pictured along side this post in an image from Entertainment Weekly. The news post and film review based site lacks music and sound, but creates a somewhat cartoon-like visual style that always adds and never diminishes the site's experience. Whether it is gross profit statistics or original articles on box office estimates, anyone interested in the numbers side of film profits should visit Box Office Mojo. While neatly structured, this site orders its statistics cleverly (every wondered what films made the top 100 domestic grosses adjusted for ticket price inflation?), and never fails to impress in terms of navigation and experience. Box Office Mojo, as with most film sites, lacks sound and high-end graphic design, but is so fun to visit you would easily agree it simply does not need it. Out of any movie news website, ComingSoon.net is the greatest resource for film business news, such as articles from Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, providing it for free and with more style than any of the other great film sites. Visually captivating and easy to navigate, ComingSoon.net is by far one of the most enjoyable sites to visit for anyone who loves movies, trailers, pictures, reviews, box office reports, and message boards. For a website with elegant graphic design and thorough high definition disc reviews, High-Def Digest is a must. Cataloging every move in the emerging next-gen home entertainment front, High-Def Digest does a masterful job integrating both HD DVD and Blu-ray formats in a simple and accessible way, while providing a diverse forum that includes information on disc bargains and general sales data. While most individuals familiar with IGN.com know the site is generally geared towards video games, I would recommend taking a look at their the beautifully crafted IGN Movies page. The site's complexity, while possibly daunting to those who prefer less imagery on a single page, provides a wide range of unique features such as sections dedicated to movie news podcasts, DVDs, soundtracks, home video price comparisons, and even Direct2Drive movie and media downloads. The video game based origins of this site do however shine though, unfortunately targeting film audiences more than those interested in the behind the scenes side of the film industry. One of the web's greatest resources with regard to the film industry past and present is the Internet Movie Database or the commonly known as IMDB. IMDB works as a search engine where one may navigate through movies and TV show pages and the people who worked on them. In a way this site is the digital resume of everyone that has been credited with working on a film or television show. Ever! The experience is incredibly user friendly with little room for improvement and continues to add features such as daily industry and celebrity news, TV listings, box office reports, and message boards. One website that adds its own personal flair to movie news is JoBlo.com. Both elegantly designed and easy to navigate, JoBlo.com contains an extensive script library (for free), as well as humorous articles driven by person takes on the film industry such as the continuing series "Come on Hollywood!" The only problem with this site is that it does not report news as frequently as most of the other sites like it, but when it does, JoBlo.com always adds its own signature point of view and "extra tid-bit" facts to each news item, making up for any slack. Netflix is a revolutionary web based home video rental site that provides constant recommendations (based upon your personal ratings of movies) and trailers for most movies on the site. Overall, it is very consumer friendly in affordability and deeply illustrious in size and title diversity. You can find just about anything you could imagine on Netflix. The greatest resource for film criticism on the web, Rotten Tomatoes compiles numerous film reviews and then rates its "freshness" percentage (or degree of quality). Aside from Rotten Tomatoes' highly successful visual component (another subsidiary of IGN), its greatest strength lies in the fact that it caters to those who want to simply get a vague sense of the critical response surrounding a film (its "freshness"), while also linking to over hundreds of movie reviews per film (if you would prefer to read a few). Once again, as with all the sites I have covered, there is no sound and little video, but the graphic design and resourcefulness of this site makes it great and nearly perfect for those interested in reading movie reviews.
Interestingly enough, none of the aforementioned sites are fueled by scholarly associations or contain a visual experience of the highest quality. This is true, however, of the web's strongest, most visited, and most renowned of film websites to date. These sites, rather, foreground content over flare and do so in a practical and highly intelligent way, combining authoritative insights with a great wealth of facts and information.
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