NEWSLETTER #11
January 1997
this issue edited by Jon Reeves
Welcome to issue 11 of the IMDb newsletter. The newsletter is intended to
keep database users and contributors informed of the latest developments
from the management team. Comments and suggestions are welcome and should
be directed to newsletter@imdb.com. Issue 12 is scheduled for mid-February.
To subscribe to the newsletter, fill out the survey
and check the appropriate box. To unsubscribe, send a blank
message to newsletter-unsubscribe@imdb.com.
Contents
by Col Needham
We had another record year for additions to the database. In the final
update of 1996 we passed the 90,000 movies mark -- up over 25,000 during
1996. During the year the number of filmography entries crossed 1,000,000 and
now stands at over 1,300,000 with approximately 450,000 additions. In 1996,
30,349 people (6,650 in 1995) submitted a total of 1,858,457 lines of data
(1,144,000 in 1995), averaging 35,740 lines/week (22,000 in 1995). All this
is even more amazing when you consider that there are fewer "holes" in our
coverage for people to fill. Over the year we've seen a good increase in
areas outside of the mainstream modern US releases so coverage of older
movies, "foreign" movies and obscure cult movies is in much better shape.
Another major improvement in the year is the turnaround time for processing
additions -- almost all sections are updated weekly now, with the last
remaining few moving towards meeting the target
Many thanks to everyone who has added/updated information over the past 12
months. Without your help we would never keep up to date. Thanks.
by Jon Reeves
With the end of the year, the awards season has begun again. The Golden
Globe nominations have been announced and are included in the database
(look for "GGN"); the awards will be presented 19 January and will be
incorporated in the database soon after that.
We're also going out on a limb with a
preliminary Academy Award guess page;
our goal is to list all the
nominees by picking about 30 likely suspects in each category (though the
technical categories are often inscrutable, particularly costumes).
We'll replace our guesses with
the real thing
when the announcement comes on 11 February and we plan real-time updates
of that page again during the ceremony on 24 March.
Finally, the National Film Registry has chosen 25 more films; look for
titles with (NFR).
Our long-range plans include more search capabilities on awards,
though this probably won't be ready until after this year's awards season.
by Rod Crawford
Here's more tips on improving the accuracy of IMDb data, both by getting
new submissions right and fine-tuning what's already there. This refers
mainly to the older films I specialize in, but should be relevant to most
others.
In the July newsletter, I complained that an inappropriate cast order
number could be changed, but not deleted (if they're not in the credits,
they have no credits order). As Col Needham reported in the October issue,
that's been fixed. Now, all cast not listed in on-screen credits must
have (uncredited) in the attributes field. Since thousands of bit player
credits were added to the database before this policy came into effect,
there's lots of work to do! Especially with older films, the uncredited
players may far outnumber the credited ones; for an extreme example, see
North West Mounted Police (1940). Books and reviews are the main
source of such bit player data, but do not trust such sources to tell
you which players are credited! If you have access to a copy of a film
with credits intact, you should seize the opportunity to check it against
the IMDb page and, as appropriate, add the (uncredited) attribute to those
who aren't in the credits (use end credits, if any, which usually list
more cast than front credits). If you add cast data without checking it
against the film's credits, leave the cast order field blank, as the
order in your source is probably wrong. Don't worry if you don't have
access to bit player data; the most important thing is to get all credited
actors and actresses listed in the right order...
The Composers database is primarily for composers of a film's score
(original instrumental music). The commonest error past contributors have
made is submitting the name of the orchestra conductor as composer. This
person is usually credited as 'Musical Director' or 'Musical Conductor'
or some variant, and belongs in the Miscellaneous database. On older
films, the actual composer often is not credited. Reasons for this could
include: studio politics; the music was composed by several people; it
consists mainly of tunes from popular songs; it has been lifted bodily
from a previous film. In some cases, maybe the musical director really
did compose the music; but unless the credits say so, you can't assume
it. And of course, to know who is and is not credited for what, you
must actually watch the movie and check the credits. If you do have
inside information that someone not credited as such did compose a film's
score (or a major part of it), you must add the attribute (uncredited).
Otherwise, the next contributor who sees the film will note the absence
of the name you submitted and assume you made a mistake. Correct examples:
COMPO
Salter, Hans J.|Captain Lightfoot (1955)|(uncredited)
Amfitheatrof, Daniele|Place in the Sun, A (1951)|(uncredited)
MISC
Amfitheatrof, Daniele|Place in the Sun, A (1951)|(musical director)
Song composers can be listed in the Composers database, preferably with
the attribute (song) or (songs), but only with songs composed especially
for that film (or for a stage musical on which the film is based). This
is more important with award-winning or nominated songs, for which see the
list of standard abbreviations in the submission guide. But, lyricists do
not belong in the Composers database! Submitting lyricists as composers
is another common error. Very often, film credits do not distinguish
between song composers and lyricists. This information can be looked up in
several standard reference books, some of them specific to films. If
you're not sure which is the composer, it's better to leave both out of
Composers until you know. One other type of credit found in the Composers
database is classical composers (like Tchaikovsky) whose themes were used
in the score.
Related problems occur in the Soundtracks database, which lists songs
performed in films or heard (vocally) in the background or title music,
with composers, lyricists, performers, and notes on Best Song
awards/nominations. The Soundtracks submission guide quite rightly tells
us to take sound track data only from the movie itself, and not from
sound track records/CDs whose contents often do not match the actual film.
But this does not mean that songs that are in the movie but not in the
film's credits cannot be included. In older films, the credits usually
list only songs written for that film, and not always those. As in all
other sections of the database, you can only know for sure what songs are
in a movie by watching it. Once you know this, you can obtain data on
songs not in the credits from various musical reference sources.
(Familiarity with the popular music of that film's era helps.) Don't
guess; if you don't have the data available, leave it to someone who does.
If possible, it's nice to distinguish the composers from the lyricists and
also to indicate whether the on-screen performer had their singing voice
dubbed by someone else. This information is rarely in older films'
credits, but can be found out by persistent researchers. If you don't have
the facilities, but do have the basic "Written by" and "Performed by"
data, and it's not already in, go ahead and submit it; the rest can be
added later. Here's an example of a complete song entry (the names with
single quotes and (qv) are formatted for hot-linking; if you want to do this,
you must use the form of the name used in the relevant cast/crew database):
SOUND
# Down Among the Sheltering Palms (1953)
- "I'm a Ruler of a South Sea Island"
Written by 'Harold Arlen' (qv)
Lyrics by 'Ralph Blane' (qv)
Performed by 'William Lundigan' (qv) and 'David Wayne' (qv)
Lundigan's voice dubbed by Bill Lee
Types of errors common to other sections of the IMDb will be zapped in
future articles. I shall return!
by Murray Chapman
With the recent "Hollywood invasion" of Asian filmmakers, led by the
likes of Jackie Chan and John Woo, the IMDb has has come under fire for
our admittedly poorer than average coverage of Asian films. The purpose
of this article is to give some background to the situation and explain
some of the complexities in cataloging this area of film.
Some background
Most people think that Hollywood is the world's largest film industry. In
terms of revenue dollars generated, they are right. But in terms of number
of films made per year and number of people who watch these films, Hollywood
can't hold a candle to the cinematic behemoths of India and Hong Kong.
The Asian cinema market is huge, and low production costs means that films
can be made quickly and cheaply. The result is an extremely large number
of films from a large number of studios, many of which survive only in the
credits on their films.
The Problems
(a) The IMDb itself
Historically, the IMDb was constructed as a list of Hollywood films,
and has grown from there. For years, the database could only support
information in ASCII format. We are in the process of changing to the
ISO Latin-1 character set, which allows us to more accurately represent
non-English titles. This does not help for Asian films, but nevertheless
is an important step towards an international flavor.
Despite having 18 managers in five continents, nobody at the IMDb speaks
or reads any Asian languages fluently!
(b) Asian "Alphabets"
The problem of representing Asian text digitally is not limited to the
IMDb; researchers the world over are looking at ways of providing ordering
and search techniques that integrate the Asian pictograms with Latin text.
The Unicode character set is a long term solution, but software for
handling it is not yet widely available. Chinese text today uses "Big 5",
but this is not standardized.
(c) Transliteration
The IMDb policy is to take film information as it appears in the credits.
For Asian films, this is often a mixture of Asian characters and English
text. As the IMDb cannot represent the Asian characters directly, these
sections must be transliterated into Latin-1. As with most of the
database, we rely heavily on our users for this information.
For a regular Hollywood film, this is not a problem: look at the credits
and press the right keys on the keyboard. For Asian films, we are at
the mercy of whoever did the transliteration.
I must stress at this point that this is not something that we are blaming
users for; it's a problem that even accredited translators struggle with.
A good example is the Asian folk hero, whose name translated into English
means "Naughty Panther". In the English subtitles for
Drunken Master II (1994),
his name reads "Wong Fei-hung". In
Once Upon a Time In China (1991), the same character is called "Huang Fei-hong".
(d) Actors names
Asian actors tend to have many names. Many Asians choose an "extremely"
English name to be known as in English-speaking countries.
Here's a good example: born as Chan Kong-Sang (Chan from Hong Kong), this
actor joined the Peking Opera at an early age, where his stage name was
Chan Yeun-lung (Main Dragon Chan). Upon the death of Bruce Lee (who was
known as "The Dragon"), he was renamed Sing Lung (To Become the Dragon)
for several low budget martial-arts films. Today, he's known universally
as Jackie Chan.
Note that as well as having multiple names, each of these names can be
transliterated differently into English. Jackie Chan's bodyguard's name
(Ken Lo) has be translated thus: Ken Lo Wai-Kwong, Ken Lo Wai Gwong, or
Lu2 Hui4 Guang1 (in Big 5).
(c) Movie Names
An Asian movie has at least three names: the Asian name, the English
name, and the Asian name directly translated to English. For instance:
English: Rumble in the Bronx
Asian: Hong Faan Kui, Hong2 Fan1 Qu1
Literal: Savage District, Red Savage Territory, etc
...and this is for famous and widely-available films. The situation
is even more complex for little-known films.
I was a victim of the translation problem this year. The only cinema
here in Brisbane (Australia) that shows Asian films advertised a new film:
"Twinkle, Twinkle, Lucky Stars". Checking the IMDb and the Hong Kong Movie
Database, I confirmed that this was another Jackie Chan film. Woo hoo!
A few friends and I turned up expecting to see Jackie, Samo Hung, and
Biao Yuen kicking butt as per usual. Instead, we saw a very bizarre film
involving gods driving around on clouds, a gambling competition, and a
kung-fu massage girl. Extremely confused, I did a bit more research and
found out that we were treated to "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star".
The cinema or the distributor had got the title of the film wrong, and
as (bad) luck would have it, there was another film with that name.
It's even scarier when you realize that the problem is not limited to
subtitlers or exhibitors: I rented a video which said "Jackie Chan's
Police Story" on the cover. The title of the film came up as "Police
Story", but from the copyright date, actors, and plot, it was obvious
that I was actually watching "Police Story II".
Last year Jackie Chan was in Australia filming a movie, which,
according to official press releases, had the following titles:
Police Story 4: First Strike (1996)
... aka Police Story 4 (1996)(1996)
... aka Police Story 4: Piece of Cake (1996)(1996)
... aka Police Story 4: Story of the CIA (1996)(1996)
... aka Story of the CIA (1996)(1996)
and on top of this, will soon be released in the United States as
Jackie Chan's First Strike (1997) with no reference to Police Story.
Summary
Hopefully this will go some way towards explaining the difficulties we have
here at the IMDb when cataloging Asian films. We are aware of the problem,
but have limited resources to throw at this large problem. At present, we
debug the multiple names/titles as best we can, and (as always) rely on the
generosity and patience of our users.
If there is anyone out there who has some solutions, data, or ideas, please
don't hesitate to contact us via imdb-team@imdb.com.
by Murray Chapman
Spotting goofs in films can either be an annoyance or a joy; I suppose it
depends on the film and how intrusive the goof is. This article provides
some explanation of goofs and how they fit into the IMDb, and then provides
some tips for the budding goof-spotter.
Goofs and the IMDb
As the manager of the goofs section, I quite frequently get submissions from
people that don't satisfy the criteria of "goofs." It has become apparent to
me of late that over the years of managing the list, my definition of a goof
has become more refined, and perhaps I owe it to the loyal users of the IMDb
to explain things in great detail.
Movies attempt to create an alternative reality. Great care is often taken
to ensure the continuity and uniformity of this artificial environment.
There are, of course, some film genres where entertainment and/or internal
consistency aren't as important, or are even deliberately avoided. In
general, however, films attempt to present a seamless environment.
Despite this, people do things in films that they wouldn't normally do;
things happen in films that wouldn't normally happen. That's entertainment;
a break from normal life We go to films to watch something different.
Sometimes, however, it becomes apparent that this alternative reality is
self-contradictory, or that the mechanisms used to create this reality are
revealed. These are mistakes made by the filmmakers, and are cataloged in
the IMDb as goofs. The IMDb has 10 categories of goofs:
CONT: A continuity error; a minor technical inconsistency which is of little
importance to the plot.
PLOT: Plot holes. Errors in narrative structure as opposed to technical
detail.
FACT: Concept in the film contradicts science or known facts. Science
fiction, mysticism, good/bad luck excepted.
DATE: Anachronisms; objects/concepts which hadn't existed at the time the
film was set.
FAKE: Mistakes which reveal how the film makers physically composed a scene
of the film.
BOOM: Boom mike visible in an interesting or unusual way. A special and
common case of CREW below.
CREW: Filmmaker's crew or equipment visible in shot.
SYNC: Audio/visual tracks don't match exactly.
GEOG: Errors in geography of specific places.
MISC: Anything else
Each of the above errors is capable of blowing a hole in the internal
consistency of a film's reality.
The FAIR notation is also used to explain situations that are commonly (but
incorrectly) regarded as goofs.
Mistakes by Characters
It is important to draw the distinction between mistakes made by characters
and mistakes made by the filmmakers. Characters in films are allowed to make
mistakes, just as we in "real life" often do. Film characters make poor
decisions (such as going camping in skimpy clothing in the dead of night
in an area known to be haunted by the ghost of an axe murderer), but this
is not a "goof" per se.
Reservoir Dogs (1992) contains two such character mistakes which are
often submitted as goofs, but are actually mistakes by characters:
(a) In the first scene, Nice Guy Eddie leaves the diner without taking
his mobile phone with him. This is not a mistake by the filmmakers,
as there is no inconsistency. Eddie made a mistake that thousands
of people make in real life.
It's entirely possible that this was unintentional on the part
of Chris Penn, the actor who played Eddie, but nevertheless we
can't classify this as a goof. Even though he uses the phone
later in the film, the "flashback" nature of the narrative makes
it almost certain that he has returned (in a scene not included
in the story) to pick it up. Maybe he had two mobile phones.
Had there been a scene of the guys just outside the diner where
Eddie used his phone, that would certainly be a goof, as it
violates the film's own consistency.
(b) When Mr White and Mr Pink are in the bathroom, Mr White attempts
to light his cigarette, but it doesn't light. Again, this happens
in real life. But then he continues to smoke it. Goof, right?
Wrong. The characters in question were just talking about quitting
smoking, and it is well known that smoking is very much a habit.
Putting an unlit cigarette in your mouth and going through
the motions of smoking it is a common way of trying to quit.
Even if he wasn't using this technique to quit, it is reasonable
to assume that he was too distracted by the other events of the
moment to notice/care that his cigarette wasn't alight.
Another one from Robocop (1987):
When Clarence gets out of his new car, the rear view mirror falls off.
Intentional? It doesn't really matter. This happens in real life.
Also, we know from previous scenes in the film that in the RoboCop
world, technology isn't all it's cracked up to be, and - well, the
car is named the "6000SUX."
And from The Terminator (1984):
When asked the date by Reese, cop answers, "Twelfth, May, Thursday."
In 1984, May 12 was a Saturday. The cop in question had a gun shoved
in his face by a madman, and so he could be forgiven for getting the
date wrong. Again, a mistake by a character.
Humans aren't the only ones who suffer from stupidity:
Independence Day (1996) features aliens who, on the surface of it,
are so stupid that they attempt to coordinate their attack on Earth by
bouncing the signals around the planet using geosynchronous satellites
when synchronized clocks would have done the job with a lot less bother.
But the aliens must have had a good reason for doing it. Does it
matter? Not really. The aliens were dumb, but that doesn't make the
film's reality inconsistent. It just makes the aliens inconsistent.
This leads us into another type of submission that fits into the
"character mistake" category: "that would never happen" or "this person
would never do that." Further examples are:
In Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995), Casey disarms a gunman and
throws him off the train. A stupid move, as all of the gunman's comrades
saw the body fly off, but they didn't know where Casey was. Would a
trained Navy SEAL do that?
In watching the film, we have direct first hand evidence that the event
did occur. Perhaps it was unexpected. Maybe a character acted in an
unexpected and/or stupid way. So be it! That's what happened, and it's
no good claiming that it shouldn't have happened. Credibility can be
stretched, but it's up to an individual (not the IMDb) to determine how far.
Independence Day (1996) is also guilty of stretching the limits of
credibility: an entire alien invasion force is disabled by uploading a
computer virus from a Macintosh into the alien mothership's computer, despite
the admittance of characters in the film that they don't know much about the
alien space craft. Unlikely? Yes. But could it have happened? Well, in
the reality created by the film, it did happen, so by definition, it must
have been possible.
Special Effects
I'm extremely reluctant to catalog goofs that basically say "That special
effect looks bad." I am firmly of the opinion that people's expectations
regarding special effects have risen dramatically over the years. When
Star Wars (1977) hit the cinemas, people were blown away by what was
state-of-the-art. In a few months, "Star Wars Special Edition" will be
released to showcase 20 years of improving special effects.
Should we now register goofs in the 1977 release of Star Wars? I believe
that would be unfair - they did the best job that they could. Saying "that
didn't look real" to something that isn't technically possible (say -
the blowing up of a moon-sized space station) isn't fair.
Having said this, extremely shoddy work might be mentioned. Most memorable
is Edward D. Wood Jr.'s efforts at a damaged flying saucer: a paper plate
set on fire and dangled in front of the camera on a fishing line.
Sequels
Sequels pose a difficult problem. What if there are films which claim
to inhabit the same constructed universe, but contain inconsistencies?
Examples:
- James Bond has undergone six huge bouts of cosmetic surgery. M's surgery
was even more radical, and Miss Moneypenny keeps getting younger.
Same for Batman.
- In Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), Kahn claims he remembers
Chekov, saying "I never forget a face." Yet, Chekov was not yet a
member of the crew during the episode ("Space Seed") where Khan meets
the Enterprise and crew.
- Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) and Exorcist III, The (1990) have the
same characters doing different things at the same times.
- In Highlander (1986), Connor MacLeod claims to be born in Scotland.
In Highlander II: The Quickening (1991), he claims to be from the
planet Zeist.
- How many times has Freddy/Jason/Michael Myers come back from
absolute death?
It pays to split films up into two groups: "strict" sequels, and "episodic"
sequels. "Strict" sequels have a continuous plot, and should be viewed in
a particular order. "Episodic" films are where each film in the sequence
has a plot which is nicely resolved. These films can generally be watched
in any order. Examples:
Strict sequels: The Star Wars films, the Back to the Future films, the
Godfather films,
Episodic sequels: The Police Academy litter, the James Bond films, the Die
Hards, the Treks, the Elm Streets, the Halloweens, the Batmans, the Evil
Deads (including Army of Darkness), the American Ninjas, the Delta Forces,
and usually any other films with different actors playing the one role.
Episodic sequels introduce characters, attributes, and plot elements as they
are required, with little or no thought as to possible consequences for
possible sequels. I'll accept continuity errors across "strict" sequels,
but not "episodic" sequels.
Canon
The distinction between "strict" and "episodic" sequels is a specific
example of the problem of canon: what is "official" information.
The "Star" films (Wars and Trek) generate a lot of non- and semi-official
associated material: concordances, timelines, fan fiction, authorized novels,
etc. It is often claimed that a particular Star Trek movie contained a goof
because (for example) they made reference to the 33rd floor, when the
blueprints as published in the Star Trek Enterprise User's Guide only show
32 floors.
For the purposes of cataloging goofs, only what can be discerned from
watching "canon" films (including "strict" sequels) will be considered
when determining goofs.
Book adaptations
Many movies are based on books. In bringing the story to the screen, quite
often changes have to be made. These changes can be made for a number of
reasons:
1. Length/Detail: books can be long. Very long. Most films are less than
two hours long. Enter the mini-series.
2. Unfilmable parts. Books are a textual medium whereas film is pictorial:
you can describe the massacre of one million people, but it's hard to film
it. Likewise, you can have a character go the entire length of a book
without revealing what they look like. Try this on film, and it's either
boring or suspicious.
3. Artistic License: the story is so well known that the screenwriters make
changes to maintain the interest (e.g., Disney cartoons based on fairy
tales) Also, the filmmakers may want to present a different slant/ending
than than that which appeared in the book. Watch The Island of Dr. Moreau
(1996), and then read the book.
To paraphrase a presenter at one of the recent Academy Awards ceremonies: "It
is hotly debated which is more meritorious: to be able to write directly for
the screen, or to adapt an existing work for filming."
My feeling is that ultimately, a film stands on its own merits. There is
skill in modifying a story for the screen, and we should not call a film
on an error unless it is inconsistent with itself.
In Part 2
Coming up in the next issue: some common non-goofs, when a goof isn't a
goof, and why goofs happen.
As with any area of the IMDb, we're open to suggestions and welcome any
feedback. If you have any questions and/or comments, mail them to me
at goofs@imdb.com.
by Mark Harding
Regular submitters to IMDb are sure to have noticed some subtle, and
maybe some not so subtle, changes in the way submissions are handled by
the E-mail interface. At best, you won't have noticed any changes at
all; at worst, and hopefully only at first, you would have found many
of the submissions that were normally accepted unexpectedly returned
with all sorts of strange "complaints" attached!
As mentioned elsewhere in this newsletter, 1996 was a record year all
around for submissions to IMDb. Virtually every section of the database
received more additions than in 1995, which, in turn, made 1996 a record
year for the amount of work by the IMDb section managers.
During the middle of 1996 we looked into the whole additions system and
discovered many areas where some simple feedback would result in data
coming through to the managers that was cleaner. It was also more likely
to be correct as, unlike the manager guessing at a submitter's intentions,
the submitter knew exactly what they wanted to say but didn't always know
how to say it. This ultimately benefits everyone that uses the database.
From the study report, a design was drawn up and, during the last
four months of 1996, implemented. The new system aims to provide a
system already familiar to users but with the added benefit of expert
knowledge of the type of data submitted. Preliminary tests are carried
out and misformatted data is returned to the submitter for correction
or clarification with pointers to help or suggested corrections.
We appreciate that the initial changes may come as a shock, especially
the extra effort it may take to make some submissions, but we feel that
the results are well worth it and hope that you agree.
The system is still relatively "young" and will be developed over the
coming months so if you have any suggestions please feel free to E-mail
me on the above address.
by Jon Reeves
The order and punctuation used on writers credits is very meaningful,
but until recently we had no way to represent this in the database. We
have recently added sequence numbers to the writers list, like those in
the cast lists but more complex, to represent this information.
Writers can work in teams, in which case they are joined with "&", or
they can work on successive drafts of a script, in which case they are
joined with "and". The ordering of the writers is in diminishing effect
on the final script. Finally, there are various attributes attached to
the writers, like "(story)" or "(novel)" or the names of segments.
To represent all this, we use a three part sequence number. The first
part is the group number; all writers with a common attribute have the
same group number (usually, this means "(story)" or "(novel)" is 1 and
screenplay -- no attribute -- is 2). Next comes the rewrite number, and
finally the team ordering.
What this means is that writers with different attributes will appear
separated by a blank line; writers with different rewrite numbers will
be separate by "and"; and writers with the same group/rewrite number are
separated by "&".
To take an example, the credits for Chairman of the Board (1997) currently
read "Story by Turi Meyer & Al Septien; screenplay by Turi Meyer & Al
Septien and Alex Zamm". This shows up in the database as:
Meyer, Turi|Chairman of the Board (1997)|(story)|1,1,1
Septien, Al|Chairman of the Board (1997)|(story)|1,1,2
Meyer, Turi|Chairman of the Board (1997)||2,1,1
Septien, Al|Chairman of the Board (1997)||2,1,2
Zamm, Alex|Chairman of the Board (1997)||2,2,1
More good examples are Down Periscope (1996) and If These Walls Could Talk
(1996) (TV), which is a complex segment example.
If you use the sequence number format, then you shouldn't use "also"
in an attribute; instead, separate it into two credit groups as shown
above. Unsequenced credits can continue to use "(also ..."; these will
eventually be converted automatically to the new form.
If you don't understand this, then please don't use sequence numbers in your
submission; I can help with any difficult cases, but I'd rather not have
sequence numbers than have incorrect ones.
by Col Tinto
The usual batch of "most voted without summary" movies are provided
below, so if you've seen it, summarize it! Send summaries to
adds@imdb.com; read the plot summary submission guide for details.
The plot summary list is far from complete, but it's getting there.
For this reason, we're starting to focus more on quality than quantity.
From now on the rejection rate will be higher, as low quality plots, or
those with many errors that would take a while to fix will be instantly
rejected - you have been warned...
Also, if you spot any plots you feel are of inferior quality, let me
know - or better still, send me a new one!
William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet (1996)
Wall Street (1987)
Empire (1995) aka Empire Records (1995)
Highlander III: The Sorcerer (1994)
Man of the House (1995)
Jabberwocky (1977)
Cabin Boy (1994)
Look Who's Talking Too (1990)
Three Musketeers, The (1974)
Running on Empty (1988)
Father of the Bride Part II (1995)
Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy (1996)
Summer School (1987)
Sgt. Bilko (1996)
Amityville Horror, The (1979)
101 Dalmatians (1996)
Star Trek: The Next Generation - Encounter at Farpoint (1987) (TV)
Matilda (1996)
Cry Freedom (1987)
Coneheads (1993)
by Jon Reeves
Here's the most popular searches people have done lately, based on total
pages for the week ending December 28.
Titles:
- -. Michael (1996)
- 1. Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
- 4. Star Wars (1977)
- 199. Jerry Maguire (1996)
- 77. Mars Attacks! (1996)
- 127. Evita (1996)
- 5. Independence Day (1996)
- -. Scream (1996)
- 8. Striptease (1996)
- -. Beavis and Butt-head Do America (1996)
- -. The English Patient (1996)
- 3. William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet (1996)
- 10. "Baywatch" (1989)
- 7. Braveheart (1995)
- 18. Fargo (1996)
- 13. Mission: Impossible (1996)
- 2. Ransom (1996)
- -. One Fine Day (1996)
- 261. Daylight (1996)
- 11. Pulp Fiction (1994)
In seasonal titles, It's a Wonderful Life (1946) was number 33; my
favorite, A Christmas Story (1983), was number 57. Advance Star Wars
interest continues strong, with Episodes I, II, and III at number 26,
87, and 220; Jedi is at 42, and Empire at 64. Jurassic Park IIalso has
buzz at number 25, but none of the upcoming disaster movies make the cut.
The new releases came from nowhere this time. You're not going to let
that happen again; other 1997 titles in the top 150 include Batman and
Robin, Alien 4, Eyes Wide Shut, Speed 2, Titanic, Devil's Own, Crusade,
AFO, L.A. Confidential, and Conspiracy Theory. No major "huh?" factor
on either list, but it's nice to see Casablanca at 72.
People:
- 5. Tom Cruise
- 1. Pamela Anderson
- 6. Demi Moore
- 4. Kim Basinger
- 2. Sharon Stone
- 3. Teri Hatcher
- 8. Sandra Bullock
- 9. Bo Derek
- 7. Mel Gibson
- 18. Michelle Pfeiffer
- 10. Leonardo DiCaprio
- 13. Jenny McCarthy
- 14. Helen Hunt
- 22. Winona Ryder
- 19. Harrison Ford
- 16. Brad Pitt
- 11. Alyssa Milano
- -. Ralph Fiennes
- 70. John Travolta
- 20. Jennifer Connelly
This is the first month a man finished higher than third place, clearly on
the strength of Jerry Maguire (costars Renee Zellweger and Kelly Preston
were 22 and 26). As usual, the list mostly consists of leads in current
releases, pin-ups, and Star Trek folks, plus perennials like Sean Connery,
Quentin Tarantino, and Kevin Bacon. Cary Grant is surprisingly high at 42
(his daughter Jennifer is in The Evening Star, but she doesn't chart).
by Col Needham
Movies opening in the US in December sorted by number of votes (to January 1):
Movies opening in the US in December sorted by average votes (to January 1):
by Col Needham
1996 was the best year yet in the 7 year history of our movie poll. At
the start of the year we had collected just over 500,000 votes from 40,000
voters in 6 years. By the end of the year, the number of votes had doubled
and the number of participants up over 500% to 210,000. There are 12,000
movies in the database which have the required 5 or more votes to be listed.
Top Movies of 1996 (100+ Votes)
Bottom Movies of 1996 (20+ Votes)
Top Movies of 1996 by Number of Votes
by Jon Reeves
Just a few of the traditional media outlets that have mentioned us lately:
Tages-Anzeiger,
SonntagsZeitung (both Switzerland).
NetUser.
Z95 radio (Vancouver).
Deseret News (Utah).
KIRO-FM (Seattle).
Yahoo! Internet Life (top movie site of 1996).
Chicago Sun-Times.
HomePC Magazine.
Variety.
"Tales from the Crypt" (1989).
.net Guide.
LA Daily News.
Internet Underground (three places).
And look for us in upcoming issues of
Connect Time,
Computer Connection and Curiocity.
We've also won several new awards. See
selections from the gallery here.
GII awards (semi-finalist).
Shakaar Society Top 5.
NetUser 5 Star.
Excite-Seeing tour stop.
Site o' the Nite (The Site).
HomePC 500 best web sites.
.net Guide hot site.
AOL Best of the Web 1996.
Internet Underground Top Ten (#1).
Creme de la Creme Award.
Our good friend Greg Bulmash's WASHED-UPdate has some new awards of its own:
Cruel Site of the Day.
Cherry Coke's The Wall.
Mr. Media's Webcrawlin'.
And look for a feature article by Greg in January's
Internet Underground.
by Col Needham
We've added a new browsable area to the database such that people interested
in specific sections can browse all titles with data in those sections. The
ones covered so far are alternate versions, business, crazy credits,
goofs, laserdiscs, literature, locations, plot summaries, quotes, ratings,
recommendations, soundtracks, technical and trivia. An
index is available.
Other sections will be covered in the near future. We also added a
specific menu of year searches
for convenience, even though they can be searched in the
general search.
In parallel to the new additions processing system, the overhaul of the
web additions interface was completed. We now have a much cleaner set of
forms and more validation performed directly on the server before the data
is mailed to the collection service. This reduces processing time and helps
improve the accuracy of the database.
International support continues to expand with Italian and French
translations of the the home page, the search page, the complex search
page, the site tour and the index now online. Speakers of either of those
languages just need to set their browser's language options to prefer
French/Italian over English. We also added localized basic search pages
for Spain, Sweden and Iceland.
Christine Ng donated her list of movie related mailing lists to the IMDb.
by Jon Reeves
This is a regular section giving information about the current size
and growth of the IMDb. We receive between 30,000 and 45,000 additions
every week from users all over the world.
Number of filmography entries: 1,328,902
Number of people covered: 374,506
Number of movies covered: 90,251
Size of the database (Mb): 114
Recent milestones:
- 100 miscellaneous companies
- Crazy credits for 300 movies
- 3000 soundtracks
- 3000 distributors
- 4000 titles in business info list
- 15,000 certificate entries
- 20,000 biographies
- 40,000 cinematographer entries
- 40,000 language entries
- 60,000 color info entries
- 75,000 country entries
- 90,000 movies
- 250,000 actress entries
This is a regular section listing some enhancements we're currently
looking at. Please bear in mind that some of these may take quite
a while to come to fruition or even fail to materialize because the
original volunteer decides not to proceed.
- a separate list of films in production, with their current status.
- outline list: a "one line" plot summary, short enough to display
on the main title page.
- a list of "influential scenes"... the scenes that launched a thousand
spoofs, became the director's trademark, changed cinema forever,
launched a star.
- full support for accented characters (ISO 8859-1) without losing
people that can't type them. Implementation in progress.
- a locally installable MS-Windows interface to the database is
under final testing for those of you who want to reduce your
phone bills!
- enhanced awards section for the database covering more
international festivals, national film institutes etc.
- general support for alternate titles in languages other than
English and the language of the original country.
- a movie recommendation service that will use your vote records to
suggest other movies you might enjoy. Initially available via an
E-mail interface. Time to check you're up-to-date with your voting!
Academy Awards and Oscar are registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences. UNIX and X Window System are registered trademarks
of The Open Group. The WASHED-UPdate is a trademark of Greg Bulmash. All
other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
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