IMDB - Friend or Foe?

The wheel, the yo-yo, alcohol, modern medicine and IMDB are just a few of the many great inventions ever to be used by The Festy.  One in particular has impacted my life the most.  Some of you might think its alcohol because I haven't drank in almost 2 years while others say modern medicine, because who doesn't pop some pills everyday (...take some Prevacid Christopher and keep your head down!!).  For those non-observant readers the answer is IMDB, The Internet Movie Database.

Some positives and negatives of using IMDB

IMDB is a website I use almost/if not everyday.  Any question I have about a film or tv show, actors or actresses, directors or producers, I can find the answer on IMDB.  For example, I obviously read the info for an upcoming episode of The Office (sorry Murph) and noticed that they will be introducing a new actor to the show.  His name is Idris Elba and I had no idea who he was. So like the smart little Festy I am, I IMDB'ed him and to my surprise, it's the same guy who is playing Stringer Bell in the HBO series Im currently watching, The Wire.  

IMDB is not always going to work in your favor though.  Case in point, 976-EVIL. 976-EVIL was one of those awesomely bad horror films of the 1980's that we had to watch one night.  After the film, we were so intrigued by the main character's acting skills, and by intrigued by his acting skills we meant were pretty bad, we proceeded to IMDB to search Stephen Geoffreys' filmography.  Prior to 976-EVIL, it looks like he did a few more low budget films, nothing to crazy.  Its post 976-EVIL that's the crazy part.  Mr. Geoffreys film credits after his remarkable work in 976-EVIL consist of the following: Latin Crotch Rockets, Just 18 and Gay, Transsexual Prostitutes I & II, and Gay Men in Uniform just to name a few.  After staring in the awful film 976-EVIL, Mr. Geoffrey must have felt that there was no way he was going to make it in Hollywood if he didn't start dabbling in the gay porn industry.  Poor guy :-( 

It is of no surprise that Nicolas Cage is one of the most overrated actors ever to grace the big screen.  A few movies have caught my eye that I've actually enjoyed.  A few.  But I'm not here to talk about what movies I liked him in.  Im going to make sure my faithful viewers don't get suckered into watching one of his bad films.  A short list of bad Nicolas Cage movies are:

• The Wicker Man - 2006 (one of the worst movies I have ever seen  **SEE BELOW**)
• National Treasure 1 & 2 - 2004 & 07 (never going to place the fate of the world in his hands)
• Windtalkers - 2002 (Nicolas Cage in a WWII film?  I can't see him in it either)
• Knowing - 2009 (only thing he knows is how to be a bad actor)
• Next - 2007 (his character spells his name Cris.  The correct spelling is CHRIS.  Enough to not like this movie)
  

I have to say that Nick Cage really drove into a storm because he was not making this blog entry.  Maybe down the road his failure of film appearances would have been talked about, but for the IMDB portion he would have remained out.  That is until we went to Dirks house to find that his mother was watching National Treasure 1 or 2, no way of knowing.  So if Mrs. Hartog were just sitting there with no tv on knitting away, poor Nick Cage would have never been brought up.  Poor guy :-(

I hope this has shed some light on what a website that has "database" including in its title can do for you.  I encourage all of you, if not familiar with the website already, to go and visit IMDB at www.imdb.com and tell them Festy sent you.

In Festy We Trust