The Leader

Issue date: 4/23/09 Section: Opinion

As a film nerd,whose life is essentially dominated by movies, the website IMDb.com (Internet Movie Database) is very important to me, and while I envy those who haven't been cursed with an addiction to it, I'm going to skip an explanation of the site and aim straight for the veterans and newcomers to its voting system. Of course, I'm not the first to bring up such a subject (half the message boards include a post denouncing the voters and the voting system), but at least I'm not using expletives.

The administrators of the site have posted a notice stating, "The exact methods [of the rating system] we use will not be disclosed. This should ensure that the policy remains effective." This factor makes me feel slightly hopeful that the voting system isn't entirely screwed up by members determined to put rubbish in the number one slot of the Top 250 list (or the Bottom 100 list). Still, I am careful. I use the site as a resource for recommendations and information, rarely judging a film by others' votes. Many times I have stumbled over a film with a mediocre, or even low, rating which I've happily proclaimed a loyalty towards.

However, while IMDb's Top 250 list of movies should not be considered to be vacant of corruption and absurdity, its two hundred fifty entries still contain a surprising amount of films necessary to any movie lover's collection. With more and more members joining the site (and contributing a sum of secondary accounts to stuff the ratings), the number of 10 and 1 votes is increasing. As the amount of recent replacements in the Top 250 begins to grow, the older films are the ones that a keen user can take solace in.

Also, I would like to console the disciplined users of IMDb's voting system and assure them that there are upsides to having the Top 250 list loaded with rubbish. When the majority of shady users head straight for the Top 250 list, seething with mischief and foaming at the mouth, consider the rest of the website's entries ultimately invisible. My own favorite film of all time fell off the Top 250 long ago, and I consider its message boards much safer now that it's disappeared from Dark Knight fanatics. When a movie is not on that list, only those users who are intelligent enough to seek out these hidden gems will find them.

And THAT is my "unexpected new use" for IMDb's Top 250 list of movies: a magnet, and cage, for self-proclaimed movie connoisseurs. Currently, it's still a good source for film students hoping to transition from mainstream Hollywood into classic, foreign and low-key genres. For the rest of us, however, who justly use the message boards to answer a poster's question on a film's ending, investigate the Trivia section for background on a film, search for a director's accomplishments, watch an official movie trailer, find the start of an actor's career, or merely refrain from viciously guarding a movie's hold on the Top 250, there are many surprises yet to be uncovered on IMDb.

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