8 1/2
Tired of that wonky, tackily ad-infested Internet Movie Database never telling you what you really want to know? Never fear—there are other search sites full of esoteric yet vital information. Finally you can find films and filter results according to your deepest desires and strongest interests.
The winner, hands down, for “most tears saved” is doesthedogdie.com. Organized into categories of harm inflicted on animals in films—dead, hurt but alive, just fine—the site provides short synopses indicating both faked and actual deaths. Canine catastrophes are isolated from the surrounding plots and neatly contained—neutered, if you will. Some of the warnings are a bit alarmist, but the prose never degenerates into ranting.
Slightly sexier is Smoking List Movie Reviews, searchable by title, age, and actress. The user-generated lists and descriptions of cigarette-puffing characters range from workmanlike diligence to a bracing degree of neurotic fixation. Although the database is sporadically updated, Fight Club’s “triple-pump inhale” is duly noted for posterity.
Finally, there’s IMCDb.org. You know, for cars. It’s perhaps the most meticulous in terms of its search options—make, model, year, “role” (from background vehicle to “star”)—and its exhaustive gallery of screen grabs. Figuring out what truck is in that one part of Barnaby Jones might just be the best new frivolous Internet time-wasting exercise since Instagramming your lunch.
