Linkroll Update: Expanding the Frame to Global Cinema

After my somewhat unsuccessful attempt at compiling a list of high quality Bollywood links several weeks ago, I decided to explore the web for Hollywood as well as global cinema websites this week. As I mentioned before, I would like my blog to be advantageous to my readers and believe that the items located in my linkroll will compliment my posts given their constant references to various film industries across the world. While applying the Webby Awards criteria, I would like to take a moment to discuss my selections here. The two most generic sites I have included are Rotten Tomatoes and imdb.com. Visually striking and extremely well organized, Rotten Tomatoes cleverly provides general critical consensus of a film along with box office figures in a concise and systematic manner, so as to be easily seen by the viewer within seconds of reading the title of the film itself, as seen in the graphic below. Despite the highly reputed reviewers that are associated with the website however, Rotten Tomatoes does not present much background or production information of the films, nor does it follow the success or failure of the movies after their release. Similarly imdb.com, although structurally and visually mediocre, serves the singular purpose of providing an almost inexhaustible database for existing and upcoming films, artists and producers from around the globe. Box Office Mojo is another source that documents an infinite number of films, providing extensive breakdowns of all aspects of box office performances, while tracking budgets, release patterns and foreign grosses. Nevertheless, the website provides a purely numerical analysis of the films and lacks mediums of communication such as streaming videos. Roger Ebert's website is also far too text intensive and devoid of sufficient illustrations. However, its structure and organization is flawless and it is replete with excellent reviews and highly informative articles discussing the historical significance of films and their influence on present cinematic aesthetics and practices. Premiere too, features well-written reviews, detailed interviews and displays exemplary organization and functionality. The news section however, like many of the Bollywood websites included in my linkroll, is too glamor oriented.

On a more international level, the Hollywood Reporter: Asia provides a global perspective on the growing industries of India, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand and Korea. It is user friendly and easy to navigate. Nonetheless, due to its broad range of content, it lacks depth of information as well as elements of interactivity. The New York Times' Movies section on the other hand, allows for more engagement from its viewers with its series of "readers' reviews" accompanying each professional critique. Structurally however, the website is cluttered, providing a plethora of information on a single page. The International Federation of Film Critics suffers from a similar issue of poor presentation of information and is tedious to navigate through. Yet the website offers a comprehensive overview of all the international film festivals across the world and features remarkable articles discussing the global significance of foreign film movements and directors. Cinema-Scope and Indie Wire's world cinema section, the final two links I chose to include, share a similar niche, foreign film appeal, spotlighting international films and artists while discussing global film industries. Cinema-Scope is primarily a print magazine, which is clearly reflected in the site's lack of multimedia elements and interactivity, while Indie Wire is unprofessionally executed, with an overly simplistic and repetitive layout as well as a dearth of streaming videos and sound bytes. Overall, despite the obvious negatives of the items I have chosen to include in my linkroll, I do consider these websites to be of the utmost relevance to anyone in the field of cinema and hope that my readers will find these resources equally beneficial.