Each Friday, NYT.com General Manager Vivian Schiller and 'Times' deputy managing editor Jonathan Landman write an in-house email on the subject of The Future and The Internet and The Newsroom. This week, we hear about the quietly-revamped movie pages: "Web sites need to be reference sources. So every actor, director, cinematographer, gaffer — and every film — has its own reference page, with encyclopedic and reliable data supplied by our terrific colleagues at Baseline Studio Systems. Thanks to Baseline, Our movie database now has over 900,000 people and 200,000 movie titles. Like IMDB, except that it's true. Want to know who mixed the sound for Titanic? No problem. Did Bosley Crowther like the 1962 version of Billy Budd? Easy to find out. Do you like trailers? You could lose yourself here for days. 'All in all,' says Ariel Kaminer, 'I really do think it stands as the best movie site in America — and that's a title with a LOT of competition.' Anybody want to argue?"
meouch, ariel kaminer, emphasis ours, imdb, innovation, jon landman, memos, movies...
'New York Times' Web Crew Trashes IMDB
9:40 AM on Fri Dec 7 2007
By Choire
1,520 views
38 comments









Comments
I knew the IMDB page for JFP was full of lies! He's a major star, not an extra!
My IMDB page has me in some plastic-fantastic actress' epic (not Nicole Kidman however) - needless to say, I am not in it, have never met the woman, was not ever that successful as an actor and am not that old (even with my skin failure of yesterday). I have stopped trying to correct it as it'as become sort of funny & I use it to teach why you should double check all internets research.
Meh. IMDB had my uncle's correct date of death when he hadn't been a SAG member for 50 years and there were no funeral services. Hard to argue with that kind of detail work.
Somebody else entirely is credited for production of my ex-bf's film. Sadly, he's dead and I can't get it corrected.
@PandoraSpocks: But what about all that crack detail work IMDB did when I wrote to them like 5 times?
The Times page for me doesn't even have all the credits my IMDB page has (correctly) listed. So, how is The Times page better?
Once I threw a party on imdb's page and totally trashed it. We threw the TV out the window.
Does anyone know the difference between ACCEPT and EXCEPT ?? Cuz I may not.
Well, my IMDB page fails to mention how, one night in 1962, I stole Marcello Mastroianni's Jaguar from teh lot at Cinecittà and shagged Monica Vitti in the Trevi Fountain. I mean, it's not true, but it would have been a nice gesture.
@NinaHagen: What...what does it mean "skin failure"? Your skin failed? That sounds really bad.
From a users perspective (perish the thought of having a profile -- "video artist," obvs.), IMDB can be frustrating. That said, the Times blowing their own horn isn't exactly a winning gesture.
It was only yesterday I was asking someone whether Bosley Crowther liked the 1962 version of Billy Budd. And why the f*** can't I find out from the IMDB?!
@RosemarysBabyDaddy: Conbon accepts his gayness except he's not really gay.
My IMDB page tastes like berries.
are these comments for real?
argue with Ariel Kaminer? Are you kidding? She says jump, you estimate how high and let her cut it down later, end of discussion.
You mean, I can finally know what Bosley Crowther thought of the 1962 version of Billy Budd?
That question has kept me awake at night for years. Thank God — I can sleep peacefully at last!
@magneticfields: Damn you! I should have refreshed. How do you read my mind like that? It's downright scary!
@IndianSlipper: It's not extra anymore, it's background actor. They changed it back when we started calling crippled people handi-capable.
According to my IMdB page, I am the hereditary king of Sardinia; played the lead in Andy Warhol's Dracula, a manservant in Murnau's Nosferatu, and the Good-Looking Customer in Barbershop 2: Back in Business; and am married to Emily Gould.
Life is good!
@Cesare_the_Somnambulist: You scare me if you don't actually know Emily. I think 95 percent of your comments are 4th-grader-made-Valentines-meets recently-released-from prison-serial rapist.
If you know her, than hey, it's just freaky friend stalking.
Also, when did John Cusack become a middle-aged Japanese pedophile? That would have made Serendipity a lot more interesting.
@FuturaPerfect: it was in his senior year, at Evanston Township HS. I know, as I am his demon spawn.
@FuturaPerfect: Are you talking about a real person? If so, you're missing the point.
But then, you're best friends with Michael Jackson, so you're probably used to that.
Geez Viv. A little bitchy today. Is your friend visiting?
@Brian: To be picky, it's actually background artist.
There is an art to standing in the background of a shot, wearing the correct coat.
I don't think I can explain it to philistines like you guys.
@Cesare_the_Somnambulist: Sigh. You're right. Ever since he dropped me for that insipid monkey, I'm crazed when other beautiful women get the rabid attention I once commanded. Should have stayed with Dick Burton.
@magneticfields: You can find all of Bosley - it's called external reviews which always links to Rotten Tomatoes and the Bos man. @braak: Diagnosis by Dr. Nick.
@FuturaPerfect:
Ha!
But, to clarify:
- The Emily Gould who appears in silver lamé bikinis and does rooftop swimsuit shots and traces the outline of Joe Camel onto the bulge of an underwear model on a poster with her fingertip is not, I believe, the real Ms. Gould, but a character she plays. Maybe it's her way of dealing with the public attention that comes with her current job; that's her business. What has been, for a few months, my business, is that I find it fun. I respect her approach, I like her work, I don't take it all too seriously--and if she has ever even bothered to pay attention to my character's response to hers, she can't have taken it very seriously, either, or she would have "executed" my little persona long ago.
- I ALSO very much appreciate and respect the very different approach Maggie Shnayerson has taken to doing her job. She's all business--and when I compliment her, it's all about her work.
With Ms. Gould it's really all about the work, too, but also in playing what seems to me to be a game. As for "real life," that would be changing the subject. EWW!
"...except that it's true"? Four words: Weapons of Mass Destruction. Two words: Judith Miller. One word: Chalabi. Shall I go on?
@nycheartbreaker: Actually, yes!
Please go on. Every time I have ever read a piece in the NYT that I knew about first hand (or about an industry I had worked in, and a situation I knew), it had serious errors.
NYT should start reviewing its stories and adding those green, red, yellow, and white dots that work so well on [www.snopes.com] .
Oh, the scandal! The PR opportunity for all involved (except maybe the waiter, who is certainly out of a job if he made it up)! The Donald says he didn't do it, wasn't even in California -- but why would someone make that up? Why would someone want to risk making Donald Trump look like a good guy?
@Cesare_the_Somnambulist: There's nothing on your page about your work with Robert Wiene? I better go check my own...
...Yep, still blank.
@Conbon: I know, right? I think the Times sent a reporter out to cover the premiere. He was the one who kept tilting his head to the side to try and make sense of the expressionist sets.
@Cesare_the_Somnambulist: In his defense, you turn out not to be real. SPOILER ALERT IF YOU ARE READING THIS IN 1920!
Anyways, the $35 million that the Times paid for Studio System last year seems like money that could have been much better spent by keeping 35 nice families on the Upper West Side.
@Brian: Shit, I thought we were still calling them Gimps.
@Conbon: It's okay if I'm not real. At least I'm getting some sleep.
The funny part of this is the NYT's assumption that Baseline's database is accurate. It's based on the old Cinebooks/Motion Picture Guide info and I can tell you from personal knowledge that not only is it rife with error, but that there are fake movie entries. I was one of the original writers on that project and we used to sit around making up titles and putting them in.I love the fact that over twenty years later those fake titles can be found on the NYT website.
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