If all goes well, I'm on vacation this week. (Whee!) But that doesn't mean I can't at least leave you with what Tony Kornheiser, the Washington Post sports columnist turned king of all media, might call a little "columnette." People have asked me about these things, so why not? Here's a brief guide to Internet resources for moviegoers: The Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com ) is an indispensable reference guide, probably the most comprehensive, accurate and up-to-date Web site for finding out all sorts of useful information about films. It has been around for more than 10 years, and I use it on a daily basis to check details like the spelling of a director's name, the running time of a given film, and sorts of awards (and nominations ) awarded a movie or anyone connected with the film industry. While I've considered upgrading to the site's "pro" service ($12.95 per month), the free site supplies just about everything I can imagine needing. It's owned by amazon.com, but aside from the fairly unobtrusive ads, the only overtly commercial part of the site is a handy feature on the home page of a film that allows you to go directly to the amazon.com site to buy a VHS or DVD copy.
   This is the Cadillac site, and every serious movie fan should have it bookmarked. If a film (or actor or director) isn't listed here, it probably doesn't exist. Rotten Tomatoes (www.rot tentomatoes.com) is an online clearinghouse for movie reviews. RT tracks and compiles the work of thousands of working movie critics, giving each film a "tomatometer" score based on the ratio of favorable to unfavorable reviews. It's a good way to gauge the prevailing critical opinion of a given film, and -- if you enjoy reading reviews -- you can waste hours here. (Full disclosure note: While I'm not compensated by the site, it does link to many of my reviews, and I once bought one of its editors lunch at a film festival. That still didn't get me into its "Cream of the Crop" group. I suspect the usual biases are at work, but I still like it.)
   Metacritic (www.meta critic.com) is a similar site to RT, though I find its interface slightly more difficult to navigate. Instead of a "Fresh" or "Rotten" rating like RT, they convert the reviews to a 0-100 scale and come up with an average grade. (As this column is being written, Martin Scorsese's The Departed has an average score of 87 on Metacritic.) They aren't as comprehensive as RT -- they only count 37 reviews for The Departed as compared to 151 for RT.
   Greg's Previews of Upcoming Movies (movies.yahoo.com/ mv/upcoming) was formerly known as UpcomingMovies.com, and it's a very good source for information on what's on the horizon, although not as complete as it has been in the past. Greg Dean Schmitz, who seemingly maintains the site on his own, is thorough and accurate. It's just that the site doesn't seem to get updated as often these days as it once did. Still, if anticipation is your thing, you can look all the way ahead to 2008 and beyond.
   Ghost Bird (ghostbirdmovie. com) is the site for a yet-to-be released documentary about the search for the ivory-billed woodpecker. You can watch a trailer and find out about the filmmakers, etc. It's a good-looking site.
   Come Early Morning (www. comeearlymorningthefilm. com) is the official site of Joey Lauren Adams' film that was shot in Arkansas a couple of years ago and will be released in November. (Though we're not exactly sure when it will be released in Arkansas, there have been hints that it will get an Arkansas premiere.) You can watch an excerpt of the film here.
   Market Street Cinema (www. marketstreetcinema.net) is the Web site for Little Rock's Market Street Cinema. Because of the highly volatile nature of the independent and foreign film distribution system, it's not always accurate, but it will give you a rough idea of what movies will be opening at the theater in the coming months as well as other special events going on, such as KARN-AM talk show host's Dave Elswick's ongoing free monthly screenings of classic films.
   strangepup (strangepup. blogspot.com) is a Web site maintained by Karen Martin and me. It sometimes has notes from the road when we're at film festivals, as well as links to stuff we find interesting.
   Are there any others? I'd be happy to know about them. With the way the fall movie season requires us to scramble, I'm sure there will be another "columnette" opportunity soon. E-mail :
   

pmartin@arkansasonline.com

This story was published Friday, October 20, 2006