We’ve all got websites we visit regularly while surfing the web – when we’re not checking email or updating our Facebook page. I’ve been pretty much visiting the same bookmarks for the last five or six years, when they’re not being shutdown or updated into a slow-loading jumbled mess filled with video links and popup ads.
I do still miss some websites, so I’m taking a moment of silence to honour Matt Easterbrook, a Canadian film critic whose reviews were probably the funniest I ever read and whose site simply disappeared four or five years ago; and for MTV’s wildly informative site on CD reviews; I guess since the network doesn’t even care about airing music videos anymore, it makes perfect sense…
So, what are some of your favourite websites to visit? Being a huge film buff, I think you can see where mine are going, but still, here are some recommendations:
Reviews, news, trailers, discussion boards and a whole lot more are the meat of this huge site, which has grown for a simple news website to an entire community. The site never takes itself seriously and is good for a few laughs – if you can stomach a lot of juvenile humour – and at the same time it’s also pretty informative. JoBlo himself has taken a backseat due to health problems, but he’s got a sizable cast of movie nerds picking up the slack, including the resident horror critic, The Arrow, whose writing is filled with self-deprecation and sex jokes. An overall good time.
James Berardinelli is the only movie critic whose opinions I trust blind; while other Internet critics fill their sites with flashy graphics, hard-to-navigate menus and other content which makes them update pretty much never, James keeps things simple and lets his writing do the talking. He’s very well informed, and most important of all, updates weekly. The site has recently added a very welcome message board.
The Bible for film lovers: any information you ever wanted to know about any movie (from the look of its poster to who the main caterer was, this site has all of it. I can spend hours just looking up film trivia. Avoid the message boards, though, since they are filled with trolls or people who can’t spell more than two words correctly. They frequently degenerate into stupid and pointless arguments.
Cracked Magazine was a cheap knock-off of MAD Magazine; some years ago, they stopped publication and moved to the web. Updates daily with articles poking fun at pretty much anything. Examples: “5 Post-Star Wars Careers More Pathetic than Mark Hamill’s” and the “9 Most Racist Disney Characters”. Sometimes they hit the mark, other times they’re too juvenile, but overall, the site is always good for some laughs.
The Nostalgia Sites: I-Mockery and RetroCrush
Retro is a loving tribute to 80s and early 90s pop culture, commenting on everything from toys to TV shows and sometimes digging up stuff you never knew existed (or more than likely wanted to forget); I-Mockery is more about modern pop culture, but it is also leans a lot towards the past, with a particular slant on the Halloween season, when the entire site is remodeled and celebrates horror. Both are great for laughs and for reminscing about your childhood – and feeling embarrassed about liking He-Man at one point.
There are probably many more I tend to visit, but these are pretty much mandatory for me every day. That and news sites, which I don’t like to visit all that much; I still feel that reading is better done and more comfortable in print.
[...] Web Places Taking a cue from classmate Ernesto on his favourite websites, these are a few of my favourite places to visit on the web. There are a couple of blogs that I [...]