by Gail Kavanagh

Created on: November 09, 2009

Think of a movie - any movie in any genre, whether comedy, drama, sci fi, horror thriller, musical or action. Try to make it challenging - say, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension from the 80s. Put it in the search engine at allmovie.com. Never heard of it, right? Wrong. You get a review, a list of similar movies, and other information including the year it was made (1984). So far, so good. Maybe this site really does live up to its name.

Allmovie.com is one of three sister sites that includes Allmusic.com and Allgame.com. The group behind these sites is All Media Guide (AMG) which started out in 1991 as a music database. The movie guide was added in 1994, so there has been plenty of time to make this one of the most comprehensive sites on the web. Today there are more than 220,000 titles on the site with more being added daily. A team of full time editors seek out information from many different sources, and welcome corrections or updates from site visitors.

The site is more than just a database of old movies. The front page features a blog with reviews of the latest releases, and information on upcoming releases. You can view the latest trailers, news, and DVD releases. There are also articles such as a memorial of director John Hughes, who died on August 6, 2009. So there is no problem with the site being kept up to date.

The reviews not simply a brief synopsis, they are well written and go into some depth on the movie. You can search for a specific movie, look under the various genre headings or click on one of the blog entry links at the left of the main page. The site is well presented and attractive, and very easy to navigate. Click on a genre like Drama, and you get six pages of clickable movie titles, with their year of release, which makes identification easier.

A small site map box in the top left hand corner of the site takes you quickly to the various departments on the site, such as a page of interesting essays on studios, genres and themes, while other links take you to pages of trailers, new releases and upcoming movies. This box is made available on all pages which is a very useful feature.

But back to Buckaroo Banzai - or The Last Starfighter, or even Sample People, an obscure Australian movie starring Kylie Minogue. Yes, they are all here. So are 2012, The Princess and the Frog and other new movies now hitting the cinemas. Test over. Allmovies.com passes with honors.

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