Toss a Tomato, Sling a Posy

I don't even know why I'm reviewing this site -- the last movie I saw in the theater was Twin Dragons. But I do read the occasional movie review. If they're your kind of thing you'll get plenty of content at Metacritic ( http://www.metacritic.com/ ), which gathers movie reviews and reviews of other media as well.

Metacritic isn't just for films. It covers several genres, including video, music, and games. A handy drop-down search box on the left side of the page lets you search through any or all of the genres.

Pick a genre. You'll get a page with highlighted titles and a list of titles on the left side of the screen. Each title will have a number beside it in green, red, or yellow. These are the metascores, an overall score for the movie based on the movie reviewers' impressions. Scores range from 100 (best) to 1 (I assume -- the lowest score I saw was 9.) Now, pick a title.

The right side of the page will give you vital statistics about the item (for a video, for example, you'll get length, rating, release date, etc.) The middle of the page provides a summary of information about the title, links to places where the title can be ordered, links to critics' reviews of the title (some titles I viewed had just a few reviews, while some had several) and reviews by site visitors. Metacritic is excellent at pulling out quotes from the reviews; I got curious enough about them that I had to go read several.

The only nit I have about this site is the fact that some of its content is hidden. If you look on the left side of the page, you may assume that the "recent releases" list covers everything they've reviewed. Not so; be sure to check out the A-Z Title Index or use the search engine if you're looking for something you don't see on the main page. Worth a look.

Posted to Entertainment-Movies