xperience close encounters of the Google kind with UFO Maps, a site that takes a month's worth of unidentified flying object sightings and digitally pins them to a map of the continental United States.
The site's a mashup of the innovative "Google Maps" Web application with data provided by the National UFO Reporting Center. When the U.S. map loads, dozens of small flying saucer icons appear on it. Mousing over an icon reveals a quick blurb about the sighting, including place, time and a short blurb explaining what was seen. Each entry links to the full sighting report on NUFORC. By default, the page loads with the past month's data, but visitors can choose to browse decades' worth of sightings.
The site retains the flexibility of Google Maps, allowing visitors to zoom in on a region or state and then drag the map with their mice to fine-tune the view. Other views are possible, too—while the default is Google Maps, users can try out MSN Virtual Earth and view the sightings in 3-D if they have the "Google Earth" rendering software.
—Ken Newquist
Site of the Week—November 7, 2005
or horror buffs seeking new spooky movies, fans who prefer to consult a review or two before renting pictures they missed in the theater or anyone interested in offbeat Asian cinema—Beyond Hollywood is the site with the answers, a lively archive of movie reviews and film chatter with a distinctly SF slant.
The reviewers at Beyond Hollywood dip into the full range of U.S. movie genres, but the site's focus leans most heavily to horror as well as Eastern films. Visitors are more likely to find obscure Japanese pictures like the 1995 film Naked Blood than a new release like North Country in the site's review index. Making it easier to surf through alphabetized lists of often-unfamiliar film titles, Beyond Hollywood offers a dedicated section for movies given a five-star rating by their reviewers ... and one for zero-star clunkers as well. Finally, the site maintains an area for staff recommendations.
Added to the lengthy and always-growing list of film reviews at Beyond Hollywood are a constellation of standard Web page features: discussion forums where regular visitors can talk about films or participate in site contests, a blog that wanders on and off the topic of movies and a lengthy links page. For visitors who find their favorite film has been overlooked by the site, submission guidelines for guest reviewers are prominently displayed.
As film sites go, Beyond Hollywood is low on frills: Its writers stick to the basics by cranking out a steady stream of well-informed and thoughtful reviews. Quirky, opinionated and filled with a genuine love of cinema in all its forms, this site gladly shares both this affection and a considerable pool of industry knowledge.
—A.M. Dellamonica
Site of the Week—October 31, 2005
he art of the apercu, the epigram, the bon mot, the quip: how seemingly easy, but how truly difficult. To follow the maxim "brevity is wit" is a challenge that many otherwise fine writers take and fail. But at a site called Four Word Film Review, a bunch of amateur scribes have managed to produce literally thousands and thousands of short, sharp shocks to your moviegoer sensibilities.
The entire dead-simple-but-brilliant premise of this site is to encapsulate a whole movie in no more than four zingy, tangy words, soliciting a burst of head-nodding, "Yeah, that's it!" affirmations. Thus, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban becomes "Bounty hunters suck face," while First Knight is summarized with "Trystin' the knight away." Get the picture?
Both of those examples come from a single poster, the top-ranked "noncentz." Didn't I mention the rankings? Registered users of the site get to vote on these squibs, thus elevating the best posters to demigod status among the miniaturist crowd. But if you want to play as a reviewer and knock noncentz off his perch, you'd better get busy. His stats show that he's contributed nearly 6,000 reviews, with 36 of those in the top 100 compiled from all posters. All in all, the site features more than 150,000 reviews!
A traditional search function brings up all the competing reviews for any title. Thus, when I asked for The Time Machine, I got 39 reviews for the 2002 remake, ranked in order of votes (the front-runner being "Fast forward, can't rewind"). But when I input Wells's other filmic masterpiece, Things to Come, I found that only one person had ventured a review: "Moon landing in ... 2035?" This leaves the field wide open for me, so here I go: "Apocalypse first, paradise later."
—Paul Di Filippo
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