Movie Website Reviews for Weekend of October 3, 2008
October 5, 2008
A busy week for new releases with more than a dozen sites here, but most were just average. The best of this week's selection was the Official Site for Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, which has enough of the basics, extras, and style to stand out.
Allah Made Me Funny - Official Site
An American Carol - Official Site
Ballast - Official Site
Beverly Hills Chihuahua - Official Site
Blindness - Official Site
Drona - Official Site
Flash of Genius - Official Site
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People - Official Site
Just Buried - Official Site
Kidnap - Official Site
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist - Official Site
Rachel Getting Married - Official Site
Religulous - Official Site
All of the usual features are here, plus a section on upcoming release dates. However, the most recent date on the list is August 30th.
Just the bios, image gallery, trailer, and the synopsis, which can be found in the reviews section. But there's nothing here that will convince anyone who doesn't share the filmmakers political point of view to go see the movie.
Typical of many sites for independent films, this site has most of the usual features, but no bios, and there's not a lot of flash or style.
All of the usual features are here, including bios on the voice cast, the human cast, and the dog cast, which is a cute touch. Extras include four clips from the movie, a behind-the-scenes featurette, a couple of flash games, and a few printable features. I like the maze game, which has a fun twist to it, and overall it should be effective with its target audience.
Mostly just the basics. There are some clips and a section for featurettes, but right now the only extra found there is an e-card of sorts.
I had to install a program to see this site, which I don't like doing. It looks really good, but the content is limited with the only extras being some video clips, including a making of featurette.
All of the usual features are here, plus some video clips and audio clips used as intros to each section. There is also a behind-the-scenes featurette, but it is still marked coming soon. It's not a bad site, but it is too average to stand out.
First of all, I love how they promote the image gallery by saying you can see Sophie Maes in a wet dress. I also like the menu, which is set up to look like a magazine cover. However, the features are mostly just the standards with a soundboard being the only real extra. (There is a section for clips, but it's marked coming soon.) Overall it is effective, but it does not stand out enough for such a busy week.
No site for the American release, so here's the old Canadian release.
The usual features are here, but they are called different things (the synopsis is called the game, the bios are called players, image gallery is called clues).
No bios? This is a great movie with a lot of young stars who are just starting their careers, which is the time bios are the most important. When someone's been in the business for 40 years, people don't need bios to introduce them. Besides that little problem, all of the rest of the usual features are here, as well as a ton of clips that you can watch, many of which you have to explore the map to find. Also, there's not as much overlap as on most sites. With most sites, if they have both intro clips and regular clips, which most sites don't have, but if they did, they would use the exact same clips. Finally, there's plenty of sound and animation, as well as a lot of choices for background music. Overall it is the best site on this week's list, and it is the winner of the Mix Tape Weekly Website Award.
The heart of this site is the video clips, and there are many of them. Not only are there clips from the movie used as intros to each section, but there is a series of behind-the-scenes clips in the media section. The only other extras on the site is a section on the musicians, but overall it is a very effective site.
Definitely a site for an advocacy documentary. It spends more time arguing its point of view than convincing people to go see the movie. This will limit its audience to mostly those who already agree, which means the documentary will simply be preaching to the choir. Still, it's fun for fans.
Filed under: Beverly Hills Chihuahua, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, Religulous, Rachel Getting Married, Flash of Genius, Blindness, How to Lose Friends & Alienate People, Just Buried, An American Carol