Iofilm.co.uk

Are you a cinema-goer? A hungry consumer of DVDs? Then come with Jill to take a peek around iofilms. You won't regret it, this site is ever so super, I promise.

It's easy to find your way around iofilms, but I'll hold your hand anyway. The homepage is suitably noir (black to those of you who don't get the reference and very poor pun) with a nice, straightforward menu running vertically down the ...
...up with content tasters and the current box office top ten films, together with iofilm's top ten of the current crop of releases. Looking here you'll see that the site carries feature articles on all things cinematic - the pick of today's bunch being interviews with Brian Cox and Anthony Hopkins, reprising their roles as Hannibal Lecter. You can also keep up to speed with all the various film festivals of the year - Cannes, Sundance and the rest. ... more

Are you a cinema-goer? A hungry consumer of DVDs? Then come with Jill to take a peek around iofilms. You won't regret it, this site is ever so super, I promise.

It's easy to find your way around iofilms, but I'll hold your hand anyway. The homepage is suitably noir (black to those of you who don't get the reference and very poor pun) with a nice, straightforward menu running vertically down the left hand side, the rest of the page being taken up with content tasters and the current box office top ten films, together with iofilm's top ten of the current crop of releases. Looking here you'll see that the site carries feature articles on all things cinematic - the pick of today's bunch being interviews with Brian Cox and Anthony Hopkins, reprising their roles as Hannibal Lecter. You can also keep up to speed with all the various film festivals of the year - Cannes, Sundance and the rest. Or you can read reviews of films, DVDs and videos. The pick of the current releases are highlighted on this page. Everything's obvious, easy to navigate and quick to load, so we might as well leap straight in to see how the content stacks up.

Feature articles first I think. They're the top menu link, and I like to do things in an organised fashion. Ooh, there's a great big list of articles to choose from here, I just don't know which one to click first. I think I'll check out the one about product placement in Minority Report. I'll be able to have a good whinge about rampant corporatism then, I bet. Gosh. Did you know that product placement was worth $25 million of funding for that film? This is an interesting article indeed! It's nicely written, concise but informative, and I think I'll go read some more. That one about Edinburgh winner Rabbit Proof Fence looks interesting. Yep, it's very good as well, and so are all the rest. You explore them for yourself. Next up (or down, menu-wise, heehee) is the coverage of the festivals. They're all there, from Edinburgh, Cannes and Sundance, to the smaller domestic festivals at the likes of Bradford and York and Leeds. There are all sorts of different articles covering them all and they're all very good too, snappily and professionally written and also interesting.

Were you planning a trip to the cinema? Can't make up your mind what to see? Weren't overly sure about that Shyamalan Signs thing? Considering My Big Fat Greek Wedding but not sure about that either? Well, head off to the iofilm review section then! I do like the film reviews here. They are, again, beautifully written, individual, original and interesting. And they're not overly long and full of dull completist waffle either. These aren't the heartfelt essays, good as heartfelt essays can be, that you're likely to find from the best writers on opinion sites, or the kind of fifty word tasters that get shoved into the corner of a page in a newspaper, they're four or five paragraph sensible, professional-looking, intelligent reviews. They won't spoil the film for you, but they will give you a very good idea if your fiver will be well or poorly spent on the purchase of a cinema ticket.

Thinking of buying a DVD? Get a bit anoraky about the format, the features, the extras, the print? (I don't, I just like or don't like the FILLLLLLLLLLLLM for heavens sakes). If you do then iofilm's DVD section is for you. It contains similarly excellent reviews on DVD packages as does the film section on this site. Short, to the point but very informative, often witty. If you've not invested in a DVD player yet, then you can read in the video section, the reviews here are really mere tasters though. These are good reviews, well worth reading, and you can find all the back issues in the A-Z section of iofilm's growing database. The only (tiny) thing to irritate me here was the way the black background of the homepage changes to white on the review page and the left hand menu disappears, leaving you with a smaller horizontal one at the top of the page in the video section. I know they're only little reviews, but it is a bit offputting when everything else runs together so smoothly. But with reviews on more than 1500 films, a database growing by the day, that's a minor niggle I feel.

And um... that's it really, iofilms is a very nice site for either a browse, or for research on new film and DVD releases particularly. It offers a syndication service for some of its content and it has a band of very good reviewers. If one of their writers strikes a particular chord with you then you can access the list of reviews they've written on site which is a nice extra. It has an efficient search facility to save your poor brittle fingers too many clicks and um... yes, that's it really. Was there more you wanted? Super site. You should check it out.

Oh and... if you look carefully, you might see an ex-opinionator or two!

 

...less