Google Movies

Those guys at Google never stop thinking of new services to provide. The latest, released "just in time for the Oscars," says the press release, is Google Movies. Google's movie search is good for serveral different types of information

• Movie Locations and Times: Just enter "movie:60031" into the Google search box to find out what movies are playing in Gurnee's zip code. Alternatively, enter "movie: million dollar baby gurnee il" to learn when the Best Picture winner at the 77th Academy Awards will be showing in Gurnee.

Yes, your saying, but there are lots of web sites out there that can tell you movie times and locations. What can Google Movies do that's new and different? How's this:

• Name that Movie:
Just type in "movie: [keywords]" to bring up movies that match the keywords you seek. For instance, if you just can't remember the name of the movie about a transvestite boy in Belgium, just enter "movie: transvestite Belgium" to get a discussion of Ma Vie en Rose [My Life in Pink].

Of course the quality of your results with of this kind of search (which, like Google News, is entirely computer generated) depends on the keywords you put in. I tried grabbing a movie at random off our DVD shelf (The Dirty Dozen, with Lee Marvin, not an obscure film), and tried various keyword searches with the words on the back of the box, and didn't come up with that particular film (although when I searched just "movie: dirty dozen", I did find it). Google's sources include the Internet Movie Database (imdb.com), Roger Ebert's reviews, and epinions, a web site where moviegoers can write and post their own reviews.