Empire Online

Talk about a waste of time... I was recently so bored I catalogued my entire music collection onto the Rate Your Music website! Not such a waste of time actually as I can now link my collection to their database and get recommendations on what I might like to listen to next, based on my ratings. Similarly I went to have a look at my favourite film website Empire Online and found they had completely updated and jazzed it up, making it much more user friendly and just generally smart looking - one of their new features is a facility to catalogue your DVD collection and see it listed with its Empire rating alongside. It wasn't a full database as yet and their were many omissions, but I was pleased to see that of the 65 films I did list not one had a rating below 4 stars, thus my collection received an Empire 5 star endorsement - good to know! The site also has great movie forums where the burning questions and rumours of the moment are discussed as well as unrivalled access to trailers, film stills and red carpet photos and interviews. Over the years their editorial consistency has made them one of the most trustworthy sources of movie knowledge around, and I can say without hesitation that they have rarely let me down. In the inaugural issue of the online magazine Jake Gyllenhaal is the man to watch, as they list 54 films this season you should look out for - and he's in 4 of them, including the #1 movie Sam Mendes' Jarhead. Others I am stilling very much looking forward to: Walk The Line with Joaquin Phoenix as Jonny Cash; V For Vendetta with a shaven headed Natalie Portman; Capote with the always quality Phillip Seymour Hoffman; and the big Winter triumverate of Kong, Potter and Narnia, of course. Go and see, click the title of this post, the link in the text above or the Empire banner in the sidebar. Kx