Stop wondering “where have I seen that guy?”

One of the more exciting things I get to do at Noobie is spread the word about fun things you can do on the Internet that most people don’t even know exist. We all know about how you can purchase a book or plan your vacation on the Internet but not many know about the fun things you can do on the Internet that won’t cost you a dime. Here’s one example.

Introducing IMDB. That’s short for Internet Movie Database. How many times have you been watching a movie where you see an actor or actress and think to yourself, “who is that?” or “I know I’ve seen that person in some other movie.” Well, it’s time to stop wondering and to start pointing your Internet browser to http://www.imdb.com/.

Suppose you are watching the new Pirates of the Carribean movie and you are wondering who is playing the lead actress. Simply head on over to IMDB and enter “Pirates of the Carribean” in the search box at the top left of the page and click the Go button. A search results page will display that shows any movie in the entire movie database that matches “Pirates of the Carribean”. Because you are watching the most recent movie, click the link for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and you will instantly be shown everything you want or need to know about the movie including who directed it, who wrote it and who starred in it. There is even a photo gallery with stills from the movie, a plot outline and user ratings and comments.

Now, back to the task at hand. Scroll on down to the cast overview and you will see that the lead actress is Keira Knightley who plays the role of Elizabeth Swann in the movie. Click on the link for Keira Knightley and you will discover that Keira will be starring in the still-filming Pirates of the Carribean: At Worlds End due out in 2007. You can also see that Keira has been in several other notable films including Pride & Prejudice, Love Actually, Bend It Like Beckham and Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace.

The Internet Movie Database is even powerful enough to handle actor/actress or character name lookups. Try it yourself. Type “Keira Knightley” in the search box or even “Elizabeth Swann” (you will need to change the selection above the search box from “All” to “Characters” for this one to work).

If you dig around some more you’ll even soon discover that many television shows, including talk show appearances and more, are linked into the Internet Movie Database. Have fun!