The reel deal

Good movie reviews can save you quite a few bucks at the box office, so check out these sites for the scoop on films past and present.

For a hyperlinked index of all the online reviews of a movie, just type in the title and let the Movie Review Query Engine work its magic. Find out what everyone from Roger Ebert to your fellow netizens had to say before you wait in your local theatre's ticket lines.

Girls on Film offers sassy reviews of current releases and video fare from a grrrrl's point of view. Love the graphics, chiquitas!

Movie Critic is the best of the handful of sites that use artificial intelligence to predict which movies you'll like. Based on your ratings of at least ten movies, the Critic gives you "Best Bets" for new films, video releases, classics and date movies. Register and plug in your own review of a few movies each time you visit, and watch as the Critic becomes more attuned to your tastes -- it's free.

Want to rent a movie but don't know which one? Go to Reel's Movie Thesauras and enter the name of a flick you adore. It'll return a list (usually dead-on) of similar fare. And win big in your office Oscars pool: study a list of the Academy's past picks here.

For laughs, nothing beats Mr. Cranky and his biting-but-smart commentary, with sarcastic ratings from one bomb (bad) to a bundle of dynamite (worse). Nothing is sacred here: the acclaimed "Sling Blade," for example, is "another one of those films in which some 'slow' guy turns out to be the smartest person in the picture." Ouch!

Reported by Hagar Scher

© 1997 Wire Networks, Inc. and Yahoo, Inc. All rights reserved.