Tybout: Internet is movie buff’s best friend

If video killed the radio star, then Internet, it would seem, killed the movie stars.

It’s… If video killed the radio star, then Internet, it would seem, killed the movie stars.

It’s become fashionable among those who follow the entertainment industry to proclaim the Internet the Destroyer of Worlds, a malicious and unstoppable force bent on dissolving all integrity any art once held.

On the surface, this is an apt lament. It would seem that the devious information superhighway has left film floundering in a world without dignity. Where film was once an American pastime, it’s now a pirated novelty on a disreputable website.

Where once it was the subject of in-depth criticism, it’s now at the mercy of IMDb forums.

Then again, would you have heard of half your favorite films without the Web?

The fact of the matter is, there’s no medium better suited to the proliferation of artwork than the Net — it just takes people a few years — or 10 — to realize it.

To aid in this regard, I’ve compiled a list of the top-four reasons why people should learn to stop worrying and love the Web.

1. Online Film Communities: Yes, Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb — two sites of great utility but abysmal intellect — are popular, and their users’ film critiques are less than nuanced. But there are also sites like Mubi, the /Film blog and indieWIRE — all of which nourish specific subsets of cinephilia.

Mubi, in particular, is a film buff’s delight — a sort of Facebook for movie lovers. Users create a profile based on their filmic tastes, their favorite directors or styles of filmmaking and the reviews they’ve written. There’s even a “wall” on which friends can communicate. The only component conspicuously absent are sloppy party photos.

2. Online Streaming: When I say online streaming, I’m not referring to the virus-laden videos overlaid with Chinese subtitles that you’ll find on untrustworthy websites. I’m talking about Netflix’s Watch Instantly, a surprisingly comprehensive, completely legal alternative to filmic contraband. Currently, it only offers about a fifth of the movies available by mail, but its roster is steadily expanding. Some recent additions include “The Godfather,” “Donnie Darko” and “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.”

3. Fan-studio Communication: When people found out that New Line Cinema was making a movie with the working title “Snakes on a Plane,” the novelty-infatuated Net community went into a frenzy. Blogs sprouted like they’d been doused with Miracle-Gro, as did a robust — perhaps over-robust — network of fan merchandise. Smartly, the studio decided to heed fans’ advice, even reshooting scenes at their suggestion — scenes which upped the film’s rating from PG-13 to the more fiscally precarious R. That the movie was forgettable only slightly dampens its mythos — rarely have everyday people held so large a sway over a Hollywood production.

4. Obscure Movies: Let’s face it: those films that aren’t playing in a cinema near you probably won’t be mentioned in print publications. When it comes to mainstream newspapers and magazines, only the biggest, loudest movies make headlines. The Internet, in contrast, grants every film everlasting life — the truism that if it exists, it can be found on the Web is as valid for movies as it is for anything. Even information on the most obscure, art-house flop is but a Google or IMDb search away.

Even more useful, however, than the maintenance of filmic backwash is the Net’s infinite capacity to garner cult followings. Movies like “Black Dynamite” and “The Room” didn’t make a blip at the box office, but they’ve fostered dedicated fan communities, replete with their own sites and merchandise, on the Net.

The former is a tongue-in-cheek parody of 1970s blaxploitation films, the latter is an alarmingly but enthrallingly awful camp classic. Both films couldn’t have survived in mainstream cinemas, but in the decentralized niches of the Web, they’ve flourished.

This is not to say that Internet pirating is not fiscally crippling the movie industry — it is. But when it comes to passion, criticism and communication, the World Wide Web might as well be a gift from the celluloid gods.