If you were to gather my family’s computers and gadgets all in one place and poke through them, I have no doubt that the app used the most, collectively, would be the IMDb app. When you’re watching a show and somebody says, “Hey, it’s that guy—you know, the guy who was in that show with the woman who was in Seinfeld“, or whatever, you can go to the show and follow the breadcrumbs back to that guy. Release dates, trivia, goofs, you name it. We use it constantly.
Of course, we don’t do anything like normal people. Several years ago, the Short Kid thought it would be funny to try to say the name phonetically. IM-duh-BAH. It made us laugh and, once something makes us laugh, it never dies. And we don’t say it normally, either. When a movie or television show question comes up, one of us will yell “To IM-duh-BAH!” in much the same way you’d yell “To the Bat Cave!”.
Judging by the looks we get when we’re out in public, this is far more amusing to us than to other people. We don’t really care.
On a more serious note, since the Short Kid’s twelve now, I’ve found their Parent Guide invaluable. Each movie has one and it breaks down exactly why a movie got its rating. In detail. For instance, “the word shit is used twelve times” or “a woman’s naked back is shown, with a glimpse of her breast” or “a man is shot in the head; not too graphic, but there is blood spray”. Between his parents and a 17-year-old older brother, a lot of R-rated movies are on SK’s radar, and I like being able to see why it got that rating. Language and some violence, we’re okay with it. Sexual content, not so much. But the degree/kind of violence also matters. I’ll take him to see Die Hard 5 with us, no problem, but he’s apparently the only kid in his whole school who’s not allowed to watch The Walking Dead. (Lie.)
So the next time you’re trying to remember the name of That Guy in a movie, or you want to know just why that movie’s PG-13 instead of PG, to IM-duh-BAH!
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I was always that person that would be driven crazy watching a movie, knowing I’d seen THAT GUY somewhere and what movie was it?! Before the internet, I just had to go crazy if I couldn’t figure it out, I LOVE IMDb! LOL
I also use a website that breaks down every little reason that a movie got it’s rating. I did not know IMDb did that! I have a 13 year old boy and a 10 year old boy. They like to see a lot of PG-13 movies, but most of the time they are PG-13 for war type violence and what they call “cartoon” violence (the super hero movies), but I always like to check beforehand, b/c I really don’t want them seeing nudity at this point.
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Oh man my household is addicted to that site! Even the hubby without the smartphone.
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My mom introduced me to IMDb back around 2000 when she first found out about it in her job as a librarian. As we’re both movie trivia buffs, we adore it. Around the same time people started saying “Google it”, mom and I were saying “IMDb it.”
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My friends and I have used IMDb since the 90s. We were closed captioners at the time, and their listings of character names was more valuable than anything else we used.
Oh, and we say someone’s a “Hit-guh’ You know, H I T G (Hey It’s That Guy).
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I’m bad about watching something and think “hey I’ve seen him/her before but where? ” or “he’s cute, wonder what else he’s in?”
So I use IM-duh-BAH (love that) a lot! That sounds like something my family would come up with. My dad and husband are always changing the words in songs to make them funny and then THAT’S the version that gets stuck in my head.
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Now you can all yell “To IM-duh-BAH” really loud while you look up Hit-guh! LOL.
Sometimes my husband will just sit and shake his head when he wonders aloud about something and the teen, short kid and I have a race to see who can IMDb it first.