After I had children, I basically stopped going to the movies. I always thought I’d start going again, but I never did. I used to be someone that you could count on for a solid movie recommendation, but now I’m generally clueless about what’s in the theater and what’s worth seeing. My friends aren’t much help either. I am mostly on my own finding a good movie.

I recently took my children and some of their friends to see an animated children’s movie and I was amazed at the cost. To save money, we went prior to 6 PM and it still cost both my arm and leg to watch the movie with a little popcorn and some drinks. Without a second loan on my home, I was unable to purchase Milk Duds or Raisinets.

At arm and leg prices, I’d rather not watch a movie dud. So how do you avoid spending your hard-earned dollars on a terrible movie? My method is Rottentomatoes.com. Rotten Tomatoes is a web site devoted to pitching smelly, fruitlike vegetables at bad movies. The name comes from an earlier time in history when patrons would toss whatever was at hand (e.g., a rotten tomato) if a performance was particularly awful. I think projectile vegetables would be highly motivating for live performers today; judging by today’s entertainment quality, maybe we’re missing something in our more civilized society.

At Rotten Tomatoes you can find solid reviews, clips, news, and information about current movies and discern which movies are worth the money. Here’s how it works: Members of Rotten Tomatoes (RT) rate movies. The rating results are displayed in a Tomatometer: A theater release or DVD is rated Certified Fresh if it is reviewed by 40 or more critics (including 5 Top Critics) and if scores at least 75% or higher. A film remains Certified Fresh unless its Tomatometer falls below 60%. Don’t be confused, though, a film with a tomato next to it is certified fresh and the green spot (although it looks fresh and green) is actually rotten.

If you’re like me, you may just want to quickly look up a movie and determine if it’s worth seeing and if it contains what you expect and doesn’t contain what you don’t expect (violence, gore, type of humor, child appropriateness, adult situations, etc.). For me, when I exit a theater I want to feel that my arm and leg were well spent. Then there are those movie aficionados who can’t get enough. This site accommodates those folks as well. They can write their own reviews, participate in the new RT Community, and purchase movie merchandise, research the director and actors, and so on.

In addition to a trustworthy rating by others, you can invite your friends to use Rotten Tomatoes and see their reviews as part of your profile. You can also view movie clips, subscribe to an RSS feed, view a celebrity Tomatometer (for example, RT readers rate Clint Eastwood 78%, Tom Hanks 63%, and Sandra Bullock 26%). Poor Sandra isn’t so fresh. Her latest movie, All About Steve, rates rotten at 6%. Ouch.

Use Rotten Tomatoes instead of the real thing. Sandra would appreciate that. Avoid bad movies by letting your friends go first and publish their ratings. Better yet, go to redbox. com, find a DVD vending machine and rent a DVD for a dollar. If a theater experience is what you’re looking for, visit Rottentomatoes.com first and spend your appendages well.



Bott Technology Solutions helps small to midsize businesses with computer

technology needs and may be reached via

e-mail at gregbott@bottinc.com or at

601-616-8509. Greg’s professional

experience includes consulting for Price Waterhouse’s Strategic Consulting Group, working as a Program Manager for Microsoft Corporation, and serving as Chief Technology Officer for several companies. He has a Master of Science in Software Engineering degree from the University of Texas and has presented at technical

conferences across the world. He has

published over a dozen works including the Microsoft Press Windows Server 2003

Network Infrastructure textbook,

Customizing SharePoint, and the Microsoft ASP.Net Security Operations Guide.