Now don’t get me wrong, I find the Internet Movie Database extremely useful, as any Internet user is likely to. I mean sure, the comments on any given page are forty-five percent idiotic whining and forty-five percent shallow nitpicking, but I’m able to ignore all that and use it to learn about movies and stuff.

The reason I’m currently calling it an idiot is I’ve started to notice the “Plot Keywords” section. It’s probably always been there, but I only noticed it within the last couple months. At first glance it makes sense to have keywords that sum up significant things in the movie so someone who is looking for say, Viet Nam films is gonna be able to sift through them.

But look at some of the things that turn up in the Keywords! I’ll go to the Dark Knight page to get examples. There’s the ones that make sense, of course: “Vigilante”, “Dark Hero” and “Superhero” are all well and good. But then there’s the truly mundane: “Funeral”, “Gun”, “Bruise”, “Butler”, “Billiards” and “Applause” are all in there.. And we also have the truly inane: “Altered Version Of Studio Logo”, “Heavy Rubber”, “Number In Character’s Name”, “Title Spoken By Character ” and “Punched In The Face” leave me questioning the point altogether.

My main concern here is that these things rarely fit my definition of PLOT keywords. Seriously, if there is anyone who likes “Billiards” enough that they’re looking up movies about it, they’re going to be disappointed by the Dark Knight.

Also, there was a character with a number in his name?