Must-See Site:
Dark Horizons

Dishing dirt has quickly become the new vogue use for the Internet. Hell, online cybercolumnist Matt Drudge broke the story on the Monica Lewinsky tapes hours before any of the major news outlets covered it, and many reporters took their lead from the tip in his daily Drudge Report column. The speed and easy accessibility of the World Wide Web has allowed for a revolution in gossip, as juicy tidbits of info can be acquired, processed, and spread faster than any daily newspaper or even the television news.

One of the chief areas where the speed and ease of internet communications has brought about a gossip boom is in movie and television gossip. It can be said that Harry Knowles began the whole revolution with his Ain't it Cool News website, launched in February 1996 as the earliest bastion for movie gossip freaks on the Web. Since then, other sites have come and gone, with only a few constants managing to survive and thrive. Garth Franklin's Dark Horizons is one of those sites. It's perhaps the most underrated and well-organized of the movie gossip sites available.

Knowles' gossip is plentiful and juicy, but to get it you must tolerate Knowles himself, whose entertaining and rambling writing style isn't everyone's cup of tea. It's often hard to find the kernels of gossip amidst the stream-of-consciousness, but always worth the search. Where Knowles occasionally rambles, Franklin presents his info in well-formatted tidbits, organized by film. He's had some sweet scoops, especially on "Alien: Resurrection" and the upcoming film based on the "Tomb Raider" video game series, currently in pre-production. Supplementing the gossip are links to cool exclusive pics from upcoming movies and QuickTime versions of trailers for future films. Franklin also monitors the websites for upcoming movies and provides announcements when they're updated with neat multimedia.

While Harry Knowles (and to a lesser extent Patrick Sauriol of Coming Attractions) have lapped up plentiful media attention for their movie gossip sites, Franklin's Dark Horizons seems to have gone unnoticed. Such tireless dedication to presenting fresh movie gossip to all us film freaks in cyberspace should not be ignored. Bookmark Dark Horizons, and visit often. You'll be glad you did.