When ever I watch a movie I spend the first half an hour or so going "ooo what's he been in" etc. I am not bothered what the actors name is and therefore the listings at the end, I just want to know where I know them from. Obviously for really well known actors with a huge list this would not be necessary and would be too unwieldy to be practical.

Surely this should be possible with the digital technology we are all currently being pushed to buy?!?
-- lolo, Aug 27 2002

Internet Movie Database http://www.imdb.com/
Look them up here, based on the name of the movie and the character they're playing. [jutta, Aug 27 2002]

Actor's name subtitles http://www.halfbake...s_20name_20subtitle
Doesn't cover the "What's he been in?" angle, but has some discussion about how to connect ancillary information to video in general. [jutta, Aug 27 2002]

My girlfriend would say, what we *really* need is a list of people each actor looks like, even if the actor in question is playing the smallest walk on part in the background. I'm always pointing out the resemblance of someone to someone else, and apparently most of the time I'm wrong. Like I'm sure Harrison Ford plays a beat cop in 'Highlander', and that Rutger Hauer shows up towards the end of 'Baseketball'.
-- Zircon, Aug 27 2002


So, do you want a place to find out that kind of information (see link), do you want introductory credits to give you a brief bio of each actor (good idea), or are you looking for a personal gadget that you can point at the screen, and it gives you the distance to Kevin Bacon as a meter read-out?
-- jutta, Aug 27 2002


Pop up movie trivia? No, I pay to watch the movie, not to watch 2 hours of credits.. Maybe as a enable/disable feature on the DVD, but not in the theater, thanks.
-- Mr Burns, Aug 27 2002


Jutta, Funny you should mention Kevin Bacon as he was the actor I was thinking of in regard to the "too many to mention". The link is great but I don't tend to have my PC on and on-line while watching the film. I was looking for an option ( like the clock on my TV) that I could turn on and off as and when I saw someone I vaguely recognised.
-- lolo, Aug 27 2002


Taking [jutta]'s personal gadget thing a bit further down the (halfbaked) road.

Okay . . . a far-fetched, utterly impractical and likely baked thought: A meta-data stream that accompanied the movie where at any point in the action you could, in effect, "mouseover" an actor or other on-screen thing and get a tooltip-like box of info? Another click stops the playback and takes you to a info page stored on the DVD. Another returns you to the movie.

Implemented in the DVD player so that it would be display device independent, the DVD remote would have, say, a receptor to "see" what the coordinates are on the screen and a laser pointer to show you where you are pointing. Actor identification, filmographies, degrees of Baconess, et cetera.
-- bristolz, Aug 27 2002


This could lead to a new type of interactive filmmaking, In a who-dunnit scenario, the viewer could chose to watch the film and enjoy as Holmes or Columbo worked it out in their inimitable fasions. OR they could pause the disk, and explore the back ground of each scene with the mouse looking for tips and pointers, sort of an informed interactive cluedo
'It was the butler, under the stairs, with the trowel!'
-- Zircon, Aug 27 2002


once the question enters your head, there is no getting rid of it. The love interest in "Bend it like Beckham" drove me quite round the bend.
-- po, Aug 27 2002


Some DVDs will have 'making of...' sort of documentaries included. It's not uncommon for those to give some background on the actors.

Disregard the actor's names altogether, and put together a cast list that only references other roles.

"Saving Private Ryan"
Starring
The guy who played Forrest Gump
The guy who played (Good) Will Hunting
That fellow who was on Friends a few times
The tough guy who was in Heat and later married Heidi Fleiss
That guy who makes all the New Jersey movies with Springsteen songs in them
The big voice guy from Iron Giant
Directed by the guy who directed "Hook"
-- waugsqueke, Aug 28 2002


Heidi got married?
-- jurist, Aug 28 2002


Peter Cook and Beryl Reid did a sketch based on this called 'The Amnesiacs' ("What was the one that Clint Walker wasn't in?", "Rawhide!","No, it wasn't Rawhide","I thought that Clint Walker was Britt Ekland's love child?" etc). Personally I thnk that you should all just watch the damned film and read the credits afterwards.
-- DrBob, Aug 28 2002



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