Okay, so you’re at work, and you want to contribute to the watercooler conversation about the latest movie that just came out. But for whatever reason, you haven’t had the time or the money or whatever to go see it yet. Maybe you’re like me and have two small kids and no babysitter available to go on a date night with the wife.
Now on the whole, as a professional storyteller myself, I abhor spoilers. I despise them, and judge all who partake of them. They completely rob you of the experience intended by the storyteller. In short: they are of-the-devil.
But even I have to sympathize with feeling left out of the national conversation. I mean, how are you supposed to stay relevant to your pals if you don’t know what happened in the latest popcorn flick that everybody’s talking about? You’ll be shunned, you’ll be the one at the party that no one talks to. You’ll be… a social outcast. And nobody wants that.
Luckily, there’s an easy way to solve this problem, and it comes from the last source you’d imagine. It’s a major staple of of the Internet, and I’d go so far as to say this is a website many of you visit on an almost daily basis. And you’d never imagine that it’s a treasure trove of spoilers on just about any movie in existence.
So be warned. I’m putting this all-inclusive spoiler site’s identity after the jump, because once you know the truth, you can never go back.
Still want to know? Okay, then.
Wikipedia contains complete summaries of the plot to virtually every movie ever made. This probably doesn’t come as a terrible shock — it is, after all, an open-source encyclopedia that anyone can edit.
The surprising part is how current it is with its info, right up-to-the-minute with breakdowns of the latest movies to hit the cineplex.
Check it out. What’s the hottest, newest release at the box office right now? Clash of the Titans. Look it up at Wikipedia, and you get a 1,146-word summary of the film’s plot. It’s like Cliff’s Notes for pop culture.
Sometimes you can even find summaries for films that aren’t out yet. It’s not a universal rule; there’s no summary yet for the Tina Fey/Steve Carell Date Night, which releases today. The general rule of thumb is, the geekier the movie, the more likely you’ll find a pre-theatrical-release summary. Kick-Ass, for example, which is a week away from release at the time of this writing, already has a full summary available.
So if you gotta keep up with the conversation, but can’t get to the cinema, now you can hold onto your geek cred.