what happened to old IMDB..

Yes. They should, forever, feature Citizen Kane on the first page.

All the old stuff is there, plus new stuff. Something for everyone.

And, "best" to you isn't always "best" to me, or the other folks on the site. Most of which are probably teenagers.

teenagers are not on this site. And movies today have about 30 million dollars of promotion behind them.. More, much, than what the older and foreign films cost to produce in entirety. Information on the new movies provide nothing that isn't accessible all over the internet. If IMDB is an "information" site and serves a role it should be for what is not being promoted incessantly.

Re: "teenagers are not on this site"

Huh?

Their mission doesn't mention anything to do with serving a role of promoting things not being promoted. It's role is providing a complete listing of film information, new or old. It's a free service. If John Wayne, Gretta Garbo and Charlie Chaplin are featured on the main page, there is no draw to the site. No draw to the site and there is no more free database.

Beyond that first page, all the info is still there. Don't be turned off by the main page. If you don't like it, bookmark the part you like best and enter there.

Take a look, by the say, at the demographic breakdown of ratings. By far, most are in the 18-29, yet there are still many in the under 18 range. Probably more teens than there are your (and my) age.

I know what you mean, but I owned video stores. I know. It's darn hard to get folks past the new release section. The downfall of cool video stores was Blockbuster and Hollywood Video getting sweet pricing deals, letting them have a 100 new releases when I could afford 4 copies. So, folks would walk in, look at New Releases then walk out and drive down the street to Blockbuster. I had 17,000 titles. Rare and out of print (moritorium, then) titles, even things like Beatles Let It Be. Any title a customer asked for, if I didn't stock it, I'd get it. Newspapers did stories about us and how we had everything. Didn't help. The vast majority don't so much care about anything from last year, even. It's a relatively small number of people who look for all the cool and old stuff.

Maybe they could feature some old things, especially if being re-released, etc. on the front page, but don't expect to see it take the place of what's there now.

Beyond that first page, all the info is still there. Don't be turned off by the main page. If you don't like it, bookmark the part you like best and enter there.

I rarely visit the front page - I had a look at it for the first time in years just to see what is there. I have a number of tabs open on IMDB and they are on forums, movies, lists, keywords, etc. all of which open up the breadth and depth of IMDB's content.

Mouseover the big MOVIES button and the second option is the Top 250, which can start anyone's journey through the classics and on deeper down wherever they want to go.

The front page makes sense to me - there is a constant churn of films and so the current approach keeps the front page updated, so if that is the kind of thing someone is interested in then they'll visit a lot, which is good for the site.

Oh and I found out that Paul had just appeared on LoveFilm Instant, so I'll be watching that tomorrow - another plus for the front page.