OVGuide.com - crazy & chaotic, but amazingly useful

When I first heard about OVGuide.com I couldn't wait to check it out. What a great idea to have all the video content available online in one convenient place to search from. I quickly signed on, got my own account, and started exploring.

Upon first glance OVGuide.com looks like it's a dream, but after really exploring OVG it seemed more like a nightmare. The site looks too chaotic; the homepage is overwhelmingly crowded with paid ads promoting all sorts of sites that have videos, live streaming TV sites from around the world, regular US broadcast TV, news, sports, etc.

OVG is simply a guide to other sites, a portal of portals is really what it is... and a way for the sites owners to make money selling expanded text ads. But it can also be very helpful to those of us who watch TV, films, and videos online.

At the top of their homepage they have a search engine, which you will immediately try to use to find a specific TV show, film, or video. I searched for a Showtime series WEEDS and was given 10 results of which only 3 actually carried complete episodes from the first 3 seasons of the show. Next I searched for an old favorite of mine HIGHLANDER: THE SERIES and got 20 results with only 3 sites that carried the show, but only had season 1 available to watch online. All the other results were for other HIGHLANDER films and trailers.

Next I searched for another Showtime series I watch THE L WORD. I immediately got 4 sites from their search engine and I was able to watch episodes I had missed the first time. I really appreciated this as I had been searching all over the net for the epi's I missed and could not find them anywhere. One quick search at OVG and I had a choice of sites to choose to watch my preferred show from.

Though the chaotic nature of OVG was off-putting at first, once I delved into it to try to find specific shows I was very impressed. After this experience I bookmarked OVGuide.com and plan on visiting it regularly. All they need now is for a zip code TV guide so I can also use their site as my own tv guide... my own online video guide.

I found OVGuide.com because I'm a bzzagent and it was suggested at their site. Read my frogpond review at bzz (if you want, but I've posted a much more complete review right here).

2006 YEAR END MOVIE REVIEW: Digital Dogs Grades the Films of 2006

THE TOP FILMS OF 2006: The A List

• Casino Royale
• Dreamgirls
• United 93
• The Queen
• The Last King of Scotland
• Catch a Fire
• Apocalypto
• The Prestige
• Borat
• Blood Diamond
• Little Miss Sunshine
• The Devil Wears Prada
• Venus
• Stranger Than Fiction
• Pan’s Labyrinth
• Notes On a Scandal
• Flags of Our Fathers/ Letters From Iwo Jima

THE FILMS OF 2006: The B List

• The Illusionist
• Miss Potter
• Charlotte’s Web
• Pursuit of Happyness
• Children of Men
• An Inconvenvient Truth
• The Departed
• Flushed Away
• Déjà vu
• World Trade Center
• The Departed
• Happy Feet
• A Scanner Darkly
• Who Killed the Electric Car
• Mission Impossible III
• The Da Vinci Code
• X-Men: The Last Stand
• Bobby

THE FILMS OF 2006: The C List

• The Lake House
• The Good Shepherd
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
• The Black Dahlia
• For Your Consideration
• Little Children
• Hollywoodland
• Marie Antoinette
• The History Boys
• The Navity Story
• All The King’s Men
• Poseidon

THE BOTTOM TEN FILMS OF 2006: The D List: an incomplete grade

• Babel – The second most annoying and pretentious film of the year. Babel is yet another triad of short stories strung together by the flimsiest of excuses. The one interesting story of the three told here involves Japanese newcomer Rinko Kikuchi whose performance is so interesting she deserves a supporting nomination for it. But her short story had absolutely nothing to do with the supposed story-line of this poorly plotted film. Babel is a big nothing mess that the less-educated will think is an important film (because that’s what they were told in the ads!). Wake Up! A feature film is NOT 3 short stories strung together!


• Running With Scissors – A big failure with no likeable characters and a story-line that forces you to hate everyone in it. Annette Benning overacts to save her life… but nothing can save this mess of a film.


• The Fountain – Completely pretentious and annoying, this new-agey yoga-spacey film makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.


• The Wind That Shakes the Barley – An important film about the beginnings of the IRA that was ruined by incomprehensible dialog. This film would have been more interesting were there subtitles. Please tell us director Ken Loach….exactly how many people in the world do you think are fluent in Irish? Don’t you think an important film deserves to be understood by your audience?


• Lady in the Water – Director M. Night Shyamalan keeps using the same old tricks. Get off your one-trick pony horse Night and live up to your reported talent!

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© 2006 by Digital Dogs

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