Cracked.com launches hilarious movie guide

The site teamed with Movieclips and Rotten Tomatoes to create Cheat Sheets

Cracked.com, a Demand Media property that bills itself as “America’s only humor site since 1958”, has partnered with Rotten Tomatoes and MOVIECLIPS to launch Cheat Sheets, a comedic user-contributed guide to popular movies that will eventually expand to include actors and actresses, musicians, and video games in the coming months.

(Editor's note: Demand Media co-founder and SVP of Mergers & Acquisitions, Shawn Colo, will be keynoting Splash LA on May 26. Hear Shawn shares his lessons on building this startup since 2006 to be one of this year's more high-profile tech/media IPOs! Use Vator20 for a 20% discount here. Hurray. There are limited tickets.)

The film profiles are actually pretty funny, each one featuring a user-written “Gist” or description of 500 words or less. Here’s one from the 2007 Pixar film Ratatouille:

Remy the rat is obsessed with good food, and he has learned to cook by watching television in the same way that Jackie Chan fans have all become Kung-Fu masters. Remy stumbles upon an unsuspecting janitor working in a Parisian restaurant and figures out how to tap into his central nervous system, controlling his every movement. Inexplicably, Remy uses this ability, not to lead an army of rats, driving zombie human kill machines to enslave or destroy humanity, but to only create and serve delicious, creative cuisine.

Members can create their own Gists or rate those of others with a thumbs-up/thumbs-down system, and the highest-rated Gist for each film is featured on the front page. I would highly recommend users browse through other Gists, as some are funnier than the featured Gist, in my opinion. Like this other one for Rataouille: “In a film that managed to create a Janeane Garofalo character that looks attractive, Ratatouille shows that you can get great food at a place with questionable health standards.”

The film profiles also include Rotten  Tomatoes’ Tomatometer , popular movie quotes, and video clips via MOVIECLIPS.

"Cracked.com fans are extremely passionate about movies and entertainment, so in our quest to create the ultimate pop culture guide, we knew that it was important for us to partner with leading entertainment resources like RottenTomatoes and MOVIECLIPS - because they are the brands our fans know and trust,” said Oren Katzeff, GM and VP of Cracked.com in a statement. “Cheat Sheets also gives our talented writing community an opportunity to contribute a concise recap of their favorite movies. The result is an action packed, bite-sized page that contains everything we think you need to know about a particular film."

Cracked.com has drawn swarms of visitors to its site with its hilarious articles, videos, topics, and discussions, including, “8 scenes that prove Hollywood doesn’t get technology,” “5 scientific reasons a zombie apocalypse could actually happen,” and “The top 5 everything for the decade (for better and for worse).” The site drew over one billion page views in 2010 and 20.5 million total visits, and current trending topics include boobs, zombie apocalypse, hipsters, and urban legends. 

Image source: cracked.com