Internet Movie Database

It's hard to find a major motion picture that doesn't have an Internet home page. For marketing and promotional purposes, Hollywood clearly has embraced the Internet in a big way. Take, for example, the official "Titanic" Web site (http://www.titanicmovie.com). Here you can take a virtual reality tour of the Titanic as it appeared on April 10, 1912, see clips from the movie, learn about its stars and even download a Titanic screen saver. It's the place for the Titanic fan.

Shopping at Amazon.com Inc. and other major Internet stores is poised to get more expensive. Beginning Friday, a new state law will require large out-of-state retailers to collect sales taxes on purchases that their California customers make on the Internet — a prospect eased only slightly by a 1-percentage-point drop in the tax that also takes effect at the same time. Getting the taxes, which consumers typically don't pay to the state if online merchants don't charge them, is "a common-sense idea," said Gov. Jerry Brown, who signed the legislation into law Wednesday.

Here are this week's key releases on video/DVD, available beginning Tuesday. Source: Internet Movie Database; Box Office Mojo *--* Video/DVDs BOX OFFICE (MILLIONS) DOMESTIC FOREIGN "Troy" Brad Pitt, Orlando Bloom; directed by Wolfgang Petersen $133.4 $364 "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle" John Cho, Kal Penn; directed by Danny Leiner $18.2 $2.3 "Little Black Book" Brittany Murphy, Holly Hunter; directed by Nick Hurran $20.4 $0.3 *--*

Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com) was the big winner at the 1999 Webby Awards, held last week in San Francisco. The Seattle-based online bookseller won spring-like steel statuettes in the Commerce and Technical Achievement categories. The judges' selections matched up with the popular picks in five of the 22 categories: Internet Movie Database (http://www.imdb.com) for the Film category; The Motley Fool (http://www.motleyfool.com) for Finance; The Onion (http://www.theonion.