Before the internet (yes, such a dark time once existed), movie goers had few choices when it came to getting information about new movies on opening weekend. Sure, you’d get a 30-second commercial, the same clip from the actor on the late-night shows, and a printed review from your local critic, but it’s a pretty limited view. Now, with trailers online, and more entertainment blogs than newspapers, fans can get a broader scale of feedback.

Twitter, the short text messaging community that asks “What Are You Doing?” is often criticized for being full of meaningless answers to that question (”buying a stapler”, “waiting in line at starbucks”, and the like). But the immediacy of the interface, and the fact that you can use your phone to post, makes it a handy tool for the instant movie review.

You can find out what people are saying across Twitter by using filters and tools like Tweetscan. A quick search there tells me: uniquefrequency : Really enjoyed speed racer! but other Twitics noted bad reviews and were thinking about staying away. One avid Twitter fan jazzychad has developed a page where he scans tweets and compiles them into a quick graph of positive/negative/neutral reviews for the latest movies.

If you think the summer movie season is going to heat up all that tweeting on Twitter… just wait until the 2008 elections, which sites like twittermeter.com are tracking already.