Let's face it: you're nobody unless you've made it on IMDb.com. The Internet Movie Database contains the human race's entire sum of entertainment knowledge, or at least the knowledge pertaining to movies, video games, television, and the occasional podcast. If this were the world of Wreck-It Ralph, IMDb would be its Library of Congress with ads for Leverage: Redemption splashed across the top.
So it stands to reason that when a perfectly legitimate credit is, shall we say, misappropriated, it would be a necessity for IMDb to fix that post haste. And a grave mistake was made, friends, and it took 20 years for IMDb to make it right.
You see, I have one film credit to my name. I worked for it. I deserve it. And IMDb straight up gave it to someone else with a similar name.
The year was 1998. Rounders ruled the box office, Boards of Canada's Music Has the Right To Children ruled the airwaves. (Neither is true, but listen to Music Has the Right to Children and tell me it's not better than Madonna's Ray of Light.) I was a fresh-faced high school graduate off to a summer internship in Seattle, working in the actual production office of an actual movie starring actual people my parents had heard of. Yup, I was going across the country to Seattle to work on The Book of Stars.
Okay, I get it, you haven't heard of The Book of Stars. Not many people have, because it didn't get a theatrical release. Just one of those many films that gets made, searches for a distributor, doesn't find one, and gets dumped to home video. It's a shame, as it was a fairly good movie with a good cast. Mary Stuart Masterson is the lead, the "big name" celeb after starring in Benny & Joon and Fried Green Tomatoes. Jena Malone is in it, when she was still known as "the girl who played the young Jodie Foster in Contact." Delroy Lindo, so-great-in-Sinners-he-should-win-an-Oscar, plays the wise old professor.
IMDb summarizes it as "An emotionally crippled woman prostitutes herself to help take care of her kid sister who has cystic fibrosis."
Anyway, it's not much of a hoot, but the soundtrack is really good and if you like tearjerkers where kids die and meet astronauts in heaven, it's a solid watch. I had the good fortune, through a couple contacts, to get a job as an unpaid intern in the production office, a three-room suite in a downtown Seattle hotel that doubled as a fire hazard. I don't think I saw anyone else use this hotel in the three months I worked there. Mostly I copied and distributed script revisions, ordered food, ran errands, did computer stuff, and had an absolute blast discovering Seattle as an 18-year-old. I got attacked by crows a lot.
I left that summer happy, fulfilled, and with absolutely zero interest in pursuing film as a career, which was a surprise to everyone, especially the college I was about to attend for film studies. Joke's on you, University of the Arts, you shut down last year and I'M STILL HERE. Not doing any art stuff, but I outlasted you, college.
So that should have been my one IMDb credit. "Production Intern" on The Book of Stars, a film about prostitution, drugs (not mentioned in the IMDb recap), and cystic fibrosis. And for like … three years? It was. I had made it. I was cool. I had my IMDb credit for all the world to see. If anyone asked about it at, say, a fancy dinner party, I could wipe away the caviar on my lips with my ascot and say something like, "Oh that old thing? My, my, it sure has been a long time since I thought of The Book of Stars. Yes, I was 'additional crew' on that."
And just like that, it was gone. IMDb tooketh away.
"Ethan Kaye" was now an alias for an actor with a similar name. I won't mention her name here because she's still a working actor, trying to get gigs, and I don't want to necessarily attack her for IMDb's error, although the fact that she didn't bring it to IMDb's attention in the 20-plus years that she sat on my "Production Intern" credit makes me dislike her on principle. She's changed her last name too, so she's not as easy to find now.
If you looked me up, you'd see "_______ _______ (sometimes credited as Ethan Kaye)." And there, floating at the bottom of her IMDb page, was the ONE TIME she apparently slightly changed her name to be a Production Intern for The Book of Stars. I'm amazed that IMDb fell for that. That's like if James Bond went undercover as Jimes Bond. THAT'S HOW SIMILAR OUR NAMES WERE. One letter off. Who'd change one letter of their name to book a gig as a Production Intern?
I was incensed. I got on IMDb and boy, did I raise hell, and by "raise hell" I mean that I sent several messages through their in-site comment system. And I continued to do this for many years. About 20 years, in fact. Once I even found a phone number to call and I left a message. All of which came to nothing. Never a response, either through email or by phone.
I had been wronged! My minor contributions to a film that is currently "not rated" but nonetheless streaming on the Roku Channel were erased! Stolen and given to someone who had not weathered the gorgeous summer of the Pacific Northwest and ate Rainier cherries and passed by Bill Gates's house on Lake Washington on a boat tour multiple times. Someone who hadn't experienced the highs and lows of being a production intern, the highs being free lunches and the lows being the previously mentioned crow attacks. The only proof I had of my magical three months in a production office were some photos of me with the crew, some star charts that were part of the wrap gift, and a note from Director Michael Miner (yes, the same Michael Miner that created RoboCop) that read, "Dear Ethan, thank you for working on Book of Stars. I understand you worked very hard."
So it's 2025. I have no IMDb credit to my name. I had no way to professionally prove I was involved with The Book of Stars, a film that won "Best Original Score" in the 2001 inaugural DVD Exclusive Awards (beating out both Joseph: King of Dreams and The Real Macaw, described by IMDB as "140 year old parrot with an attitude and a teenage boy who go in search of buried treasure in an attempt to save the boy's free spirited and youthful grandfather from living the rest of his life in a retirement home.").
But now, with Pop Heist, I have a platform. I might not be "Ethan Kaye, additional crew," but I'm definitely "Ethan Kaye, person who makes fun of Turkish E.T. rip-offs online." I'm somebody now. And I'm going to bring my grievance back to IMDb with a vengeance.
Only this time I realized I should have made myself an IMDb account before I just randomly sent them criticism on their website. Within 24 hours, 20 years of injustice was corrected without comment, and my single, proud moment in film was immortalized on my very own IMDB profile page. I can show this off proudly to anyone who asks about The Book of Stars, a film that also stars D.B. Sweeney, from Eight Men Out and The Cutting Edge, who I met once when he came into the office to complain about something.
My next quest is to get some of my minor acting credits in there, like the time I wore a gimp mask and was whipped by a woman wearing Saran wrap while I sang "I'm In the Mood for Love." Strangely enough, that one's not online.
Yet.
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