FOPEN () communication

PHP manual says: fopen fopen -- Opens file or URL Description int fopen (string filename, string mode [, int use_include_path]) If filename begins with "http://" (not case sensitive), an HTTP 1.0 connection is opened to the specified server, the page is requested using the HTTP GET method, and a file pointer is returned to the beginning of the body of the response. -------- consider this use of Fopen(): $movie_site = fopen("http://www.site.com/MovieResponder.php?star=" . urlencode($star) . "&year=" . urlencode($year), "r"); $movie_info = fread($movie_site, 10240); fclose($movie_site); --- http://www.site.com/MovieResponder.php performs a query on it;s own database with $star and $year how does http://www.site.com/MovieResponder.php get the query result in the body of the response? a simple <html> <body> echo ($result); </body> ?? how does this stuff communicate? where's a tutorial or some docs on it? Ken