Amazon.co.uk Review
Variety magazine has been describing movies and the bizarre world that surrounds them since before Hollywood was born on a starry night in a barn outside Los Angeles. Renowned for its impartiality and technical knowledge, over the last 92 years it has published over 57,000 reviews, ranging from the sublimely good (
Citizen Kane) to the awesomely bad (
Police Academy VII) to the downright ugly (
Seven). This seventh edition of
Variety's moviie guide has been updated fro its 1997 predecessor by Derek Elley, a senior critic on the magazine, who has included at least 200 additional reviews as well fine-combing the text to correct any existent inaccuracies. This means that it now contains more than 8,600 entries, each with an easy-to-scan list of production data and credits followed by a short critique, usually abridged, from the original magazine copy. The guide sells itself as combining uniquely a "you were there at the time" feel with a "trade orientation", which is an understandable attempt to occupy a niche somewhere between the dry authority of
Halliwell's Film and Video Guide and the more modern perspective of
The Time Out Film Guide in an ever-expanding market. The only problem with this method is that using only the guts of a review makes for choppy reading at times, and when taken with the "slanguage" shorthand often employed ("shutterbug" for photographer, "flivver" for car etc.), despite the glossary provided it can be hard work for the more general, or non-American, reader. On the whole, though, the entries are shrewd and informative, not afraid to court controversy (surely no-one rally considers the Scorsese remake of
Cape Fear superior to the 1962 original!), yet refreshingly unbitchy. A practical and desirable reference book and browser for the informed amateur who may eventually wish to graduate to the 24-volume
Variety's Film Reviews or alternatively downsize to the
Variety Portable Film Guide. --
David Vincent
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
A collection of over 5000 of the best film reviews "Variety" has published throughout its 80-year history. Ordered from A to Z by title, the reviews give details of directors, writers, cinematographers, music composers, editors, running time and main cast.
With an Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificate, you can get them what they want (even if you don't know what that is). 
Amazon Home
