Amazon.co.uk Review
This monster is quite simply the king of movie guides.
Halliwell's Film and Video Guide 2001 contains more than 23,000 entries, creating a competition for space that allows most films only a quick-and-dirty single sentence review. Which is not to say that the book is in any way less than thorough--the terse sentences manage to be enormously telling: (
How I Got into College is quietly damned with the description, "Mildly amusing teenage comedy";
Rabbit Test is scorched with "Dreary and tasteless film, the nadir of comedy"; and
Strictly Ballroom is lauded with "Exuberant, charming, witty romance acted and directed with style and verve".) As its tendency toward clipped writing may suggest, Halliwell's is no Santa Claus film guide--movies must earn each star awarded. Four stars go only to groundbreaking masterpieces like
Rashomon, and one can flip through page after page without seeing a three-star movie. Most of the two-star films are pretty good, just not quite up to this guide's refreshingly exacting standards. For those who want only the best,
Halliwell's handily provides lists of three- and four-star films, sorted by both title and year, in the back. One could get an excellent film education simply by working through both lists: the four-star category includes movies as diverse as
Pelle the Conqueror,
Alien and
Duck Soup.
Halliwell's pulls no punches with either criticism or praise. It is a must-have for movie lovers. --
Ali Davis
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Amazon.co.uk Review
Halliwell's Film and Video Guide gets better with each passing year. Though original editor Leslie Halliwell died in 1989, John Walker has continued to edit the book in the Halliwell tradition. Halliwell and Walker don't comment at length upon the films, but they provide an enormous amount of indispensable information. This tome contains more than 20,000 movie reviews and provides a full list of credits for each. Running time, director, cast, and availability on video are documented, as well as the writer, photographer, studio, country of origin, film editor, production designer, and composer of music. The authors also note whether the film is suitable for family viewing and tell if it was nominated for, or if it won, an Oscar or a British Academy of Film and Television Arts award. If a film contains classic lines of dialogue, or received particularly interesting comments from the critics, Halliwell and Walker are sure to transcribe them.
Halliwell's Film and Video Guide is a treasure no movie lover will want to be without.
by Leslie Halliwell
by Leslie Halliwell
by John Walker
by Leslie Halliwell
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