Amazon.co.uk Review
This monster is quite simply the king of movie guides.
Halliwell's Film and Video Guide 2000 contains more than 23,000 entries, creating a competition for space that allows most films a 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 stocking filler--movies must earn each star awarded. Four stars go only to groundbreaking masterpieces like
Rashomon, and one can flip for pages 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's a must-have for movie lovers. --
Ali Davis, Amazon.com
Empire
The indispensable reference guide for the avid moviegoers bookshelf
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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