Time Out Film Guide, 14th Edition, 2006

Comment: I have about five or six film and video guides I consistently use for reference, and the Time Out Film Guide is certainly one of the better ones and among the most interesting. I would not recommend it for someone just looking for one all-purpose guide because it's fairly quirky. It spotlights fairly obscure actors or films (and not always good ones either--they feel obligated to highlight interesting weak films as well as strong ones), and its biases can take some getting used to, especially if you're not from the UK. (The editors' marked prejudices and beliefs about Americans are often hilarious, and only sometimes intentionally.) But the reviews are written with intelligence and care, and are never bland, and the series of lists at the back of the book (filmographies for various important directors and actors, and lists of films grouped around key themes) are very handy.

Comment: This book was purchased to replace an older (different) movie review guide. It was highly recommended, and that was the reason I purchased it. Over time, there has been occasion to look up movies for background, obscure actors, etc. This book is a poor guide for movies. Many of the movies I looked up (Waterhole # 3 Comes to mind) was not even listed. The actor (James Colburn - star of Waterhole # 3) was not listed either. One of my favorite movies was "trashed" (The Sound of Music). This book reeks of elitism. This appears to make judgements on the reader based on a belittlement of their likes and dislikes. If I had a bird, I wouldn't tear this apart to line the bottom of the cage. Other than that, it has a style, just not MY style.

Comment: Well-established and reliable publication on world movies with a London outlook -- nice!

Comment: I just got this edition from Amazon a couple of weeks ago. For starters, I've been looking up favorite movies that I know extremely well. It seems like every 3rd or 4th review in this guide flat-out gives away either the film's ending or a crucial plot twist! Very strange, and completely bogus IMO. It leaves me confused and disgruntled.

I thought I understood the English national character pretty well, but what's up with these London reviewers? Do their British readers really tolerate, much less appreciate, having the thrill of mystery and discovery just stolen away?

As we all know, here in the US it's taboo to ruin the narrative surprise in any kind of review, unless one explicitly puts a "warning-- spoilers below!" comment in first. Obviously, I support this taboo, and for whatever reason, the Time Out film guide editors have decided to flout it. Their bizarre lack of sympathy for the reader's feelings is simply inappropriate IMO for a film guide, so I rate this work only 2 stars.

Comment: Of the various phonebook-sized film-review databases this is the one I prefer. The plusses are:

1) the reviews are brief but usually actually say something useful & entertaining--for single-paragraph essays they pack a punch. There's a healthy leavening of wit (one reviewer refers to _The Good Earth_ as "The Lychees of Wrath"; another remarks that _Labyrinth_ is notably for "David Bowie's saddest ever haircut (no mean achievement)") but also some serious commentary, & the summaries are almost always accurate & don't reveal too much of the plot. Some of the pans are hilarious (I particularly appreciated the skilful demolition job on _Sammy and Rosie Get Laid_--I've seen it & everything they say is true)

2) there are thoughtful one-page feature essays about various films, some of them reappraisals of famous films but others appreciations of undeservedly little-known ones.

3) the credits are relatively full, listing (among other things) all major cast members & even the composer of the score.

4) while its coverage is inevitably incomplete (especially of films before the 1970s) for the most part it's pretty thorough, with a fair bit of space devoted to foreign films & (inevitably) a lot of reviews of British films (though the coverage of these is by no means boosterish--there's no-one harder on British films than British film critics!).


There are a few flaws, admittedly. The worst is that while the index of directors is pretty complete, the index of actors is woefully inadequate, as it only covers a very limited range of (star) actors. If you want to track down, say, films with Thelma Ritter or Esther Williams or William Bendix, you'll need a biographically-organized referencebook like Katz or Thomson. There are inevitable inconsistencies resulting from the book's being compiled by countless critics over many years: films may be referred to positively in one spot while panned in another, & sometimes it's pretty obvious the entry hasn't been updated since the film was reviewed upon its first release. Still, the inconsistencies are actually surprisingly rare--it's generally fairly reliable. Some of the omissions are a bit arbitrary--on a recent flipthrough I noted the absence of _My Neighbor Totoro_, _Pride of the Yankees_, a raft of Shirley Temple films, any version of _Treasure Island_ prior to the 1970s, &c.--but, well, that's always going to happen with omnibus film guides.