time Out Film Guide, Sixth Edition

 (19 customer reviews)

OK: first things first. What this book is NOT. This book is NOT one of those volumes filled with 1-4 stars which rate each movie and let us know which is available on DVD. It is also NOT one of those volumes written by a cheesy, so-called critic who, simply because he's got good hair, is allowed to put thumbs up or down on movies and plays for your local tv station.What IS it? It is the 9th edition of a 1500+ page, soft-covered film guide written by more than 200 British film critics. "Time Out," itself, is the best guide to what's playing and what's happening in London (and, more recently, New York City). This weekly magazine includes film reviews and the "Time Out Film Guide" is the latest collection of those reviews.The movies are listed alphabetically, but at the end of the book we are treated to a list of "Time Out's" readers' top 100 favorites, obituaries for the year 1999-2000, and a section on how to find movies on the web. There...Read more

This film guide is packed with witty, engaging and wonderfully analytical writing by some of London's most capable film critics. Each film is presented with a short, terse description (larger than those given by Halliwell/Walker and Maltin, but shorter than Ebert's for instance) written by one of over 200 contributors -- the good thing about having so many disparate voices is that readers are bound to find one or two with whom they really connect, those critics that share their preferences in more ways than not. My own favorite, for instance, is Geoff Andrew, one of the few critics I've seen that admires Malick's "The Thin Red Line" for the masterpiece that it is.One thing that may put off some readers is the lack of star ratings given to certain films. This is not necessarily a bad thing since it forces readers to read the passages instead of relying on the short-hand rating that can't capture subtle nuances about a critic's opinion of a film.The book also has...Read more

I don't want to criticize Leonard Maltin, who's a bright guy with good taste by and large; but this is the film book to buy if you have to buy only one. The English critics for Time Out cover a huge range, including work that has barely made it out of the festival circuit but which richly repays attention--Hou Hsiao Hsien's films, for example, the new Korean cinema, American indies like "George Washington" and the lesser-known Iranian offerings. There were odd omissions in the ninth edition--lots of mediocre Disney, usually overpraised, and nothing at all from Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli; Hollywood treasures like "The Good Fairy" left out; but that's to be expected in any reference book. And the comments are sometimes a bit boosterish and sometimes a little churlish, but generally they're on the money. Compulsively readable, and essential next to the DVD player or digital cable.