The Scarecrow Video Movie Guide

I bought this book about two months ago and I've kept it close by ever since. It never claims to be a complete guide to every movie ever made (there are plenty of those around). Dip in on any page and you'll still be reading 20 minutes later. Frustrating? Sometimes. Opinionated? Quite often. It's all part of the fun! It's like walking into the world's greatest video store (go figure!)where you'll fall in love with some of the staff's recommendations and occasionally howl in anguish at some of them too. Pretty much like what happens when I talk movies with the other movie geeks at work! That's how this book should be taken, a bunch of people who really love movies (pretty good qualifications as far as I'm concerned) who want to let you know about a huge bunch of movies they like (or hate). I guarantee dozens of new discoveries that slipped by when reading the other guides. So by all means buy the "complete" guides (and see if you agree with all THEIR reviews) and get this one too. Read them often and above all watch movies!! Oh and by the way, Mimi Noyes ROCKS!

Fantastic, obscure, wildly entertaining...the only complaint i have is that not all the films in the store are reviewed in here...

Uh, this is actually a very easy to use book - though i suppose having a brain might help a little - what's wrong with using the index? Every film reviewed is listed by title in alphabetical order along with its respective page number . . . flip to the page in question, and VIOLA!! Simple, efficient, and about as remedial as it gets . . . AND the contents of the book are fantastic - an extremely broad and eclectic array of films are covered, all reviewed with pith and wit, blessedly without the stale academic dictionary approach of so many other movie guides. The arrangement is unique, simple, and clever: how many times have you been in the video store not looking for anything in particular, but with a general idea what TYPE of movie you want? Well, next time, before you even leave the house, you can just open to section corresponding with your desired film-type and scan through it, picking out a few possible promising-looking titles to search for once you get to the rental spot. Be warned however, this is NOT a comprehensive movie guide, nor is it meant to be - there are some really blatant ommissions. But at the same time there is such an awesome wealth of classical knowledge combined with esoterica in here that one is virtually guaranteed a plethora of great and enlightening cinematic discoveries for years and years to come. This is GENUINE film scholarship compiled by true film buffs who clearly love and enjoy turning others onto good movies. I couldn't recomend it more!!

They claim it was it was a 1981 film (it was a 1980 one). That Al Pacino was too busy doing The Godfather to appear in it. Huh? Pacino played Michael Corleone in 1974's The Godfather Part 2 and didn't play him again until 1990's The Godfather Part 3. How was Pacino too busy with The Godfather to play in HG in the late 70's early 80's? Also, the movie claims Robert DeNiro was too busy to appear in what became the Kris Kristofferson role in HG. Ok but he book claims getting KK for this role was the thing that hurt HG the most. This is mostly wrong as an analysis. DeNiro isn't much suited for westerns. Kristofferson with his countryboy way was better suited for it. Also, the problem with HG was the badly photographed and terribly edited sequeances and terribly written screenplay by (also) director Michael Cimino, having DeNiro in the lead would not have helped one bit in fact it would have just hurt the film more.

The Greatest Video Store in the World has released THE SCARECROW VIDEO MOVIE GUIDE. The Scarecrow Video Store is a true mecca for movie lovers located in Seattle Washington's University District. This 808 page celebration of film is written by the friends and workers of the store. They bring to the concept of Movie Guide Books exactly what they bring to Video Store--obsessive passionate iconiclastic eclectisism. After an introduction the book starts with a section on 14 Chapters categorize the movies in a unique way. In Chapter 1: DIRECTORS you'll find movies listed according to the last names of the fine folks who directed them. So this section starts out with 3 movies by drive in trash maestro, Al Adamson: Black Heat, Mean Mother and Satan's Sadists. No, they don't include all of Adamson's film (and skip over perhaps his best known Dracula Versus Frankenstein) but the idea seems to be to travel down roads not as well traveled as other movie guidebooks. So what movies do they include of Woody and Altman and Richard Lester and Herschell Gordon Lewis? Who did they leave out of the director's section that they should have in there (Doris Wishman, Richard Rush, Ted V. Mikels perhaps?) Then there's 13 more chapters and you get nearly 4,000 capsule reviews from a variety of perspectives and some mini-essays on diverse filmmakers from Anthony Mann, and Les Blanc to Silent Film-maker Nell Shipman. There's bonus lists like 'Movies We Wish Were on DVD', 'The Most Depressing Movies Ever Made' and 'Best Musical Documentaries Ever Made.' If you're confused by how this book is organized there are 3 indexes that will help sort it out for you. Also readable is what amounts to the Scarecrow Video Store story which opens the book. George Latsios (and Rebecca) started the world famous store with little more than George's passionate obsession with movies both very good and very bad. They built a remarkable rentable collection that includes many impossible to find treasures. Brain cancer took George from us, but there were two saviors who wanted to preserve and take further what George did with Scarecrow Video. Do I really believe that a Movie Guide book that actually features a good review for the awful Bond movie A VIEW TO A KILL can possibly be worth buying and treasuring. Yes, I sure do. The capsule reviews are not written by professionals but by a large group of knowledgeable movie nuts, most of who work, or use to work, at Scarecrow Video Store. You see most of us who are likely to read from cover to cover a movie guide like this already know that A View to a Kill is the last Roger Moore Bond movie and it feels so tired and forced that even Christopher Walken's somewhat restrained performance and Grace Jones' outrageous fashion can't help overcome how awful the film is or how annoying Tanya Roberts and her many many "Oh James" exclamations truly are. So the review really sticks out as something so completely wrong