Time Out Film Guide

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.

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.

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 are also 15 appendices grouping films by type. i.e. horror movies, musicals, swashbucklers, etc. And then, along with several other indexes, one that I've not seen in any other periodical or bound collection: it is a general subject index. Interested in finding a film that was adapted from the works of Bertolt Brecht or movies that feature the British Museum, a list of Israeli, Iranian or Indian films, or perhaps you need to find movies about child prodigies---this is your source.In all, 13,300 movies are reviewed, with very strong coverage of independents and international films. And it weighs less than my cat. Highly recommended.

Head and shoulders above all the other guides in the market containing informed reviewing in classic Time Out fashion. The wit and style deployed in the sometimes caustic reviews and the sheer volume of information and trivia also makes for fascinating browsing. Beware, not for the faint hearted as this book takes to task those weaned on quick reference film guides using dog bones/stars etc as rating systems.

The market is awash with film guides but Time Out excels in bringing us concise, informative and often amusing reviews, in a dry British tone and from a fantastic range of films. Far more European film content that your average American guide. I couldn't dream of picking up one of those pulp fiction film guides, which clog the bookshelves of the world, after buying my first copy of the Time Out Film Guide. Mikael Colville-Andersen European screenwriter