Customers don't count
Unfortunately, I bought the e-book before the previous review was posted. There was not even an attempt to clean up after the scanning. There are multiple errors on every page. Usable, but highly irritating as a reference book. All pages seem to have errors - I stopped counting after 15 on one page alone! This standard would be totally unreadable for anything other than a reference. It makes me seriously question the author's concern for accuracy and competence in the reviews themselves.
Poor OCR
This is not a review of the book itself but of the eBook format. The book was obviously scanned into eBook format and the text conversion was poor - many strange characters in the text.
Unusable on a Pocket PC
I've used the paper edition of this book for longer than I can remember. It has gotten so big that looking up a title is time-consuming, so I welcomed the idea of instant access through the wonders of electronics. Hah!
After the painful rigamarole of installation, including updating and "activating" MS Reader, the ebook was a real disappointment. Although the type was clear on my Toshiba e310, searching for a specific title was cumbersome, slow, and error-prone. The user must open a drop-down menu and select "cover page", as the title search can only be done from a box marked "lookup definition" on the cover page. And you must enter the title exactly as found in the book (e.g., "sting, the") and if you get it wrong, it clears the box so you must reenter the entire title again.
A large number of pages were *un*intentionally blank.
But worst of all, it often locked up my previously stable PDA, requiring a hard reset (including reloading all programs and data). The last time it did that, I didn't bother reloading the ebook again.
As Amazon has a policy against returning ebooks, don't even try it! In paper, Maltin is *****, but on a Pocket PC, it is unusable.
Best of the capsule movie guides
There a lot of books on the market that have attempted to duplicate the success of Leonard Maltin's annual guide, but this one remains the most thorough and convenient. Rather than classify films according to genre as some of his competitors do (Where would you look for "Dr. Strangelove"? In Drama? Sci-fi?), the titles are arranged alphabetically making the search for a particular film fairly easy. The information provided (year of release, running time, cast, director, availability on DVD and video) is all relevant and useful. Certainly, this book has its faults. The ratings are sometimes inconsistent, with some films mysteriously rising to three stars from one-and-a-half in a previous volume, and Maltin (or his co-writers) have their own tastes which may or may not reflect yours, mine, or the majority of his readers. Still, the capsule reviews are often witty, and whether or not you agree with the ratings, there is just enough pertinent information about thousands (and thousands and thousands) of movies to make it the most useful of these reference guides.
My only complaint is that though each year's edition is larger than the last, a lot of older films are tossed out to make room for the new. Some of the extras added in the last decade (the list of actor and director credits at the end of the book) should be eliminated instead. A complete list of films by a particular star or director can be found in other sources, and is not essential here.
Still, as a handy, easy to consult reference, Maltin's Movie and Video Guide serves its purpose very well.
An absolutely indispensable reference
I have been buying the Leonard Martin's Movie and Video Guide for at least 10 years now. I find it an absolutely indispensable reference and the latest version is no exception. I like the style of rating from 4 stars right down to BOMB and more often than not I share the opinions of the reviewers. I admire the no-nonsense layout, constant for every film, and I think a good balance on content over presentation is maintained. I would love that every film ever produced could be included but you would probably be looking at a 3-volume version if that were the case. I long for the day that can be achieved with a DVD-Rom version release and sadly miss the Microsoft Cinemania effort.
(49 reviews)