It’s the most widely read movie guide of all time!
It weighs two pounds, it has 1,612 pages – and it’s the end of an era!
Here’s what CNN is reporting: “Leonard Maltin was 18 when the first edition of his “Movie Guide” came out in 1969. Forty-five years later, the book — a well-thumbed totem as familiar on film fans’ coffee tables as a bowl of popcorn or a stained drink coaster — will soon be no more. The 2015 edition, just released, will be the last.
Maltin wishes he didn’t have to end its run, he said in a phone interview. But the writing is on the wall.
“I saw it coming a couple years ago,” said Maltin, 63. “There were pretty consistent strong sales for many, many years, and that started to change. It came as kind of a jolt.”
The internet has made the book obsolete. Which is really a shame, as it is a joy to read and have at the ready when channel surfing for something to watch.
Year after year, you could depend on another edition of Maltin’s guide, and it just keeps getting better. Some highlights from the latest edition:
The first review is for “Aaron Loves Angela”, a three-star effort starring Irene Cara that is, to quote the guide, an “OK combination of comedy, drama, violence and Jose Feliciano’s music!”
On page 1,611 sits the last review, for “Zu Warriors”, the 2001 Hong Kong/Chinese kung fu epic, which Maltin calls “visually sumptuous but dramatically muddled” and gives two stars.
In between are almost 16,000 movie reviews – movies you love, movies you hate, and a LOT of movies you’ve never heard of – like this one!
“P.S. Your Cat Is Dead!” With Steve Guttenberg!
Well, you don’t EVER have to watch this one-and-a-half star effort…just read Maltin’s quick review:
“Claustrophobic, one-set film features stereotypes that seem badly dated. The only character we can work up any sympathy for is the cat, which is never seen!”
Here are another gem starring legendary Actors Richard Burton and Lee Marvin:
It’s “The Klansman” – one of those few classics reviewed in the book that actually is listed as “BOMB”. Here is why: Maltin says it’s a “thoroughly trashy racial melodrama”, and boy is it ever!
If you want to read more about one of the most misguided race movies ever made, click on my story here to read about this classic piece of 70’s trash:
As much fun as these reviews are to read, even Maltin makes classic mistakes: listen to how much he hates a film that he gives a two-star review:
“To us, this gory, cold-blooded story of sick man’s lurid descent into violence is ugly and unredeeming.”
And he’s referring to the brilliant “Taxi Driver!”
Now that is a BIG mistake! Usually he is much more accurate, like this 4-star review of my second favorite film of all time:
“Mammoth allegory with surrealistic flavor about young coffee salesman who pushes his way to the top only to fall and rise again.”
That is for “O Lucky Man!”
Read all about this incredible movie, and find out about the “Seinfeld” connection, by clicking here:
https://johnrieber.com/2013/03/22/o-lucky-man-malcolm-mcdowells-seinfeld-connection/
So thanks Leonard Maltin for all of your years of passion for movies…I will wear this book out reading all of your 16,000 reviews!
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