Customer Reviews

2006 Movie Guide (Zagat Survey: Movie Guide)

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This guide is deceptively convenient and easy-to-read.

It's major problem is with the people surveyed for the movie reviews. With overuse of words like "kitschy", "Mensch", and "elegiac", as well as a disproportionate number of the 2,500 or so reviews involving arthouse documentaries and Woody Allen movies, this guide is best-suited for people who believe the Pacific Ocean is two blocks west of Madison Square Garden.

Leonard Maltin's Guide has eight times the number of movies covered --- for 40% less money.

Although Zagat's Movie Guide is short and not entirely complete, it is easy to take along when attempting to pick out a rental movie. There is a lot of information in the guide and it is very quick and easy to use. It is perfect for my purposes even though it is small.

I have several behemoth movie guides, but Zagat has its own advantages. The indexing of the movies is terrific: things like best movies by director, decade and genre. (Maltin until the latest edition had no director's index! Hello?)

Then too, its shorter movie list allows me to page through and see movies I want to buy. (Try that with the big Martin or Maltin guides. Impossible.)

So while Zagat is not comprehensive, it is very useful.

And read up on how you can be part of the Zagat survey. (I don't know how you could be a reviewer in those bigger books.)