Time Out Film Guide, 13th Edition [Paperback]

John Pym (Editor), Geoff Andrew (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 2004 | Series: Time Out Film Guide

The Time Out Film Guide contains over 15,800 film reviews assembled over 37 years and written by a team of over 230 sharp, knowledgeable critics. These reviews are drawn from the full spectrum of cinema history: Russian silents to Ealing comedies, classic documentaries to Japanese anime, poverty row B-movies to Hollywood blockbusters. Each review is headed by the film's chief technical credits, country of origin, running time, colour code, copyright year and cast list. In addition, icons identify the top 100 films named in both readers' and Cinema Centenary polls. Twenty-one appendices classify by category and country, while comprehensive indices identify the works of every director covered in the guide and those of a selection of significant actors. Features new to the twelfth edition are present here again. These include colour tabs throughout to aid navigation, more colour illustrations, and the inclusion of 100 new cinefile boxes, containing pictures and more indepth reviews of classic films.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

A film reference book with a distinctly British flavor, the Time Out Film Guide is a collection of capsule reviews written originally for the London magazine Time Out. Its commentary is more lengthy and detailed than that of most other guides, and while some of its critics summarize too much of their movies' plots, their critical remarks are engaging and provocative. The Time Out Film Guide features contributions from scores of movie critics who sometimes spar with one another: compare the book's two assessments of Blade Runner. The reviewers cover many European and Asian movies you won't find in other movie guides. This is the only film book where you can find remarks on Casablanca, Gone with the Wind, and Forrest Gump alongside reviews of major films not widely released in America, such as Samuel Beckett and Buster Keaton's Film, Akira Kurosawa's Madadayo, and Michelangelo Antonioni's Identification of a Woman. The Time Out Film Guide also contains a great number of terrific appendices and indices. In fact, it is this book's lists of films by genre, by major film-producing country, by actor, director, and general subject that make it a necessary reference tool for movie lovers. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"'Bow down and worship at the altar of Time Out's Film Guide... head and shoulders above the rest of its class.' Total Film; 'The best guide for cinephiles - 1,500 pages of lively and erudite opinion.' Observer"

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Product Details

• Paperback: 1707 pages
• Publisher: Time Out Guides; 13th Rev edition (November 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1904978215
• ISBN-13: 978-1904978213
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 7.3 x 2.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,495,654 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 13,300 MOVIES, April 14, 2001

By 

MOVIE MAVEN (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Time Out Film Guide, 9th Edition (Paperback)

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.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars They don't rate them but ..., December 29, 2000

By 

Dan Balogh (New Jersey, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Time Out Film Guide, 9th Edition (Paperback)

This film guide is packed with witty, engaging and wonderfully analytical writing by some of London's most capable film critics. Each film is presented with a short, terse description (larger than those given by Halliwell/Walker and Maltin, but shorter than Ebert's for instance) written by one of over 200 contributors -- the good thing about having so many disparate voices is that readers are bound to find one or two with whom they really connect, those critics that share their preferences in more ways than not. My own favorite, for instance, is Geoff Andrew, one of the few critics I've seen that admires Malick's "The Thin Red Line" for the masterpiece that it is.

One thing that may put off some readers is the lack of star ratings given to certain films. This is not necessarily a bad thing since it forces readers to read the passages instead of relying on the short-hand rating that can't capture subtle nuances about a critic's opinion of a film.

The book also has comprehensive indices where films are listed by actors, directors, genres, etc. Another bonus is the Critics and Readers poll results which lists the favorite 100 films of all time from both groups.

There's no denying that this is a terffic book for casual flipping as well as serious research. It's surely a keeper!

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best film/video guide--no question, February 6, 2002

By 

Michael Steinberg (Rochester, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Time Out Film Guide, 10th Edition (Paperback)

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.