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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Wish There Was an Another Guide to Independent Film, September 19, 1999
By A Customer
Read through some of the reviews in this book before you buy it!!! There are a number of things about this guide that are disappointing, so it's all the more pity that it seems to be the only published collection on independent films. (Let me preface my complaints by saying that, as with all film guides, the degree to which your taste lines up with the writer's makes a huge difference. Perhaps if I found this guide to be more consistent with my own taste, the other issues would not have bothered me so much.) Aside from the author's taste, here are some things about the guide that might bother you. First, although the guide uses a rating system (from 4 "bones" [good] to a "woof" [bad]); you might be surprised, however, at how often the author will devote half a page describing a "woof" of a movie, and a mere few sentences describing a "four bone" film. Second, although there are a number of useful appendices (films listed by director, cast member, category), there is no listing by rating; you'd think if they bother to rank films according to their bones system, at least they'd give us the chance to flip to the back and see a listing of what the author considers the best independent films. Third, the author certainly knows film history, but it's annoying to have her rambling non-sequiters take the place of description or evaluation of a film (example: the entire "review" of "La Femme Nikita" is devoted to a tirade about how the American version of the film is a rip-off -- and how the tv series continues this corruption. Even if you agree with her, as I do, you may wish she at least described the orignal movie for those who have never seen it -- and gave some sense of what is interesting about it.) Fourth, the physical format of the book is annoying; it is larger and "floppier" than other guides (such as the Time Out guide) and quite unwieldy (you won't find it is easy to sit and read, let alone carry into your video store). Fifth, since Video Hound also publishes a companion guide to World Cinema, and since it's not clear what criteria are being used to include "foreign" (ie, non-English language) films in the current guide (the fact they are foreign? or famous? or the reviewer has seen them?), it's somewhat frustrating that there are a number of foreign films listed in this Independent Film Guide -- rather than more unknown or little-known indies.
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by The New York Times
by Mike Mayo
