Halliwell’s Filmgoer’s Companion - Softcover

4.15

39 ratings by Goodreads

9780002557986: Halliwell’s Filmgoer’s Companion

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0002557983 ISBN 13: 9780002557986

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1997

This volume contains biographical profiles of actors and actresses, directors, producers, editors and notes on major studios, foreign cinema, cinematic themes and definitions of technical terms. This new edition also features a history of the cinema from 1894 to 1997.

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Review:

This monster is quite simply the king of movie guides. Halliwell's Film and Video Guide 2001 contains more than 23,000 entries, creating a competition for space that allows most films only a quick-and-dirty single sentence review. Which is not to say that the book is in any way less than thorough--the terse sentences manage to be enormously telling: (How I Got into College is quietly damned with the description, "Mildly amusing teenage comedy"; Rabbit Test is scorched with "Dreary and tasteless film, the nadir of comedy"; and Strictly Ballroom is lauded with "Exuberant, charming, witty romance acted and directed with style and verve".) As its tendency toward clipped writing may suggest, Halliwell's is no Santa Claus film guide--movies must earn each star awarded. Four stars go only to groundbreaking masterpieces like Rashomon, and one can flip through page after page without seeing a three-star movie. Most of the two-star films are pretty good, just not quite up to this guide's refreshingly exacting standards. For those who want only the best, Halliwell's handily provides lists of three- and four-star films, sorted by both title and year, in the back. One could get an excellent film education simply by working through both lists: the four-star category includes movies as diverse as Pelle the Conqueror, Alien and Duck Soup. Halliwell's pulls no punches with either criticism or praise. It is a must-have for movie lovers. --Ali Davis

Review:

Praise for Halliwell’s Who’s Who in the Movies:

“At the end of the day, Halliwell is top of the pile”
Film Review, 7/99

‘The King Kong of movie reference works’
Mail on Sunday

‘The indispensable reference guide for the avid moviegoer’s bookshelf’
Empire

‘Often imitated, never bettered’
The Guardian

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