| Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide | |
|---|---|
Cover of the 2010 edition |
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| Author(s) | Leonard Maltin |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject(s) | Film reviews, synopses |
Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide is a book-format collection of movie capsule reviews that began in 1969 and has been updated yearly since 1978. It was originally called TV Movies, which became Leonard Maltin's TV Movies and Video Guide, which then became Leonard Maltin's Movie and Video Guide. Leonard Maltin edits it and contributes a large portion of its reviews.
Contents |
The book uses a four star rating system. The lowest rating is "BOMB," followed by one and a half stars, rising in half-star increments to a maximum of four stars. Another notable feature is that each review includes a reference to the source material for the film if it is based on previously published material. Films are listed alphabetically letter-by-letter, with articles ignored and transposed to the end of the title.
The Guide is notable for containing what the Guinness Book of World Records calls the world's shortest movie review. His 2 out of 4 star review of the 1948 musical Isn't It Romantic? consists of the word "No".[1] Another very short review concerns the film Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed where he writes, "It is what it is."
In 2005, logistical problems of a single book prompted him to launch a companion volume, Leonard Maltin's Classic Movie Guide, restricted to films from 1960 and earlier, several of which no longer appear in the annual publication (some had been deleted over the years to make room for newer films, others removed at this point because the additional venue allowed it) and many others that never had. The latter category includes the "complete" (according to Maltin's introduction) Saturday matinee cowboy programmers of John Wayne, William "Hopalong Cassidy" Boyd, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers.
Similar books include Movies on TV, by Steven H. Scheuer, Halliwell's Film Guide, by Leslie Halliwell, and The Good Film and Video Guide, by David Shipman. Scheuer's guide was the first published, in 1958, preceding Maltin's by ten years. His book was challenged at a library in Canada in 2009.
The mobile application version of the guide was released, in 2009, to the App Store[2].