Movies Books

As I have seen Peter David mention in writing online, the problem with doing novelisations is that if the source material is very stinky, then there isn't too much you can do about it.

While this story isn't as bad as one of the Swamp Thing movies, it isn't too flash, either, descending more towards some of the later Batman movies than the earlier examples of those, or Spider-Man itself.

Throwing in multiple villains gives not much time to any of them, particularly when large chunks of this story are taken up with overly mawkish and extended scenes with angsty drama queens (literally), and well-meaning aunts, making the third Spider-Man book somewhat duller than the others, and certainly not as interesting as some of the novels David has managed.

It certainly doesn't help from the start when, let alone having a prologue, it is several pages, all in italics! Recipe for making my eyes glaze over, that.

Some of the book is nifty - the Sandman origin scene, and the bit with Curt Connors are more interesting in the prose version.

On the whole though, this is basically ordinary.

I'm a newbie Spiderman fan, but I can honestly say that ever since I saw the first Spiderman movie I've been hooked. The sequal actually topped the first one which suprised me and kept me rooting for a third film. After seeing the movie at the cinema I was going nuts trying to find different ways to wait for the movie to come out on DVD. I then remembered that every major motion picture usually has a novel attached to it. Happily I found Spiderman 3: the novel based off the movie. This had to be one of the best finds on Amazon I'd come across, I couldn't put the book down (it was very hard to tear away from it for class). I read it in a matter of weeks but kept going back to read over the chapters, needless to say the book held my interest and still holds it. I think I'll give it another read after I'm done reading my English homework.

PS: I recommend this to any Spidy fan who liked the film, although even if you didn't like the movie perhaps the book would be satisfying enough to your Spidersenses.

Pick this book up if you were dissapointed with the movie or if you liked the movie the book explains soo much more and it gives you a way better understanding of what's going on with everyone... you also get a little bit more of venom if your a venom fan, and there's a lot more to the symbiote and the black suit spidey, get this book you will not be dissapointed!

Great adventure story which should make for another good movie. As for comic book continuity, it is missing the mark on a couple of points, but ALL the comic movies seem to be doing the same. Doesn't detract from a good storyline or action packed movie.

As a Spider-man fan, the movies have always disappointed me because they are not accurate enough to the characters. Enter Peter David, He gratefully takes a so-so Spider-man story and injects it with the "Spideyness" the movies were lacking. (and yes I just used the word "Spideyness" but I'm a Spider-man fan, so I can do that) This Novel is no exception. He fills in the gaps the movie left behind and even manages to make the movie's depressing ending feel more triumphant. A must read for any Spider-man fan who felt the movie was not up to par. AKA: almost everyone. So after that stirring review you may wonder why not five stars? Until he gets the black costume the story is too close a retelling for me and just like in the movie theater I found myself slightly bored. It's too bad he didn't have more to work with, because it could have been...well...Amazing.

The funniest random comment from Roger Corman in this book related to the use of stock footage: Corman mentioned that when he was filming the Edgar Allan Poe series (Poe was popular since all of his tales were in public domain)that nobody associated with the productions ever envisioned the home video market would permit film students and others to analyze the films on a frame by frame basis! One oft used fire sequence was economically obtained when Corman paid the owner of a barn, who had obtained a burning permit to demolish the dilphidated structure, a few dollars to photograph the razing of the barn. The collapsing rafters from the flaming roof appeared in film after film.

Roger Corman managed to learn enough about filmmaking to become a profitable commodity. He avoided the major studios with one exception: "The St. Valentine's Day Massacre." This celebrated cult film was shot on the backlot of 20th Century Fox and featured just about every heavy and extra who had ever appeared on the television series "The Untouchables." Corman was foiled in his bid to cast Orson Welles as Al Capone. Studio executives feared that Welles would wrest control of the film away from Corman and begin directing the movie. Fox contract player Jason Robards, who was to have played Bugs Moran, was quickly recast as a malnourished Scarface, and Ralph Meeker was substituted as Moran. Corman regulars, Jack Nicholson, Dick Miller and Bruce Dern can also be glimpsed in the finished film. This cult favorite was the closest that Corman ever came to the Hollywood mainstream.

Corman was steadily employed as a cost conscious producer and director who got most of his projects completed on time and under budget. He was an advocate of getting every last dollar's worth of production values up on the screen. The sole exception was "The Intruder." This civil rights message picture about a bigoted political agitator was the only Corman film to lose money in its initial release.

Roger Corman's greatest legacy may well be the number of actors and directors who launched their celebrated careers in his B minus films. This book is an amusing diversion, but like many of Corman's drive-in quickies it is not too deep in terms of its analysis.

An interesting if not biased look at the life (and art?) of Roger Corman. Essential reading for low-budget filmmaking.

I'm not sure of how I happened upon this biography, but I'm glad I did. I'm not particularly a Roger Corman fan, having seen perhaps three or four of his films without really noticing that Corman had a part in their making.

Corman's life is interesting. Not only was he probably the most successful independent filmaker in history, he was also mentor and first-chance for many of today's leading producers, directors, writers and stars.

Remarkably down to earth and honest, Corman admits that his life has not been totally fulfilling: like many successful people, success is never enough - there's always one more challenge down the road and more than one challenge left unexplored in the past.

Corman engages in some, but not deep, analysis of his films, explains his evolving political philosophy and provides snippets that from another author might be construed as name-dropping. But Corman was there and it's his interactions with these people he's talking about, so it's not in the least obnoxious.

Above all, the value of Corman's book may not be to film buffs, but to business people, especially small scale entrepreneurs. Corman's management methods and his approach to filmaking were true nose-to-the-grindstone. He knew his market; he studied his market; he created his product to appeal to his market and he kept costs down to a minimum in order to reduce his risk of loss.

Quite a guy and his biography is worth the couple of hours it takes to read it.

Jerry

To this day, I haven't seen one Corman film I've liked. Still, this book is a nice look into the world of low-budget producing. It gave me the opportunity to truly understand my disdain for Corman and AIP.

Most of the book focuses on three or four of the productions Corman is most proud of. I would have preferred him spending additional time on his more obscure films. Teenage Caveman only gets a paragraph or two written about it.

A documentary would have been a more appropriate format for this material than a book. It would have been much shorter that way at the very least. Then again, Corman always had a knack for dragging things out in his films. Ever seen Swamp Diamonds?

The main theme of the book seems to be, "Yeah, Corman's films were bad, but he did pretty good for what he had." That doesn't take away the fact that they're bad films. Don't watch them unless you have a high threshold of pain.

i love this book. i love this man. i love what he has done with very little money and some big....imagination. i love women, cereal, movies, and water. and i love roger corman too.

cinemajohn
for
the jack e. jett show

My son lives in Italy and wanted this. Thanks for the speedy delivery of it so I could send it to him.

Easily one of the very best Stuart Woods books. This is an excellent read and well worth the price.

Really the story of greed, power and control and put in an excellent genre to understand what happens in Hollywood. It's rather a sad story because you can't help liking Michael Vincent, and you see his every mistake wishing he hadn't chosen that direction. But what a story! I enjoyed this book and the story of a brilliant man with no morals.

This book and the movie are the same story. I wonder if its the book that was used for the flic.

Credit must be given to the prolific Stuart Woods for pulling off a novel in which the entire cast is heinous and unlikeable. L.A. TIMES pulls it off beautifully. One can't help but get involved in Michael Vincent's rise to the top of Hollywood cream and his fall from grace too. Michael will stop at nothing to get what he wants and a lot of bodies pile up on his rise to the top. He's incapable of really loving anyone, only he loves his movies. Filled with glitz and a knowledge of both the Mafia and the mechanisms of Hollywood movie-making, LA TIMES is a quick read, and its ending, although somewhat unexpected leaves an impact. Would make a great movie!

A very enjoyable tome about one of the cinema's most bizarre, maligned and mis-understood genres. This comprehensive book has some insightful interviews with some of the key actors, producers & directors involved in the boom of Italian made zombie / cannibal films of the late 1970's through to the early 1990's. Definitely belongs on the bookshelf of any fan of the living dead !

( My only bone of contention - Author Jay Slater talks about the incredible shark vs. zombie sequence in Lucio Fulci's "ZOMBI" and remarks about the shark trainer dressed as a zombie working with a real shark in a tank. Whilst, I certainly was not involved in the making of the film, I can tell you there is no such thing as a "shark trainer" for tiger sharks such as the one shown in "ZOMBI". Training sharks is like herding cats...it cannot be done ! Furthermore, large predatory sharks such as tigers, great whites, bronze whalers etc. cannot tolerate being cooped up in tanks no matter how large. Within hours they begin stressing, and within days they get very ill and die. That's why you won't find large predatory sharks in any aquarium / ocean park in the world ( check it out for yourself ). I would suggest the shark was "caught" by sedating it in some fashion, and kept that way during a tight filming schedule within a natural reef area. Highly illegal now in most countries to interfere with endangered species of many sharks, but possibly acceptable behaviour amongst low budget, gung ho Italian film makers back in 1979 ! )

A great little companion for people just venturing into the Italian cannibal and zombie sub-genres. Loads of great scans of original poster artwork of classics like Anthropophagus The Beast, Zombie Holocaust, Zombie Flesh Eaters, etc. Some very good interviews (to the reviewer above, its Giovanni Lombardo Radice aka John Morghen, not Giovanni Rabisi). A very, very entertaining read for sure. If you're interested in more obscure and graphic sub-genres of horror, definately pick this up.

From the 1970s to the 1990s you get 264 pages of Italian moviemakers that produced the goriest exploitation films ever made, using recurring plot devices of cannibalism and putrefied zombie flesh eaters. Eaten Alive! dissects this outrageous period, setting it within its cultural and cinematic context. With an introduction explaining the origins of the gruesome genre, the book charts every bloody step, from the renowned Pasolini, who employed cannibalism as a satirical metaphor, to shocking "documentaries" such as Cannibal Holocaust, an acknowledged influence on The Blair Witch Project. Informed, irreverent contributions from legends of the modern horror scene round out this fascinating book.

This little book compiles articles about most of the Italian zombie & cannibal subgenres, as well as a couple of fringe items. Every movie has at least one review, and some also have interviews with directors, writers and actors like Jorge Grau, Claudio Fragasso and Catriona MacColl. The interviews are mostly quite good, but all are too short. I would especially have liked to hear more from Giovanni Ribisi, who starred in some of the most extreme of these movies (often the victim of the nastiest atrocities).

Some of the reviews are quite entertaining, but stylistically they're all over the map. Editor Jay Slater attempts to place the films in the context of the subgenres; Ramsey Campbell pokes giggly fun at some particularly pitiful entries; Donato Totaro attempts a more scholarly approach which is unfortunately beyond him; and most of the others just write standard movie reviews. Some essays may be reprints; David J. Schow's piece on Cat In the Brain also appeared as liner notes of a laserdisc edition.

Several essays do stand out. Lloyd Kaufman takes the brave approach of defending the animal cruelty scenes in Cannibal Holocaust, invoking Pudovkin without seeming pretentious; Ribisi's caustic review of Lost Cannibal World is fascinating; dubbng director Nick Alexander gives a brief account of working on Fulci's Zombie 2; and Campbell's pieces are genuinely funny.

The problem is the general lack of cohesiveness. These linked sub-genres deserve to be properly documented in book form, with an exhaustive examination of the roots and development of this unique corner of world cinema.

I have a many Amazon Bro's/Sis's. And they have been
very helpful helping me expand my fav.hobby HORROR!!!!!
This year I have found out about so many films I did
not know. Films like DUST DEVIL or FUNNY GAMES!
Movies like BEYOND the Darkness and PROWLER!
So I thought I try to give back. By doing a review
on this wonderful book especially for HALLOWEEN.
EATEN ALIVE should be in any GORE hounds house this
book really is fascinating on the Italian GORE genre.
And talks about Directors like Argento(just a Lil on him
but had to mention him first!) Lenzi,D'AMATO,FULCHI and
of course SIR DEODATO. Even if these movies are not your
taste(sic) I still think you will enjoy. For the expert
in this genre of HORROR you may be disappointed for it
may contain stuff you already know. For me it is quite
knowledgeable for if not for a Bro. of mine I would never
have known the movies of D'Amato and this tells a lot
on him. BUY THIS BOOK....C'MON "DIG IN"

An improvement on the last book, this set of stories is bookended by two Buffy tales. Here we have a pirate slayer, a samurai slayer, a slayer that encounters both Springheeled Jack and Dracula, and works with a group of friends.

A little bit more of the fun here, as some of the slayers are more successful, especially one that is a union soldier with the support of a general and his armaments.

Tales of the Slayer 2 : 01 All That You Do Comes Back Unto Thee Sunnydale California 2000 - Todd A. McIntosh
Tales of the Slayer 2 : 02 Lady Shobu Sagami Province Japan 980 - Kara Dalkey
Tales of the Slayer 2 : 03 Abomination Beauport Brittany France 1320 - Laura J. Burns and Melinda Metz
Tales of the Slayer 2 : 04 Blood and Brine The Caribbean 1661 - Greg Cox
Tales of the Slayer 2 : 05 The Ghosts of Slayers Past London England 1843 - Scott Allie
Tales of the Slayer 2 : 06 The New Watcher Atlanta Georgia 1864 - Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Tales of the Slayer 2 : 07 House of the Vampire London England 1897 - Michael Reaves
Tales of the Slayer 2 : 08 The War Between the States New York Ciry New York 1922 - Rebecca Rand Kirshner
Tales of the Slayer 2 : 09 Stakeout on Rush Street Chicago Illinois 1943 - Max Allan Collins and Matthew V. Clemens
Tales of the Slayer 2 : 10 Again Sunnydale California 1999 - Jane Esperson


Magic boy's mummy mistake.

3.5 out of 5


Bored Japanodemonslayer.

3.5 out of 5


Domestic decision dooms slayer.

3 out of 5


Pirate captain slayer crossdresses, lacks parrot, then hand. Captain Krakenhook?

4 out of 5


Snob Watcher.

2.5 out of 5


Union general supports his non-regular soldier.

4 out of 5


Dracula and Van Helsing leads to Scooby gang shutdown, Springheeled Jack still on the loose.

4 out of 5


Sally seeks showbusiness, finds Slayer instead.

3 out of 5


Slayer spells it out for Nitti.

3.5 out of 5


Scooby gang retro.

2.5 out of 5

This is the type of book I get a little sad when I get near the end. Must read!

This is 1 of my favorite books ever, 1 f my favorite story lines was Blood and Brine I loved the pirate slayer. My favorite story in this book was the last 1 where Buffy, Willow, and Xander go back in time I loved the fact that Buffy got to see her mom again and that she wasn't stuck with Dawn for once. I think that when the show brought Dawn on the show and killed Buffy's mom is when they ruint Buffy, from the 5th season on the show slowly went downhill. I HIGHLY recommend this book it is definitely the best Buffy book in the series.

It felt like it took me forever to finish this book. The stories were not as well written as the first book and it wasn't as interesting. The only highslight stories were Again written by Jane Espenson and Abonmination by Laura J. Burns and Melinda Mertz.

I've always love BTVS because of the Mythology of the Slayer line and how she's Chosen and all of that, I also love the characters and how they're written so well.....But i've often wondered about Past Slayers, what they were like, and what their life was like because as we've always known, Buffy is just one of many Slayers throughout the Years. I loved this Book and how it told about Different Slayers from Different Era's and how that particular Era effected their Duty as the Slayer.
I've seen other Reviews where people ask what good a 'Pirate' Slayer would be and if you really think about it, all of the Vampires that Migrate from country too country more than likely use Ships too Travel in because of the Dark Rooms beneath the Surface, she could stop that from happening.
My Favorite story in this book was probably "Stake out on Rush Street", among a few other's....I also liked the one about the Civil War Slayer and the one about the Slayer who fought Dracula........
I thought it was a very good book and I recommend it to other fans of Buffy and especially Fans of the Buffy Books.

redford as gastby clothed by ralph lauren, and more recently,tom ford, late of gucci, is leaving milan for hollywood. does fashion imitate the movies or vice versa?

the book is a great concept, but it wasnt as exhaustive as it could have been. theres a real emphasis on steve mcqueen and cary grant-but we already knew those men were dapper dressers (does anyone remember adolphe menjou? he was as elegant as could be!). carson kressley was right, this book is a good primer for dressing swellegantly. its printed beautifully, the photos are some ive never seen before-but if youre looking for something a little more in depth regarding movies and american style, page through tommy hilfiger's 'all american'.

Certainly the concept of this book is intriguing, as I'm sure many of us have unforgettable images emblazoned in our memories of Sinatra strolling around "Oceans Eleven" nattily dressed in a pastel cardigan and tight slacks, of Sean Connery dispatching cold war baddies and martinis in a white dinner jacket or of Alain Deleon pulling off impossibly dangerous heists with nothing but tough guy bravado, a Gitane, and a dirty t-shirt. Perhaps you'd like to know how they look so cool, so charming, so tough? Well, Marion Maneker doesn't know either (or he just refuses to tell.) His selection of icons included is sometimes silly, sometimes baffling (I'm not sure he could fawn any more over the impossibly dull Gary Cooper and what kind of "lesson" does a picture of a shirtless Steve McQueen in nothing but boxer shorts and a tie around his neck provide?) While the list of those excluded would actually make a better book (Where's Peter O'Toole for instance?) Even more disconcerting are the clothes he features as a suggestion for approximating the actors sense of style. For instance, he shows a picture of Brad Pitt in "Fight Club" and then on the facing page features a white collared shirt and gold tie draped over a pair of purple, floral printed pants which he claims will give you a "tough, in-your-face attitude." I'm sure the Hells Angels would be trembling. While I agree this is comical, it's a fairly expensive joke when you include shipping costs. On another page he shows a suitcase packed with nothing but white sweaters, white shoes, white pants and white belts (if I remember correctly I think this was supposed to make you a doppelganger for Redford in "The Great Gatsby.") I guess this is fine if you're packing to compete at Wimbledon in the 1920's, if you're someone's guardian angel going to earth, or if you're Tom Wolfe, but with these suggestions the rest of us would surely become walking monuments to absurdity. Thankfully these recommendations are few and far between. By the way, if you think suspender-wearing, greasy haired corporate raider Gordon Gekko from Wall Street was/is the epitomy of style, and who doesn't really, than you're on the same page as Maneker. Congratulations, you're now qualified to write a terrible book. Frankly, the only lesson you're likely to learn is how to convince a local bookstore to exchange a book you bought from Amazon

Elegant and not superficial book.
Not for everybody but only for style amateur of Hollywood men actors.
Many photos and fine advices.

I love watching Queer Eye For The Straight Guy. Carson used this book to show a case on how to dress with style via Cary Grant!

If you can get beyond the incredibly shoddy editing of this book (for example, the identified Gable is not always Gable), the heavy empahsis on Cooper and other sartorial conservative icons, and the uninspired (repetitive) use of language, you might come away with something useful from this book. In the end, the book's abrupt ending--it just stops--is representative of how its wonderful concept is so very poorly executed. This book never lives up to its potential, and both men's style and the movies deserve more.

Ebert is always right about everything. Whatever he likes, it is a good movie. If he doesn't like it, then it is bad. Whatever he says about movies is always right. This is a fact.

I love reading eberts reviews. This book gives alot of information on movies that not just ebert likes but that alot of people like. Ebert gives alot of valuable information.

While I may not always agree with Roger Ebert, I always find his opinion valid and his choices are always intriguing.. His second installment of the great movies is no exception.. Ebert is familiar with a broad range of cinema.. from the classics, to lesser-known foreign films, to neglected movies that deserve more attention.. Ebert's straightforward writing style is unpretentious and stands alongside some of the finer film essays of our time.. It is refreshing to know that such a popular critic has integrity and truly cares about the preservation of cinema..

roger ebert has his own individual tastes and I respect that. I have my my own tastes too. Ebert thought "the pillow book" was a great film. He didn't like reservoir dogs. Don't adhere to this guy's recommendations. Anyone who does should read a story called the emporor's new clothes and reflect on the moral.

Roger Ebert follows his book that compiles his bi-weekly column "The Great Movies" with a second volume.
Classics such as "The Grapes of Wrath" and "Five Easy Pieces" are examined here. Foreign films get their due, with films by Godard, Ozu, and Kurasawa that are discussed at legnth. So are obscure movies in need of rediscovery.
What may surprise some readers is the inclusion of some audience favorites as "A Christmas Story", "Planes, Trains and Automobles", "Say Anything" and "This is Spinal Tap". We watch different movies for different reasons, and Ebert is no exception. If someone like Ebert loves to watch "A Christmas Story" (one of my favorites) over and over, then why shouldn't he include it in his book? How many other critics would have thought to include these movies together with "Rashomon" and "The Searchers"? Not very many. Bravo to Ebert for doing so.
Ebert also looks at Gene Siskel's favorite movie "Saturday Night Fever". It as much a tribute to Gene's memory as it is a film review.
Movie fans will love both volumes of this series. They are essential reading for anyone who loves film.

Halliwell's is a helpful resource for TV and movie watching in that you can look up movie and TV stars by name, get their age, their given name at birth (for the stars that have changed their name), and all the movies that they have made in their entertainment career.

Terrific for cinephiles, crossword puzzlers or just the curious. Fantastic den coffee table reference, a true cinema who's who. Great value!

I looked at this latest edition of Halliwell's Who's Who in the Movies and was very suprised to discover that
the entry on Janet Leigh made no mention of her death. Since Janet Leigh died in October, 2004 and this edition was published in May, 2006 the expertise of the contributors is, in my opinion, very suspect.
One can only assume that the book contains many other errors or omissions.

An excellent compendium of Who's Who in the movies, entertaingly edited by John Walker. A couple of names I would like to have seen in the listings are Peggy Evans, who starred with Dirk Bogarde in THE BLUE LAMP,
and Pearl Argyle, dancer/actress. Maybe in the next edition !

An very complete information souce on the people who are and were in the movies.
A must for everyone who needs information.

This book covers films from the silents through the 90's. It includes a wide variety of horror movies, from early suspense films and classic monsters to slashers and a few films that only peripherally link to horror. The reviews are good reading, and include references to other viewing in a number of places. There are several good indexes also.

The only down side is that the book is a bit dated, not in content (any movie guide is dated as soon as it is released) but by being written before DVD's and widescreen TV's became the norm. This is a minor flaw, but I would love to see a new version of the book (hint, hint!)

This is an excellent listing of horror movies to rekindle memories or to suggest what to hire from your video store. Most horror films are here but not all. Critters is one of my favourites that is not in this book. There is a short summary of each film along with a rating and opinion. Obviously you are not going to agree with all the opinions and ratings. There are also summaries of different directors who have been influential in the horror genre. A listing of alternative titles at the back of the book helps you to quickly locate a film, as all films are in alphabetical order if you can not originally find it. There is also a list of all the actors who have been in horror films and information on what other horror movies they have been in. Photographs from various horror films are also included making this not a bad reference book.

I bought this book right when it came out oh so many years ago. Since that time I've thumbed through it on countless occasions when I thought I'd seen everything there was to see...or had at least heard about it. This book invariably brought some film to my attention that I had some how missed before. In that regard this book it wonderful.

There are some flaws, though. The first is the authors rather lax definition of the horror genre. This leads to the Wizard of Oz being included along side the Wizard of Gore. Somehow that doesn't quite jive and it makes me wonder sometimes what honest to goodness horror movies got excluded to make room for these selections. Second, the author tends to keep things very mainstream. This gripe was answered some when I looked through the Videohound cult movie guide and saw that many of the more fringe titles I hoped to find in the horror guide were included there. Finally, the author's tastes skew very Anglo-American to the point where I don't think that European productions that aren't from the UK get a raw deal in his reviews. However, this is more of a difference of opinion with the author than an actual problem with the book.

On the whole this is very good pickup for someone new to the genre and a find that will reward even the most seasoned horror enthusiast.

I was given "Videohound's Horror Show" as a Christmas present the past year, and just finished working my through it the other day. I have to say I was really disappointed overall. As other reviewers point out so well, why are "Alice in Wonderland", "Platoon" and "Wizard of Oz" included here? There are so many movies that may have horrific elements in them, but they are still not horror films. Even if you take those films out of the mix, the biggest issue I have with Mike Mayo's work, is that he is approaching and reviewing these films with a main-stream sensability. Mayo's approach to most of the films presented in this book are written as if for a non-horror fan audience. Most horror fans know what to expect with a "Halloween" sequel, we aren't looking for quality film making like "Shakespeare in Love". We just need to know if Michael is creepy, what's the body count, and are the special effects worth the ticket price? I was hoping to find some "new" titles here, but to be honest even a casual fan of the genre, will be pretty familiar with the movies listed here.
The one aspect of this book that I did like, was that Mayo was not into giving away spoilers. Rarely does Mayo spill the beans about any twists or shocks pertaining to any of the films he reviews, and that was a breath of fresh air.
As a horror fan I would recommend you check out "Legacy of Blood: a Comprehensive Guide to Slasher Movies" by Jim Harper instead of VideoHound's offering. "Legacy" doesn't cover nearly as many films, and sticks just to the Slasher genre, but it is well written, and features reviews written for horror fans by a horror fan. Jim Harper "gets" horror, and knows what a horror fan wants.

This book is unbelieveable! If you are a serious fan of horror movies, I can't see how you could ever be disappointed in this book.
999 of the most well known, (and some fairly obscure) horror flicks reviewed in concise, one-four paragraph summaries, and rated at the end from a 0-4 star, (WOOF!-Four Bone) rating. It contains cast, filmmakers, screenwriters, distributing companies and ratings for each film.
Filled to the brim with pictures, quotes, references, etc. Every couple of pages also has a Videohound Salutes section, where they take half a page to remember and honor certain actors, directors, and decades, and their special contributions to the horror genre.
The reviews are helpful, and informative, and I've rented countless movies based on this book's recommendations and have come away very satisfied. I tend to agree with almost everything the author writes about each movie I see, and as soon as I've seen a new horror flick, I make sure I immediately re-read what the book had to say to make comparisons with my own opinion.
The horror genre is huge, and so, naturally, in the interest of space, many movies couldn't find a spot on here, but most of those movies are obscure slasher flicks from the seventies and eighties, that nobody should care about anyway, (although, admittedly, I've seen 'em all.) Every significant film in the horror genre is in here, from the 1930's to about 1997.
There isn't any way I can possibly recommend this book enough!

This book is so snarky and consistently negative I can only wonder why the author has written about HK movies for this long! There are several good books on HK flicks out there and no reason to buy this misguided publication.

This book really tells it like it is, and is comprehensive to boot. Fonoroff is highly critical but he supports his opinions well. It's refreshing to hear such honest opinions and not the usual "rah rah" "isn't it wonderful" that so many Asian movie addicts feel obligated to dish out. Fonoroff is also lavish with his praise when he finds a movie he respects, which admittedly is rare. He also likes the trashy guilty pleasure flicks. I think what he respects most is movies that aren't pretentious, which includes the bad & the ugly along with the good. You can't deny he doesn't know his stuff. Unlike most foreign critics of Hong Kong movies, he's lived there for 20 years and speaks the language, plus he has a solid background in Hong Kong cinema.

I found the book extemely useful as a reference, particularly since the credits are in both English and Chinese. This is especially useful to movie fans over here in Singapore, where most HK movie fans would know the titles only in Chinese and often there is little or no relationship between the movie's Chinese and English titles. As for the reviews themselves, I found them interesting, critical, and even when I didn't agree with them I felt I learned something from a different point of view.

I can't believe some of the negative comments I've read here by other reviewers. Whether or not you agree with Fonoroff's opinions, this book is an authorative and informative document covering the decade from the late 1980s to the late 1990s. Unlike a lot of Westerners who review Hong Kong movies on DVD long after their release, Fonoroff saw them when they first came out, and his reviews include many topical references that give an overall feeling for the time and place in which they were made. Plus, there's over 600 reviews in the book, covering all the major and most of the minor movies of the period. There isn't another book in English like it.

A middlebrow book with highbrow pretensions. I picked this book up at the airport hoping for a nice light read on the plane, and ended up wishing there was an 'EJECT' chute as I was halfway over the Pacific. Rarely have I ever read a book so bristling with enmity and disdain for its subject matter, and with such terrific cultural ignorance one wonders if any research was done other than hanging around the 'western' concessions and expat hangouts. I had thought that such 'colonial' condescension had passed with the times, but apparently it is still alive and well. That is the tone which informs this entire tome and permeates every review therein.. which is terribly unfortunate, given that the author's rather rare and privileged position would have afforded him valuable glimpses behind this once vibrant filmic community ( one can always hope for a second flowering, considering the recent output and the success of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, though not made in HK)... if only one had chosen to see with fresh eyes, rather than attempt to shoehorn every filmic tradition into tired Hollywood conventions of narrative film making.When faced with situations like this, one should give pause to one's examination of the subject at hand, and call into question the yardstick which is being used to take its measure.

Also MOST notable for missing the boat on Wong Kar Wai.