Movies Books

Since I'm such a big fan of the show, I decided to try one of the novelizations. I got caught up in the story easily enough, and even finished the book quickly (a matter of one evening). Reading BODY OF EVIDENCE was a lot like watching an episode of CSI, and yet at the same time there were enough differences to keep it interesting--and, at the same time, irritating.

Character-development doesn't seem to be a big thing in these serial novelizations; nor, in fact, does a believable plot. And this book could have used some editing, as there are a LOT of grammatical errors that took away from my enjoyment of the story throughout the entire book.

But it is a quick read, and it DOES feel like I'm "watching" an episode of CSI. I enjoyed this one enough that I'm now reading a second, so I guess the author did his job!

The week begins for most people on Monday morning, but CSIs Catherine Willows and Nick Stokes are just ending their Sunday night shift when they get a call to go out to a local advertising agency because one of the partner's personal assistant has found child pornography on her boss's printer. The investigation is instantly difficult because several of the employees are on vacation and it is impossible to tell who was in the office over the weekend. Sifting through this Body of Evidence is not going to be easy.

IT expert Tomas Nunez is called in to assist the technical part of the investigation and he discovers which computer the print command was sent from, but when the CSIs find multiple fingerprints on the keyboard of that station, they realize that they've got a real corker on their hands. Add to that their personal feelings about child pornography and this is going to prove to be one emotional case, with more than one instance of misguided accusation.

Elsewhere in Las Vegas, Gil Grissom, Warrick Brown, and Sara Sidle are called to investigate a woman's body discovered by a local citizen. The profile of the case is heightened instantly when her identity is confirmed as the long-missing secretary of Mayor Darryl Harrison. Sheriff Brian Mobley immediately takes himself off the case because he has everything to gain by implicating the mayor in this crime: Mobley was planning to run against the mayor for his seat. Mobley's campaign manager Ed Anthony has been doing everything in his power to help Mobley, including several things he shouldn't have done.

Author Max Allan Collins (again with research and plotting assistance from Matthew V. Clements, a true-crime writer in his own right) is on a roll with these CSI novels, and Body of Evidence is no different. He captures the tone, setting, and characters from the television series perfectly, complete with the touches of humor that so wonderfully break the tension and illustrate the friendships that lie under the professional relationships.

The computer and Internet knowledge contained within Body of Evidence is just another example of the fine work done by Collins and researcher / co-plotter Matthew V. Clements (a true-crime writer in his own right and the co-author of several short stories with Collins). The details are part of what makes CSI so fascinating, and Collins and Clements do not skimp.

Tie-in novels like Body of Evidence are ideal for fans who are looking for an original CSI mystery during the summer rerun season. Plus, the stories are longer so, generally speaking, there is room for more detail and character development, making for a more fulfilling, multi-hour experience -- more like a CSI movie than a typical episode.

This is my second attempt at reading Max Collins' novelizations based on the CSI (Crime Scene Investigation) and I'm forced to admit that I probably should just go watch the show. I've always enjoyed forensic mystery stories, but in retrospect I really prefer those tales where the medical examiner is 1) brilliant, and 2) an interesting character. Quincy was my first brush with the genre, Kate Scarpetta before she started to have regular emotional breakdowns, and, lately, Temperence Brennan. These are characters alive with emotion as well as skill with a knife.

The characters in the CSI stories fall short if you are looking for books that are as much about them as they are about the dissection of a crime. It's something like reading a script that gives you no hint of the feeling behind what the character is saying. If the puzzle drags for even a moment, you suddenly realize that there isn't much meat to the story. And if you can guess the answer you start wondering if you should just peek to see it you're right and go on to another book.

Such is the case here where once of the tales is about murder by misdirection, and the other is a grim tale that combines politics and the worst kind of murder. The stories are interesting, but having now read a few of Collins books, the plots are guessable because the author likes to drop little hints. And there is negligible emotional involvement perhaps as much as a good crossword puzzle. The book is decent light reading but you may find yourself wanting more.

I'm a casual watcher of the TV show, and this is the first CSI book I've read. Since I'm not a die-hard fan of the show, I had a little trouble matching character names in the book with their image from my memories. This was a little distracting for me, but shouldn't be a problem for those who pay more attention to the TV show. Reading this story seemed much like reading a fleshed-out script for a show's episode ... a very cool effect.

As per the show, there are two cases in focus. First is the discovery of child pornograpy printouts at an advertising agency. Second is the discovery of the body of Las Vegas' Mayor's secretary who had been kidnapped several weeks earlier. I think the book spent more time with the first case, with just tidbits of the second case thrown in until the end. Once the child porn case is wrapped up, the book shifts the murder case into high gear and ends rather suddenly. One thread through both cases is that an innocent person is actively framed by the perpetrator.

Because of the heavy sexual content of these cases, I wouldn't recommend this book for younger readers. I havent yet read any other books from this series, but I will be picking them up soon.

--Lynellen.com

This is a fairly good book, the first 3 were much more entertaining. Not sure who is proof reading and/or editing but that seriously needs to be improved upon.

Another glaring error - in the first 3 books (as in the TV show), it's stated that Sara is a vegetarian. However, in one part of the book, the author has her eating a turkey sandwich!

Also, you can tell which character is the author's favorite - it's noted that a lot of space is devoted to Catherine Willows and her flowing strawberry blonde hair, clothes, how intelligent she is. Sara seems to just be part of the background - in the portion of the book dealing with the case of the mayor's secretary - Grissom, Warrick, Sara and Brass are meeting in the mayor's office. The author focuses mostly on Warrick's reactions to things said - was Sara meant to be a only a casual observer at the meeting? This is prevelant throughout the book series. Would like to see a little more time and space devoted to Sara.

Gore's book is a great idea done badly. The writing itself is breathless and opinionated (okay, for a book like this maybe you have to do a little of that -- operative word being 'little'). The reviews themselves have no consistency to them. One movie is described in detail and the reason for its not being made is a dismissive paragraph telling us that "things just didn't work out." Others give great detail on the reasons for the film not being made and only sketchy ideas about the content. The result is that the reader doesn't get a clear picture of what made so many of these failed projects special (although the narrowmindedness of the Hollywood system is driven home again and again and again).

At the end Gore opines (one of his favorite words) the other movies he wished he could have mentioned. He could have discussed them if he had confined himself to only one Orson Welles project, one National Lampoon/Saturday Night Live alumni project, etc. Assuming that every potential film from a director's body of work is a lost masterpiece only pushes the book into fanboydom (after all, besides "Schindler's List" and "Saving Private Ryan," Spielberg also made "1941" and "Hook").

A book of this length would have been better served by being about only 25 movies. And should have been written by another writer.

While I did enjoy this book somewhat, I was baffled by the overwhelming number of typos and factual errors contained within. This was an amazing distraction from the otherwise enlightening content that Gore's book provides.

This was certainly a good idea for a book, but it was very badly done. What annoyed me the most was how Chris Gore kept ranting against the studio system, sometimes forgetting to talk about the movie in order to write a couple of pages about how Hollywood studios stink. (Hey, Gore, if there were no major studio movies, there would be almost no movie theaters to show Hollywood *or* independent films!)

Also, as other people have pointed out, he frequently doesn't go into depth about the movie in areas such as (1) why the movie never got made, (2) what ingredients might have made the movie so great, and a few times, to some degree, (3) what the movie is actually about other than a quick description!

His snotty and oh-I-'m-so-right-and-clever attitude will make you want buy copies of his book just so you can throw them at him.

P.S. - Hey Chris, do you still think "The Fantastic Four" movie is fabulous, and better than any major studio with a big budget could make?

Did you ever see the Marx Brothers comedy A Day at the U.N.? How about the Roger Rabbit sequel where it turns out that Bugs Bunny is Roger's father? If you never saw these movies, don't worry--nobody else has, either. However, they are (or were) legitimate movie projects, well-chronicled in Chris Gore's book, The 50 Greatest Movies Never Made.

The book lovingly details 50 films which never got beyond the planning stages for various reasons. Many of them involved heavy Hollywood hitters, from Steven Spielberg (who helped to get the first ROGER RABBIT off the ground), to DOUBLE INDEMNITY director Billy Wilder (who brainstormed the aborted Marx Brothers film as well as a Laurel & Hardy comedy), to Alfred Hitchcock (who proposed a movie about a blind pianist whose sight is restored).

While the book is a fast-paced, popcornish read, the book's not-so-subtle point is to make film purists gnash their teeth at the thought of these potential film classics never getting made. For me, the book's only surprise was that they left out many of my favorites, including Buster Keaton's proposed take-off of Grand Hotel, Charlie Chaplin's The Freak (about a girl who sprouts wings), and an aborted Western starring The Beatles.

It's easy to cry about potential film masterpieces that never got beyond the planning stage. The trouble is that, like many real lost films that come to light after being re-discovered, they often turn out to be classics only if they remain lost. And considering some of the awful ideas which do make it to the light of a movie theater--as witness the recent bomb AT FIRST SIGHT, starring Val Kilmer as (shades of Hitchcock) a blind artist who regains his sight--maybe these movies have rotted in Development Limbo for some very good reasons.

That said, the book will be an eye-opener to novices who have never heard the term "turn-around," and brain candy for those who have seen awful ideas that *did* get made into movies.

Chris Gore's The 50 Greatest Movies Ever Made is wildly uneven, frequently enjoyable, occasionally insightful, and at times kinda annoying. It's also a pretty cool idea that was long overdue and if Gore's book doesn't quite take advantage of the full potential of his concept, its still an idea that was long overdue. Content-wise, this book would probably rate three stars (whatever that actually means) but it deserves that one extra star for being the first of its kind. Hopefully, should someone decide to write a follow-up on other great films that were never made, they'll keep a copy of this book so that they may learn from not only the book's flaws but its strengths as well.

Every film fanatic has a few cherished projects that they learned about while they lingered in Hollywood's development limbo. These were the movies that you looked forward to saying, that you found yourself checking up on whenever you got a spare moment, and these are the movies that either vanished all together or died right when they were on the verge of actually being made. These are the movies that we regret we'll never get a chance to see. Chris Gore's book details fifty of these film projects that, for various reasons, never actually made it to postproduction. In Gore's opinion (and if Chris Gore has anything, its opinions), these fifty films would have all been classics of the cinema and, film-by-film, he details not only why the films were never made but why he believes we should mourn their loss.

Obviously, this is a highly subjective enterprise and Gore is often found defending a film's lost greatness on the basis of little more than his gut instinct. As a result, I doubt there's a reader out there who will agree with all of Gore's choices. Personally, its hard for me to share Gore's disappointment that we were never allowed a chance to see a Stephen Sondheim musical directed by Rob Reiner and co-written by William Goldman. (In fact, I found myself rather relieved that the whole thing fell apart.) Try as I might, I can't summon up any enthusiasm for Swirlie, a serious crime film featuring a crime boss whose head is a giant ice cream cone. Even Gore himself seems to be trying a bit too hard to convince himself that the failure of Jerry Lewis' That's Life is something to be regretted. However, for every project that left me scratching my head, Gore came through with chapters on lost film projects that actually did seem to have the potential to be something special. After completing this book, I did find myself wishing that I could run out and rent a copy Harrow Alley (costarring George C. Scott and Mel Gibson). I did wish for a chance to catch the macabre comedy Won't Fade Out on late night TV. Even the campy, stoner thrills of Biker's Heaven, the Easy Rider sequel, sounded like a potentially fun film to watch with a couple of properly medicated friends. Its films like these that are the saving grace of Gore's frustratingly brief overview.

As a critic, Gore has never been one to emulate the psuedo-literary approaches made famous by Andrew Sarris and Pauline Kael. And indeed, one wishes that he had gone into a lot more detail on most of the films he writes about in this book. However, while his style leaves some of his less compelling unmade film favorites at a disadvantage, it also works wonders for the occasional film that actually has the spark of something special. After reading his terse, to-the-point descriptions of Harrow Alley, I felt as if I had actually watched that film in all of its potential genius. Whatever its flaws, this is a book to be commended. Now hopefully, Gore or some other critic will work out the kinks in time for a second edition and give us a book that leaves us with no doubt that its unrealized films deserve to be known as the greatest.

The idea for this book isn't a bad one: the ranking of the Top 100 of all Stephen King's works. However, in order for such a conceit to mean anything, there has to be some thought, skill, and insight involved on the part of the ranker. Spignesi showcases none of these qualities.

Instead, what you are left with is something that goes no deeper than you might find on any fan-based website. Spignesi's knowledge of King's work is admittedly considerable, but in order for a work of literary criticism -- which this is, no matter how poorly-thought-out and poorly-presented -- to be worth reading, it has to cut a bit deeper than mere knowledge. There has to be insight. Perhaps Spignesi has such insights, but if so, he has no interest in demonstrating it in this book: his typical mode is to simply list what he liked in each work, and usually this consists of saying that he liked the characters, or something similarly facile.

Spignesi himself is a TERRIBLE writer. This book is peppered with poor writing, with the misuse (or nonuse) of commas being especially prevalent. Why should we accept the critical judgment of a writer who himself cannot write?

There is an attempt to make it plain that the idea behind this book is for it to stimulate discussion about King's works. Well, really, the best way to do that is to simply read them for yourself. You don't need a writer who ought to properly be confined to fanzines to tell you what King's best works are. And if you don't need that, then you don't need this book.

Thank God, it was given to me as a gift; no dollars of my own were wasted on this sad excuse for criticism.

If you took a random Amazon reviewer, collated all their reviews of one author (in this case Stephen King) and asked them to rank the books they reviewed then you'd come up with something like the text book laid out in appearance work, The Essential King. Throw in the fact that Spingesi is as gushing a King fan as a twelve year old girl is of her favourite boyband lead singer and what we've got in this collection are biased positive reviews by someone who thinks everything his idol wrote is a masterpiece, these reviews aren't critical at all. I've read a lot of Stephen King, enjoyed most of it but come on there are some novels and short stories in anthologies that aren't quite up to par including a lot which Spignesi rates highly. I would take in the ranking of an authors work much more critically if done by someone who is prepared to admit their idol has flaws.

Also if you're going to rank his work you've got to at least provide a list of the other stuff that didn't make the list. Spignesi also suffers from the bad reviewer quality of thinking there's nothing wrong about including spoilers in a large number of his reviews which means you may become interested in tracking down a story, well that is until the ending or a major twist is ruined for you. Other than a summary Spignesi provides little reasoning for why each piece of work makes the cut or why he likes the stories with most explanations of this only being one or two sentences. Spignesi's list also contains a lot of rare stuff but often he provides no information which magazines or whatever to locate these for the person who has become interested and wants to track them down.
I picked up this book as I thought it would be an interesting look at King's novels and discuss the major differences in the books from their movie adaptations. There's not much of this here. Flip through it at your local library if trying to put on hold a book and you can't remember what its called but don't waste money on this disaster.

This book is good. It has a lot of interesting facts about the worlds greatest authors books. Things you might have missed when reading. It's worth the money.

This book is a great resource. It has a vast amount of information on King's books that you won't find elsewhere in one collection. I found this little gem at a bookstore and spent about a half hour reading through it. I finally broke down and bought it on Amazon and I'm really glad I did.
I'm already a Stephen King fan and have read many of his books. But it was great to read synopsis's on his other works that I havn't gotten to yet. The author made a break-down of each book, gave the character's names, and a movie adaptation of the book if applicable.
If you are already a Stephen King fan, you will no doubt enjoy this book. You can see which books made which spots on his '100 list' and perhaps argue, but I found myself agreeing with the author on most of his choices.
If you arn't a Stephen King fan yet, but are thinking about reading a book of his and are not sure which one to pick first, this is a great choice for you to read, so you get an idea of what your headed for. :)

The problem with the book is that it's utterly uncritical of the entirety of Stephen King's work - it's simply a basic recounting of the novel's plot, followed up with a few bits of trivia and the author's "What I Liked" section.

The problem is that the author of this book likes everything about Stephen King, even when he's talking about King's weaker material. You could write the words "I love Stephen King and everything he's ever done!" on an index card, then post it next to the Amazon search results for Stephen King and you'd have this book in a nutshell.

Plus, he refers to the Gor novels as "wildly popular". Uh, no.

-Darren MacLennan

This workbook was in excellent condition. My 9th grader was so happy that it arrived so quickly she really needed it. Her language arts grade has improved since obtaining the workbook.

From what we have seen, this is a straightforward vocab rote approach. This approach has both positive and negative aspects and works with some children and not with others. MY BEEF with this book is that it does not have an answer key and finding one has been more than difficult (still haven't at this point).

I have used these books for about ohh... 4 years now, and since I have started using them my standerdized test scores have droped from just above avrage to well below avrage... I do not believe anyone should use them!

My high school used these books. I also found them tedious, but I was in high school and I found everything tedious. The practice of applying myself to something that was less entertaining than I wished was valuable and necessary. I would never have gotten very far in life, and would certainly never have been successful in college unless I learned the skills that these books emphasized: vocabulary, standardized testing skills, and practice concentrating and memorizing.

I do remember thinking back in high school that they actually worked. Each section uses the same week's vocabulary words in different sections that are used on the SAT, ACT, GRE and other standardized tests, such as synonyms, antonyms, and analogies (the hardest to me!) After each section, I actually remembered the meaning of every word because I'd used them in so many different ways.

I would recommend these books to other students. I also have to say that any mother who encourages her child to give up on completing these books is doing both their child and herself a great disservice. She will realize it when her child returns home to live with her as an adult after having failed at other things that are "boring".

This book is way to boring for the average child. Even though it may be a good source of new vocab it is the most boring and waste of time thing to do.

By now we've heard almost all the sail commands and maneuvers possible, and Kent seems to have run out of new sea lore. This is another book in which Bolitho's passionate interest in his married lover Catherine takes pride of place to sea action. Kent is spinning his wheels in these later stories, or better said: "he's all aback, an' that's no error." Now that Richard Bolitho has been an admiral for a while, he's become more involved with grand strategy than small ship actions, and Kent is harder pressed to make him an exciting figure. This is probably true to life but makes for a tedious tale. Symptomatic of the problem is the fact the publisher devotes most of the cover blurb to the author's credentials to write such a book, and only two sentences to the story. The "Reefs" of the title are more metaphorical than geographic: the estrangement of Bolitho and his favorite officer, Herrick; Herrick's court-martial; Bolitho's cruel sister; Herrick's betrayal; and Bolitho's continuing estrangement from power and reward due to envy and his illicit affair. Despite his youthful appearance, a lifetime's violent assaults and horrific losses are grinding Bolitho down. Kent's mistake may have been to start Bolitho too early in his career and promote him too rapidly, arriving at flag rank too long before the convenient end of the Napoleonic world wars. Kent seems to be grooming Admiral Bolitho's nephew, frigate Capt. Adam Bolitho, for better and more cheerful stories in the future.

I love the Bolitho series and have reread them all several times, Kent has not proved able to handle the transition from officer/captain to flag rank. Too dark, not enough action, what happen to the brillance of "To Glory We Steer" and others of the earlier books.

In this book, Kent's hero Bolitho broods about marital difficulties and best friendships gone bad for most of the novel. There is only one major sea battle, and that starts at page 296 of a 310 page novel! Bolitho, his best friend, his nephew, his coxswain, his servant and his flag captain are all undergoing problems related to marriage simultaneously. I was left wondering if Kent has some recent disaster in his personal life and wrote this dark and depressing book as a therapy session. I rate this book as the worst I've read in years, the worst Kent book I've read (out of about ten), and a definite do not read.

This book may not have the major fleet engagements sprinkled through it as most Alexander Kent books do, but it is not lacking in action, character development and page turnability (that feeling when you just have to read the next section to find out what's going to happen next). I first fell in love with this series of books when I was 12, and I'm most of the way through a complete read of the series in many years. These books are as fresh and enjoyable to read as the first time I picked up Sloop of War. I highly recommend this entire series to anyone who is interested in the days of fighting sails and sailors.

Not by far as exciting as the earlier books in the Bolitho series. The delicate balance between personal affaires of our main character on the one end and the tremendously detailed action scenes on the other is lost. There are far too many sentimental bits and too much hero-worshipping stuff in this book. Kent is a bit off course in my opinion.

I thought this book would cover the subtle details about shooting 24P and cover technical issues such as advanced camera settings (crushed black and knee settings, etc.) and other issues specifically related to 24P shooting. Instead, this book very light on technical content and reads like the $30 film school book lightly covering a variety of topics such as your film crew, audio, special effects, burning a DVD, etc.
For a Course Technology book, I was very disappointed as they typically have very thorough and technically challenging books such as "Windows XP for Power Users" over 1000 pages.
I'll stick to Focal Press books in the future such as "High Definition and 24P Cinematography" or "Cinematography theory and practice" which both exibit the type of detail and technical expertise that I expect to learn something from.

Most of what is in this book really has very little to do with making video look like film. Rather, Shaner spends a lot of time talking about very basic issues of general photographic lighting as well as audio editing -- not sure what audio has to do with the "film look" really. He also spends a lot of time talking about aspect ratio such as 16:9 which imply film format, but again -- it is a technique that has NOTHING to do with REALLY making video look like film. Finally he includes a short video that has been altered using the "Magic Bullet" software he seems to promote a lot. The sample he includes is quite awful. Honestly, the original unprocessed video looks BETTER the final "film look" outcome. The "film-look" template which is available with even the most basic digital editing software such as an entry level Pinnacle software.

A misleading title to a book that self destructs as you read it accompanied by a defective DVD means that there is not much I can recommend here. If you want to know more about how to make your video look like film, you can find better sources on the internet for free. The information this book provides that is directly related to the title could easily be put into a pamphlet. What this book really is is a simple introduction to digital video, and as such, it is about as good as any. The book was new yet the back crumbled and pages fell out in clumps as I read. To top it off, the DVD would not play on any computer or home player. I contacted the publisher and ask for a replacement to which they suggested I contact the seller. I decided against that. Judging from what I already know, I doubt I'm missing much.

I got this book as a hand-me-down a few months ago, so I speak as somebody who got it for free. The content in the book covers how to shoot video in 24P, so it can be easily converted to film. Lighting and sound are important for this. We need to understand that making video look like film is very difficult, this book gives some details of things to do and things to avoid to help assist achieving the "look." I thought it did a great job at describing techniques that will help get the film look from video. Truth is, unless you have a 24P camcorder in your possession, this book is of little use. But, if you do have one, this book will help you utilize the option so it will enhance your chances of getting the film look. Plain and simple.

If you already know Cinematography, and you think you may need to convert your video to film down the road, this is the book for you. Even if you just want a "better" looking movie, let this book tell you what types of lighting and equipment will help.

Not to comment on any particular review, but browsers for filmmaking books may be interested in knowing that the short "Neo's Ring" on this book's DVD won a Platinum award at the Houston WorldFest. So it's impossible to understand how anyone who actually screened it would think that Shaner turns out anything but top-notch professional material. As to Shaner's qualifications, the front matter explains that he studied Hollywood-style film production at USC, wrote and directed a 35mm feature Lover's Knot that not only enjoyed popular theatrical release but also made its money back. More to the point for the 24p thing, he also shot the first 24p HD feature ever, Nicolas, with the same camera Lucas later used for Episode II. He's taught directing and digital production at UCLA Extension, and the folks at that prestigious film school refuse to employ instructors who don't know what they're doing!

I bought this book and read most of it in one night; I couldn't put it down because the subject is so fascinating. A huge number of films are given short reviews: some I knew, some I didn't. The tome's small size and attractive design helped me keep reading into the wee hours. But I became gradually more annoyed when I discovered how carelessly the book was written and edited (if there was an editor at all). Misspells and typos abound: Herzog's film on Kinski, "My Best Fiend" is shown as "My Best Friend," thus completely missing the point. Great character actor Theodore Bikel is cited as "Theodore Bickel" - and these are only two out of dozens of similar, inexcusable mistakes. If Rough Guide can't afford a decent proofreader, maybe they should stick to travel guides. If they had only been more careful, the book would deserve an enthusiastic five stars, rather than the grudging four stars I give it.

"Rough guides" and "cult movies" should not necessarily be thematically unrelated, but in this instance the Rough Guide publishers have stumbled. The definition of "cult" should include "underground", "obscure" and "tribal", as "cult" movies exist as niche films appealing to a specialist audience: The Rough Guide to Cult Movies is concerned with popular, mostly American films which have continued to find an audience beyond their expected commercial life, be they big budget blockbusters or low budget independents. The book has lots of arbitrary categories such as "philosophy" and "vampires", but no discussion of what constitutes "cult". In almost every one of the myriad category chapters I could name at least one missing true cult film, and the "discussion" of each movie's contents leaves a lot to be desired. This book will not satisfy people with some knowledge of cult films, as your favourites will either be missing or cursorily addressed, and for newcomers it misrepresents what "cult" actually means.

I thought this book was going to be great fun; however, it seems to use a broad definition of "cult movie." What didn't they include? Worst of all, my credibility was lost when in the notes on Suddenly Last Summer they mentioned that Montgomery Clift played Sebastian. Anyone who puts this movie in his or personal cult collection knows that this is patently incorrect. It begs the question, "How many other movies in this lists have the authors NOT even seen?"
Terry Allen

THE ROUGH GUIDE TO CULT MOVIES does, in its presentation, follow in the footsteps of what has been a successful formula for Rough Guide books. This guide is a thematic guide to movies in general. The book consists of over 80 categories of movies such as: animals, b-movies, cops, doctors, fantasy, horror, musicals, prison, serial killers, zombies, etc. Each category has a selection of movies which, for the most part, fit the subject. There are also various sidelights thrown into different categories which expand upon the actors, writers, directors, etc. Unforunately, although there is a spattering of cult movies included, most of the films covered are standard fare movies which fit the category. Additional mistakes, such as the wrong year for a movie, are to be found on occasion. The selection of movies for some categories appears almost random with gaping exclusions (the category for zombies lists CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD but excludes DAWN OF THE DEAD and Fulci's ZOMBIE; the category for 3-D lists JAWS 3-D but excludes COMIN' AT YA IN 3-D). Additionally, any information provided for a movie includes: title, director, abbreviated cast, and a short description, which in most cases is shorter than what you can find in a video review guide. If you are looking for a general introduction to popular films in a thematic presentation, that can be found in this book. If you are looking for a book about actual cult films and any kind of discussion about them or their particulars, it is not to be found here.

As a romantic comedy, Star Wars is a failure. As a science fiction film, the Annie Hall is a complete disappointment. Whatever other merits these movies might have, there are definitely areas that they are lacking. Which brings me to The Rough Guide to Cult Movies: as a reference book, it is highly suspect. What's notable is that Annie Hall fails as sci-fi because it doesn't try to be that genre; The Rough Guide fails at the very category it aspires to. Which is too bad, because it is often an interesting read.

The failure starts at the beginning of the book with a definition of cult movies that is so broad as to be meaningless. We then a series of chapters representing various "genres", some of which are valid (science fiction, westerns, horror), some of which are ridiculous (Animals, Food, Nuns) and some of which are not even true genres (dubbed, independent, straight-to-video). After this, we get various miscellaneous topics that are thrown in without rhyme or reason, such as a list of top movie grosses followed by presidential movie trivia.

The movie descriptions are often amusing, although there are numerous errors (such as misstating Geoffrey Rush's role in Pirates of the Caribbean), even more omissions (every reader will find his own; one example is that Unforgiven is missing from Westerns) and plenty of movies that are really miscategorized but seem only placed in a specific genre to fill it out.

What saves this book is, even though it fails as a reference book, it is nonetheless entertaining. I am therefore giving this two stars instead of one. It's a rather useless book, especially if you want to learn more about movies, but if you do pick it up, it is probably the most entertaining two-star book that you're ever likely to read.

book arrived on time and in the condition described. i recommend the seller and book for anyone who likes chess puzzles.

I have a 1901 rating as a result of playing in three tournaments. I suspect my actual playing strength to be at about 2200. It is my feeling that this style of puzzle book (Endgame) will help my over all playing strength / tournament results; as well as shore up some of my weaknesses in the Endgame (an area of the game a lot of players neglect).

These puzzles are NOT easy, but are printed two to a page, which makes it easier to analyze then some others puzzle books. However, some of typeface, as well as the ink density, make it hard to figure out which are the White pieces and which are the Black pieces.

I lost this book once and actually went out and bought it again - it's that good. Along the same lines as the above book, but different, is Troitsky's (sp?) book "Tactics In The Endgame". You want to get better? Studies these two books - you'll notice result right away, I promise.

Chris Rondthaler

I have a moderately sized chess library (100+ books), and this work is one of my least favorites. Besides having descriptive (i.e., old, non-algebraic) notation, the puzzle collection suffers from numerous other problems. The positions often appear composed rather than naturally occurring, and no credit is given regarding who created the puzzles to be solved. Further, the print quality of the diagrams is sub par, which means that solving the problems straight from the book isn't as easy as it should be. Overall, this book is quite a disappointment. I recommend that you pick up another tactics book for middlegame or endgame practice.

I recently purchased a chess set on Amazon.com. I wanted to re-learn the game and its different nuances. What a better way than trying to solve these puzzles! These puzzles focus primarily on the end-game, and you have to make the moves for both white and black. If you want to improve your chess game, I would recommend that this be one of the first places you stop.

For disaster-movie fans like myself, there aren't many choices among books devoted to the subject. In that regard, "Disaster Movies" functions as a treasure trove of commentary on well-worn classics like "Earthquake" and "The Towering Inferno", as well as some more esoteric selections, notably the camp classic "Kingdom of the Spiders".

Aside from the fact that the commentary is light on serious criticism, my primary problem with the book is how some elementary facts get mangled. For example, in reviewing the feature film "Deep Impact", the authors incorrectly refer to Elijah Wood's character as an amateur astrologist as opposed to an amateur astronomer. A slip-up like that might have been overlooked had they also not made the same mistake in describing Annabella Sciorra's character in the made-for-TV mini-series "Asteroid". (She was a professional astronomer in that movie.) And I was really disappointed that they didn't at least mention the best movie from the death-from-above sub-genre, the 1978 made-for-TV drama "A Fire In The Sky".

Understand that if you decide to pick up this book you're not going to get the same level of criticism that you would if you were reading a pro like Roger Ebert or Michael Medved. "Disaster Movies" is what it is--a fun, if error-riddled, book about the terrible things that happen when Hollywood star power and crazy screenwriters collide.

This book reads like the author sat down, watched each film once and then tried to write up a "funny" opinion. No research (beyond maybe IMDB), no insight, no context, no behind-the-scenes information, no interviews --- nothing. In other words, anyone could have written this book. What's worse is he gets a lot of information wrong -- it's so lazy. For example he delights in describing how confusing the TV movie "Flood!" is, but he is clearly reviewing it from the old edited VHS release, not the original movie. This information is so easy to locate, but I suppose research might have gotten in the way of the "jokes". Maybe it would be forgivable if the jokes were funny, but they're not -- just boring and obvious. If you've ever been trapped standing in a movie line and forced to listen to some "know-it-all" guy's self-absorbed and wrong-headed yammering about movies he feels superior to -- that's exactly what reading this book is like. A real shame.

In meantime there exists more Disaster Movies on the screens, than stars on heaven. For the fan it becomes harder and harder to keep the overview. It seems that the autors had the same problems. They write about all sub-genres from water, lava, earthquakes,to airplanes, snow till radioactivity and fire. They even have chapters about swarms of killeranimals, parodies and invasion from outer space, but they only grat on the surface. For a reference-work this book is far too incomplete. Not a must for the filmbuff but ok for a beginner. For a filmbook they could have included more pictures !

What a huge disappointment! Really boring infantile reviews and some Really throwaway extras. I would love to have my money and time back. It's written by 2 Canadians and their choices are really lame. The color posters in the middle are the biggest disappointment. What kind of Disaster genre book wouldn't include The Poseidon Adventure (the greatest disaster poster of all time), Titanic or any of the good movies. Save your money!!!

Movie fans who have either marveled or groaned their way through the likes of 'Earthquake,' 'The Swarm,' 'Beyond the Poseidon Adventure,' 'A Night to Remember' or 'Towering Inferno' should enjoy this amusing look at Disaster Movies.

Disaster movies are one of life's guilty pleasures. You can turn off your mind, grab the bucket of popcorn and enjoy. OK, the special effects may be cheesy and the dialogue awful - not to mention the one-dimensional characters and the holes in the plot a mile wide - but it's a disaster movie, for Peter's sake, so enjoy!

Key and Rose take the reader through the world of disaster movies, beginning with flicks from the '30s. They divide the films into categories like "Sinking Ships," "Hot Molten Lava," "Those Darn Aliens," etc. and devote 2-5 pages on each film, giving potted plot summaries, highpoints/lowpoints and cracking wise. The book has a five-tier rating system, ranging from "Highly Recommended" to "So Bad it's Good" and also includes lists such as the greatest disaster movie stars, highest-grossing disaster films, disaster movie love themes and so on.

Frankly I enjoyed the book. It's funny, informative and dishes out some well-deserved criticisms about its subject.

I got this book awhile after my breakup, when I was able to laugh about it. Love the book. Very amusing.

This book is basically a count from 1 to 100 of things (both could and bad) that people could possibly do after a break up. It's obviously meant to just be funny and not as an actual self-help book for people who have recently broken up. The sad part is that it is not actually that funny. This is one of the few books that I have bought during my lifetime that I returned.

I am going through a broken engagement with the person I thought was the love of my life. This book has helped me soooo much in the past month...it made me realize I am not crazy! The cartoons are so funny and I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is going through a break-up.

There is nothing in this book that will help a truly broken-hearted person feel better. It's a bunch of childish cartoons and advice. I really wish I hadn't purchased it. There are much better books out there for the broken-hearted: It's Called a Breakup Because It's Broken; The Girl's Guide to Surviving Break Ups; Extreme Break Up Recovery; Don't Call That Man. Buy one of those instead!

This isn't a serious self-help book, but definitely one to read when you're at the tail-end of your break-up and can actually laugh at ridiculousness of it. I read this at Borders, and my friend and I were lauging it up in the aisles. The stick-figure illustrations are really cute and funny, but if you've just broken-up and are still very sore, maybe wait on getting this one. Otherwise, if you want to laugh at all your own crazy antics post break-up, this will have you rolling on the ground. I'm definitely buying this one!