Video Movie Guide 1998


Book Description

Reviews thousands of movies and rates each film according to a five-star rating system, and features cross-indexing by title, director, and cast.




Leonard Maltin's Movie and Video Guide 1998


Book Description

With more than 300 new entries, 1,000 more videocassette and laser-disc listings, and an enlarged index of leading performers and directors, the 1998 edition of this perennial bestseller continues to be a "must" for every movie buff's bookshelf. "Leonard Maltin's Movie & Video Guide" has long been acclaimed because of its factual authority and sheer depth of information.




Videoland


Book Description

Videoland offers a comprehensive view of the "tangible phase" of consumer video, when Americans largely accessed movies as material commodities at video rental stores. Video stores served as a vital locus of movie culture from the early 1980s until the early 2000s, changing the way Americans socialized around movies and collectively made movies meaningful. When films became tangible as magnetic tapes and plastic discs, movie culture flowed out from the theater and the living room, entered the public retail space, and became conflated with shopping and salesmanship. In this process, video stores served as a crucial embodiment of movie culture’s historical move toward increased flexibility, adaptability, and customization. In addition to charting the historical rise and fall of the rental industry, Herbert explores the architectural design of video stores, the social dynamics of retail encounters, the video distribution industry, the proliferation of video recommendation guides, and the often surprising persistence of the video store as an adaptable social space of consumer culture. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, cultural geography, and archival research, Videoland provides a wide-ranging exploration of the pivotal role video stores played in the history of motion pictures, and is a must-read for students and scholars of media history.




Video Movie Guide 2002


Book Description

Always entertaining, witty, and packed with information, the "Video Movie Guide" has been a perennial bestseller for 17 years. Includes a special section on titles available on DVD.




The Video Movie Guide 2001


Book Description

Presents brief reviews of more than nineteen thousand films and other videos that are available at rental stores and through mail order, arranged alphabetically by title; also includes actor and director indexes.







God in the Movies


Book Description

The religious imagination is alive and well in the movies. Contrary to those who criticize Hollywood, popular movies very often have metaphorically represented God on the screen. From Clint Eastwood as an avenging angel in Pale Rider and Nicolas Cage as a lovesick angel in City of Angels to Jessica Lange as an angel of death in All That Jazz, and from George Burns as God in Oh, God! to Audrey Hepburn in Always to pure white light in Fearless and Flatliners, God is very much present in the movies.




The Video Librarian


Book Description




Going to Pieces


Book Description

John Carpenter's Halloween, released on October 25, 1978, marked the beginning of the horror film's most colorful, controversial, and successful offshoot--the slasher film. Loved by fans and reviled by critics for its iconic psychopaths, gory special effects, brainless teenagers in peril, and more than a bit of soft-core sex, the slasher film secured its legacy as a cultural phenomenon and continues to be popular today. This work traces the evolution of the slasher film from 1978 when it was a fledgling genre, through the early 1980s when it was one of the most profitable and prolific genres in Hollywood, on to its decline in popularity around 1986. An introduction provides a brief history of the Grand Guignol, the pre-cinema forerunner of the slasher film, films such as Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and cinematic trends that gave rise to the slasher film. Also explained are the slasher film's characteristics, conventions, and cinematic devices, such as the "final girl," the omnipotent killer, the relationship between sex and death, the significant date or setting, and the point-of-view of the killer. The chapters that follow are devoted to the years 1978 through 1986 and analyze significant films from each year. The Toolbox Murders, When a Stranger Calls, the Friday the 13th movies, My Bloody Valentine, The Slumber Party Massacre, Psycho II, and April Fool's Day are among those analyzed. The late 90s resurrection of slasher films, as seen in Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer, is also explored, as well as the future direction of slasher films.




The Sci-Fi Movie Guide


Book Description

From the trashy to the epic, from the classics to today's blockbusters, this cinefile’s guidebook reviews nearly 1,000 of the biggest, baddest, and brightest from every age and genre of cinematic science fiction! Once upon a time, science fiction was only in the future. It was the stuff of drive-ins and cheap double-bills. Then, with the ever-increasing rush of new, society-altering technologies, science fiction pushed its way to the present, and it busted out of the genre ghetto of science fiction and barged its way into the mainstream. What used to be mere fantasy (trips to the moon? Wristwatch radios? Supercomputers capable of learning?) are now everyday reality. Whether nostalgic for the future or fast-forwarding to the present, The Sci-Fi Movie Guide: The Universe of Film from Alien to Zardoz covers the broad and widening range of science-fiction movies. You’ll find more than just Star Wars, Star Trek, and Transformers, with reviews on many overlooked and under-appreciated gems and genres, such as ... Monsters! Pacific Rim, Godzilla, The Thing, Creature from the Black Lagoon Superheroes: Thor, Iron Man, X-Men, The Amazing Spider-man, Superman Dystopias: THX 1138, 1984, The Hunger Games Avant-garde masterpieces: Solaris, 2001, Brazil, The Man Who Fell to Earth Time travel: 12 Monkeys, The Time Machine, Time Bandits, Back to the Future Post-apocalyptic action: The Road Warrior, I Am Legend, Terminator Salvation Comedy: Dark Star, Mars Attacks!, Dr. Strangelove, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension, Mystery Science Theater 3000 Aliens! The Day the Earth Stood Still, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Contact, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Signs Mad scientists! Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, The Abominable Dr. Phibes Shoot-em-ups: Aliens, Universal Soldier, Starship Troopers What the...?: Battlefield Earth, Prayer of the Rollerboys, Repo: The Genetic Opera, Tank Girl, The 10th Victim Animation: WALL-E, Akira, Ghost in the Shell Small budgets, big ideas: Donnie Darko, Primer, Sound of My Voice, Computer Chess Neglected greats: Things to Come, Children of Men Epics: Metropolis, Blade Runner, Cloud Atlas and many, many more categories and movies!! In addition to the nearly one thousand science fiction film reviews, this guide includes fascinating and fun Top-10 lists and sidebars that are designed to lead fans to similar titles they might not have known about. The Sci-Fi Movie Guide: The Universe of Film from Alien to Zardoz will help ensure that you will never again have to worry about what to watch next. Useful both as a handy resource or a fun romp through the film world of science fiction. It also includes a helpful bibliography and an extensive index, adding to its usefulness.