Halliwell's Film Guide 2004

Rating:
Summary: Among the Best
Review: I have given only four stars this time to "Halliwell's Film Guide 2004," because the publisher constantly misrepresents it. The 2003 edition, called "Halliwell's Film and Video Guide," claimed on the cover to contain "more than 23,000 [...] film reviews," although a statistical analysis of 10% of its nearly 1000 pages showed that the number was much closer to 17,900, with a statistical error of about 200 pages. The new 2004 edition goes one step further by claiming now that it has "more than 23,000 DVD and VIDEO REVIEWS!" (my emphasis). In fact, the total number of film reviews in the 2004 edition, based on an equally thorough statistical analysis, is only about 18,600. The necessarily smaller number of films in the guide on DVD, VHS, laser disc, or video CD is only 11,700 with the same statistical error. The previous irksome misrepresentations, which have been going on for years, have now become a whopping irksome misrepresentation. Furthermore, by what criterion can these 11,700 reviews of films on DVD or VHS be called DVD or VHS reviews? These reviews contain no information at all on the recording other than that they once existed (but may exist no more). Halliwell's guide loses one star in my reviews until the publisher adopts something a lot closer to truth in advertising.

That said, let it be known that there are many excellent qualities to this guide, which has had a welcome place on my shelf for many years, despite the untruthful claims. Since the most significant competitor to "Halliwell's Film Guide" is "Leonard Maltin's Film and Video Guide 2004" (slightly more comprehensive with about 18,900 reviews), I will make a lot of comparisons with that guide. Those comparisons, however, cannot present all of the information from a complete review of Maltin's guide.

Like its predecessors "Halliwell's Film Guide 2004" has a four-star system, as does Maltin, but there are no half stars, and the stars are given out rather stingily. The distribution of stars for 2004 is (in round numbers): **** (250), *** (700), ** (2200), * (5300), no stars (10,150). A rating of one or more Halliwell stars, then, is equivalent roughly to three or more stars from Maltin. The Halliwell guide is of no use, clearly, in making rating comparisons among the majority of films it lists. (Maltin has four different rating categories for the lower-rated 10,000 films.) Among the good or better films, Halliwell has four categories (one to four stars) rather than three with Maltin (three, three-and-a-half and four stars). Not a big difference in quality acuity and probably insignificant. Overall, Maltin has a much more useful distribution of ratings. That is really the only bad news.

The good news about the Halliwell guide, however, is very good. The amount of film data in the Halliwell guide is much greater than in Maltin's. While the Maltin guide always gives his rating, the director, the principal actors, a synopsis, a critical comment, the widescreen process, whether color or B&W, the intellectual origin of the film (remake, adapted book, story, or stage play), signifiant Oscars, titles of sequels and prequels, the MPAA rating, and only occasionally other information, the Halliwell guide always gives as well the screenwriter, director of photography, producer, original title (for a foreign-language film), alternate titles, studio, production company, the soundtrack composer, significant Oscar nominations, and critical comments from the press. If you wish to be a film maven, you should keep the Halliwell guide as well as Maltin on hand.

Halliwell's guide tells whether a film has existed on DVD, VHS, laser disc, or video CD in versions that can be played in either the UK or the US. This information on DVD, VHS and laser-disc releases is also in Maltin (but for US releases only). Unless you are a collector and are interested in discontinued items, this information (in either guide) will be less useful to you than the current information in the amazon.com on-line catalogue. Also, as the next edition approaches, most of that information in Halliwell or Maltin will be more than a year old.

OTHER COMPETITORS:

Martin & Porter DVD & Video Guide 2004---Pro: Motivation given for the MPAA ratings (the Halliwell guide has an icon for films which are acceptable for family viewing with small children), reviews TV series, almost competitive with Halliwell and Maltin in comprehensiveness. Con: reviews sometimes low-brow, ratings less reliable than Maltin's (to this writer), many significant films omitted which appear in Maltin or Halliwell.

Time Out Film Guide 2004---Pro: Excellent incisive usually longer-than-usual capsule reviews, almost as much technical data as Halliwell (it lacks only the studio, production company, and the widescreen and color processes), magnificent film lists. Con: No ratings (some people may regard this as a plus), less comprehensive (15,700 reviews) than Maltin or Halliwell.

TLA Video and DVD Guide 2004---Pro: Long thoughtful reviews, interesting film lists in appendix. Con: Not comprehensive (only 9000 reviews), many important films omitted, many minor errors.

Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbooks---Pro: Superb, long, penetrating, passionate reviews, many unique extra features as appendices. Con: Not comprehensive film guides (nor were they meant to be).

If you already own the Maltin guide, which I think is indispensible, then the choice of whether to buy the Halliwell or the Time Out guide as your second guide may depend on whether it is more important for you to have the extensive technical data of Halliwell for an additional 3000 films (mostly at the lower end of the ratings spectrum) or the superb capsule reviews (and only slightly less technical data) of the Time Out guide.