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Summary: One of the most crucial books ever written for filmmakers
Review: If you work as a filmmaker or in television, whether as a hobby, your profession or your obssession, YOU NEED THIS BOOK. Screenwriters for both film and TV especially need this, since it deals largely with storytelling cliches, but it also lists visual ones in cinematography, in angles, in casting and in general mise-en-scene that it is absolutely crucial for the director to avoid. This book will make you a better filmmaker just on virtue of being aware of what's been done to death.It's also useful across the board. While it usually rips into the more standardized genres (like slasher flicks or action movies), it also chainsaws such common cliches as "The Pet Homosexual" ("he can talk endlessly about sex, provided he never has any himself", most recent offender: "The Next Best Thing" and "Will and Grace"), "Baked Potato People" (the gentle lunatics in the asylum that show the outside world is crazy; most recent offender: "K-PAX"), and more subtle ones like the Fat Guy rule; if a group of men are planning an escape, the fat one usually can't be trusted. This is a very funny book, but it's also very true, and if we made everybody currently making movies sit down and read the damn thing, we'd have better movies, or at least different cliches. Fun for the armchair film freak, but absolutely crucial for the filmmaker.
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Summary: A contributor speaks out
Review: It was amusing to learn about assorted hackneyed cliches that I'd kinda noticed in the background of movies. It was even more fun to contribute some that I had discovered on my own, such as "Backseater Mortality Phenomenon" and "Inevitable Girl Next Door."
Rating: 
Summary: A must-have for cinema buffs
Review: It's not a glossary so much as a joke book ... a compilation of both Mr. Ebert's own list of cinematic cliches and those submitted by his readership. It's a great browser's book, something you can just open up to any page and start reading. I've taken to leaving my copy by the couch, so I can flip through it during commercials and see how many points the film's racked up since the last commercial. The only real problem with the book is the inherent flaw in having a book that features submissions ... quality is uneven, and a few cliches appear multiple times submitted by different people. This is balanced out by some very clever observations, patterns that I hadn't noticed before and which informed by later movie watching. It's not quite as good as "I Hated, Hated, Hated, HATED This Movie," but it's still a seriously funny book for anyone who's fed up with seeing the same movie made over and over again with different titles.
Rating:
Summary: A must-have for cinema buffs
Review: It's not a glossary so much as a joke book ... a compilation of both Mr. Ebert's own list of cinematic cliches and those submitted by his readership. It's a great browser's book, something you can just open up to any page and start reading. I've taken to leaving my copy by the couch, so I can flip through it during commercials and see how many points the film's racked up since the last commercial. The only real problem with the book is the inherent flaw in having a book that features submissions ... quality is uneven, and a few cliches appear multiple times submitted by different people. This is balanced out by some very clever observations, patterns that I hadn't noticed before and which informed by later movie watching. It's not quite as good as "I Hated, Hated, Hated, HATED This Movie," but it's still a seriously funny book for anyone who's fed up with seeing the same movie made over and over again with different titles.
Rating:
Summary: This is required reading for anyone who loves movies
Review: Roger Ebert's Bigger Little Movie Glossary is the ultimate accessory for anyone who loves movies as well as fans of Mr. Ebert. This is one book that begs to be made into a movie.
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Summary: So very true...
Review: These items are things that are true, but you wouldn't necessarily think about unless they were in front of your face. I would recommend it to any movie fan.
Rating: 
Summary: Fun, good gift
Review: This book is a lot of fun, but all of the criticisms by "A reader from Mid-West" are valid. As such, the book makes for a nice gift to get a movie lover (and a pleasure to receive as a gift), but buying it for oneself is somewhat of a waste of money. Hopefully if there is another edition some aggressive editing will be done to take out ideas repeated under different names, etc.
Rating:
Summary: a great read and a genuine delight.
Review: this book is one of the funniest things I've run into, and every director (and most writers) should keep a copy handy to help them avoid being too predictable.
Rating:
Summary: A great book for your bedside table
Review: This is a very amusing book of film cliches, some which will make you smile wryly, others make you laugh out loud. Robert Ebert is my favourite film critic, which is why I bought this book and I found it to be a worthwhile buy. I keep it by my bed to dip into when I can't sleep and it always makes me smile. Would also make an ideal present for a film buff ...
Rating:
Summary: A great book for your bedside table
Review: This is a very amusing book of film cliches, some which will make you smile wryly, others make you laugh out loud. Robert Ebert is my favourite film critic, which is why I bought this book and I found it to be a worthwhile buy. I keep it by my bed to dip into when I can't sleep and it always makes me smile. Would also make an ideal present for a film buff ...
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