Review
The go-to choice for both film geeks and casual couch potatoes. The New York Times Book Review The best of the bunch.San Francisco Chronicle The single most important reference book in every home. Esquire
–This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
The New York Times bestselling film guide revised and updatedThe most authoritative book of its kind, now with more entries than ever before, updated and revised for 2009…
Buy Leonard Maltin’s 2009 Movie Guide at Amazon
I ordered this book because I wanted to get Leonard Maltin’s most recent listings. When it arrived, I found it completely unusable. Obviously, it has many more entries, but instead of being larger than my old one (from about 3 years ago), the book is of smaller size. As a result, the type is so small that, with my 76-year-old eyes, I could not read it. I was planning to pass the old one along to my grown children but, instead, I gave them this one and kept the old one for myself. With more and more listings being added each year, somebody has to give serious thought to developing a reasonable format to accommodate the ever-increasing volume. This review clearly does not address itself to the content, which I was not able to access. I’ve enjoyed Maltin’s guide for many years, and I can’t imagine that the quality of the content has suffered. By giving it only one star I am only trying to communicate that this new guide did not serve MY purpose. It may be totally satisfactory for someone else with better eyesight.
Leonard Maltin has been issuing this yearly movie reference guide for many years. A while back (not sure when exactly), Maltin decided to split up the movies in pre-and after 1960 movies. The pre-1960 movies now have their own book (“Leonard Maltin’s Classic Movie Guide”).
“Leonard Maltin’s 2009 Movie Guide” (a whopping 1,644 pages, this book should be sold “by the pound”) brings the alphabetical listing of more than 17,000 movies and captures their essence in a single paragraph. The editions change little from year to year, bringing a batch of new movies. It’s not exactly clear where the chronological cut-off point is: “Iron Man” is in here, but not “The Dark Knight”. But it matters not.
The beauty of this book is that it remains the essential “hard copy” reference tool for us movie lovers. Yes, the minute this book is issued it becomes out-dated (see the “Dark Knight” reference), and I’m sure there are on-line reference sites that are more up to date, but if you, like me, like to have an actual book, this reference guide is for you. At that level, this book remains the best and essential.
For my money, this is the best of the movie guides. These concise, knowledgeable reviews written by Leonard Maltin and his team are indispensable when flipping through movie channels on TV or trying to decide on the next DVD rental. They also do a great job each year in correcting errors and adding the names of newly-prominent actors to the cast lists.
My only significant complaint is the the book is published way, way too early in the year. Why issue the “2009 Guide” in early August 2008? Obviously, the summer is the key time for releasing new movies, but because of its publication date this year’s guide only includes movies released through early July. It’s missing reviews of The Incredible Hulk, WALL-E, Sex and the City, Kitt Kittredge, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Kung Fu Panda, and — the biggest hit of 2008 — The Dark Knight, among many other summer and fall releases. Anyone who buys the book right after publication (like I did) probably realizes some of these reviews will not be there, but I would guess this book sells a lot of copies during the holiday season. Many of those people are going to be pretty disappointed to find out just how many films are not reviewed in this “2009 Guide.” Seems like a very strange strategy by the publisher.