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micha's review
A weight has been lifted off my shoulders! Finally, I am done! I first started reading this book in November of 2011 and finished it in January of 2013. It has to be the longest time I have spent on reading a book. And I did read the WHOLE book; I read the people who were involved in the movie making, the description, and even the info about the contributors who wrote the descriptions at the end of the book. This book was also the longest I have ever read so far (900+ pages). It took me a while to get through the 1900s, once I got to 1990 and the 2000s the book went by faster. I think one of the reasons for that is because there weren't that many movies mentioned in the 2000s. For example: there would be like 3 movies mentioned in 2003 whereas there would be like 10 movies mentioned in 1950-something. At times I was wondering 'why is this movie in here?' and other times I was mainly wondering 'why is so-and-so NOT in here?' This book was missing a few movies, but that's okay, I guess, since I recently found out that they made an updated version in October of 2012 -___- <<<< my face when I realized this. I added that book to my to be read list but it's going to be a while until I get to reading that. Also, some problems I had with this book are that at times some of the descriptions did spoil a movie, but mainly I felt like this book unfairly went into detail in its description of some movies more than others. Some of the descriptions talked about the movie plot, the actors and director(s) whereas others didn't dive into the movie so much. For example: the movie The Color Purple was mentioned in this book. In it's description the writer talked about Steven Spielberg who directed the movie. The plot of this movie was hardly mentioned and the writer made it seem like this movie should only be viewed because it has Steven Spielberg's name attached to it. Really? I didn't care for that.
I don't feel like this is a book that should be rated (my opinion). There are always going to be updated versions and there wasn't a story here. All I know is that I don't want to read a book that's going to take me this long to read ever again.
I don't feel like this is a book that should be rated (my opinion). There are always going to be updated versions and there wasn't a story here. All I know is that I don't want to read a book that's going to take me this long to read ever again.
nickshutter's review
informative
slow-paced
2.0
Content Warnings
The book features write-ups of many films and is complete with stills of the movies it discusses. These stills sometimes feature blood or nudity.
xterminal's review
4.0
Steven Jay Schneider (ed.), 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die (Barron's, 2005)
I have no idea how I didn't review this the first time around, but it seems I didn't, so here we are close to three years later; according to my spreadsheet, I finished this up on January 31, 2010.
Schneider's book is different than a number of others of this ilk I have reviewed, and loved, in the past in that Schneider is acting as editor here; the 1001 pieces are collected from a number of film critics, rather than this being a personal selection of Schneider's. As such, you're not going to find many surprises here (only eighty of the films listed are unique to this thousand-best collection from among the eleven thousand-best collections I have data on); this in itself is no surprise, given Ebert's Rules of Best-of Lists (basically, the more cooks you have contributing to the soup, the more generic that soup is likely to be).
And yet I certainly don't mean to imply that this isn't a worthwhile reference; far from it. There's a lot of overlap with other thousand-best lists, but if you're not a collector, that's not going to mater a whit to you. Any single thousand-best list is going to give you a wealth of places to turn the next time you're looking for a good movie. Schneider's doesn't have the quirkiness of, say, David Thomson's list in Have You Seen...?, or the canonical feel of Jonathan Rosenbaum's list (which can be found online as well as in one of his books), but it's not like sticking a dart in and picking the movie it stops at is going to steer you wrong. If you're a neophyte film buff, someone who's just starting to get into the classics, or someone who wants to expand your film horizons, Schneider's tome will do just as well as any of the others. When you've got some miles under your belt and you want to wander off the beaten path some, then it's time to pursue Thomson, Rosenbaum, or the ultimate canonical list at They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?. Until then, this will work fine. ***
I have no idea how I didn't review this the first time around, but it seems I didn't, so here we are close to three years later; according to my spreadsheet, I finished this up on January 31, 2010.
Schneider's book is different than a number of others of this ilk I have reviewed, and loved, in the past in that Schneider is acting as editor here; the 1001 pieces are collected from a number of film critics, rather than this being a personal selection of Schneider's. As such, you're not going to find many surprises here (only eighty of the films listed are unique to this thousand-best collection from among the eleven thousand-best collections I have data on); this in itself is no surprise, given Ebert's Rules of Best-of Lists (basically, the more cooks you have contributing to the soup, the more generic that soup is likely to be).
And yet I certainly don't mean to imply that this isn't a worthwhile reference; far from it. There's a lot of overlap with other thousand-best lists, but if you're not a collector, that's not going to mater a whit to you. Any single thousand-best list is going to give you a wealth of places to turn the next time you're looking for a good movie. Schneider's doesn't have the quirkiness of, say, David Thomson's list in Have You Seen...?, or the canonical feel of Jonathan Rosenbaum's list (which can be found online as well as in one of his books), but it's not like sticking a dart in and picking the movie it stops at is going to steer you wrong. If you're a neophyte film buff, someone who's just starting to get into the classics, or someone who wants to expand your film horizons, Schneider's tome will do just as well as any of the others. When you've got some miles under your belt and you want to wander off the beaten path some, then it's time to pursue Thomson, Rosenbaum, or the ultimate canonical list at They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?. Until then, this will work fine. ***
fictionalhearts's review
4.0
I'm not sure when one is allowed to mark this as read but I've read the introductions and ticked every movie I've seen so I'd say that's as close as I can get right now. From what I've seen the collection seems to be pretty solid, some of my favourite (especially newer) films are missing but as a guide for what to watch when you have no inspiration this is a wonderful source to get back to.
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