Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 142

mm i i 1 1 ii umiii i i iii-im i iiiniwt FrMay 74 Section 7 Chicago Tribune, Friday, March 2. 1990 CN udIovMo Rating 6 recently published guides to movies on video BJim Emerson ack in the 1930s and '40s, people went to the movies regularly "4 ana saw jusi aooui whelmed by the number of choices looming in front of them, on video store shelves and in the columns of TV programming logs. Hence the increasing role of the movie critic as consumer reporter, nudging prospective viewers one way or another to help them decide if a particular picture is worth watching, renting or even buying. Six hefty guides to movies on video have recently been published totaling 6,560 pulpy pages of tiny print in skinny columns, listing tens of thou-' sands of movies along with opinions about their comparative aesthetic worth (or entertainment value, at least) from critics such as Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times and TVs "Siskel Ebert," Mick Martin of the Sacramento Bee, the New York Daily News Phantom of the Movies, film historians Leonard Maltin of "Entertainment Tonight" and the late Britisher Leslie Halliwell, and millions of surveyed cable subscribers (HBO). These guides range in price from $5.95 for Maltin's paperback to $50 for Halliwell's hardback.

Some aspire to being comprehensive. (Maltin's 20th anniversary edition lists capsule comments on 18,500 films, from silents to 1989 releases, including more than 7,000 available on videocassette). Others go into more detail: Ebert's 1990 edition lists more than 800 films from the last 25 years but devotes a full-length review to each and lists the names of the movie's characters as well as the actors who played them. Some guides are designed for "family' viewing the HBO Guide includes MPAA ratings and scrutinizes its 3,000 films for content in 10 more specific categories, including "Nudity," Graphic violence and "Strong sexual content." Others appeal to more offbeat tastes: "The Phantom's Ultimate Movie Guide" lists "more than 4,000 of the latest, greatest, weirdest and rarest action, horror, sci-fi, cult, camp, comedy and classic videos, according to the cover blurb. whatever was playing at the local bijou that week.

Today, with the vast assortment of movies available for home viewing at their ccinnenience (on broadcast TV, cable movie channels, video-cassettes, laser discs), people are generally a little more selective about what they watch. Maybe they're just over Now you're faced with another problem: How do you decide which guide(s) to choose? The best way is to put them through their paces. Here are the basic facts about each guide's format and ml -Rotter Ebert Home Movie Companion" Ebert book, although marke ted as a guide to films on home video, is really a selection of his reviews over die last 23 years or 3 DAYS ONLY SUN. MON. SAVE OVER 12 ON THIS 1249.

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As a critic, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Ebert has a conversational style and is very generous with his stars. Four-star ratings abound, for such disparate movies as "3 Women," "On Golden Pond." "Blow Out," "Housekeeping," "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia," "Mississippi Burning" and its aesthetic and thematic antithesis, "Do the Right Thing." He gives his lowest rating (one star) to. "Blue Velvet" (too smug, campy and full of cheap shots) and the mutilated American version of Sergio Leone's "Once Upon a Time in the West" (but his highest rating to the restored, 227-minute version, Ebert also includes interviews with 23 filmmmakers and actors, an anticolorization essay titled "Why I love Black and White" (the cover of the book itself is in black and white as a homage), questions and answers about black and white, a list of 10 great black-and-white films, a suggested basic video library, a list of movie sources, a guide to state-of-the-art video projection systems and Ebert's own idiosyncratic movie glossary. "Leslie Halliwell's Film Guide" Halliwell's is the most detailed guide when it comes to behind-the-scenes credits, including the film's writers, source novel or play, cincmatographcr, score composer, distributor. Academy Awards (and nominations) and whether the film was released in Technicolor or Metrocolor, Panavision or Cinema-Scope or Todd-AO.

As a critic, however, Halliwell is something of a grumpy old English fuddy-duddy. The British tilm historian (who died last Sec Guides, following page tohBEi AC- I A -ft J' 2iS-- rm -j -m mm m. -m mm Avilil.lhk' lis ijilri'n sudl he'd Willi firm jnni'rsprint mqttn'ss. 'JS. DON'T LET THIS ONE GETAWAY! FURNITURE CRAFTSMEN SINCE 1912 Or connntfAf Arwic.

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