If you have a choice of 20,000 similar products which will have a very dissimilar end result when consumed, you need a guide.
Any guide will be better than none at all but few in the know will disagree that, when it comes to movies, Leonard Maltin is the Oracle.
So when LandWare teamed up with Leonard to craft the ultimate Movie Guide, did they deliver?
Is it Unique?
I’ve had a movie guide on my PDA for years. The TomeRaider program is ideal for quick access to many databases and extensive lists so the free download of various versions of the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) has served me well.
Another good thing is that their updates are frequent and free.
What I particularly like is the Trivia and Goofs that are supplied with many movies.
So the LM Movie Guide has some serious competition!
How does it stack up?
Featuring...
LM Movie Guide has a more colourful interface with icons for Media Availability (if you want to check whether it’s on DVD), Film Stock (widescreen, etc.) MPAA Rating (for instance PG-13) and an overall rating from “bombed” to 4 stars.
It’s great for selecting movies with a 3 or 4 star rating so that you’re not waisting too much time on less than average stuff. Mind you, ratings are very subjective and I’ve been known to enjoy some nice 2 star movies!
The Film Finder is brilliant: it’s easy to select whatever criteria you want. There a whole list of all the Directors for instance or all actors and I mean ALL!
(Just in case you wondered: over 35,000 by my last count J)
Some features that I particularly like:
It has lists of the Best Movies Ever but you can easily create lists of your own personal favourites, or lists of movies you still want to watch or you can make a list of all the movies you’ve ever watched…
There is an online event calendar that
can keep you in touch with DVD release dates, new releases in theatres
and film festivals.
Whilst the Movie Guide uses sophisticated compression techniques,
necessitating less memory, it also has full support for removable
expansion card media. In all, it’s just a tad over 6MB to download which
compared favourably with the 15MB of the earlier mentioned program which
does seem to have more movies and more elaborate descriptions though.
Imperfections?
In a data base that spans over 20,000 movies there are bound to be glitches, omissions and plain wrong facts.
For instance, last night I watched Russian Ark on TV, a film centered around the Hermitage. A most unusual and intriguing movie that left me wanting to know more about how it was filmed. Out came the LM Movie Guide.
Russian Ark has a well-deserved 3 star rating but what was fascinating to learn was that this amazing film was shot in one day (!) in one continuous take! They could only close the Hermitage for one day, you see…
Some director!
The only problem I noticed in the Movie Guide was that it listed this film as having come out in B&W whilst it was a most colourful spectacle!
How do you keep it up to date?
First off, the program costs US$19.95 which is good value.
If you check back frequently on the LandWare.com site you can check whether there is an update available (they are free for registered users).
Verdict
The Leonard Maltin Movie Guide is a great resource, well worth the price of a couple of movie tickets.
Personally, I’d like to see the descriptions a bit longer with additions of goofs, trivia, etc. That’s part of the fun in watching a movie, I guess…
The fact that you can personalize your movie lists is a great aspect and the Film Finder is absolutely brilliant!
An Oscar for Best Movie Guide Director is waiting for you, Mr Maltin…
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