Wednesday, August 20, 2014

So It's Come to This

'Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide' to Cease Publication:  In a blog post last night, Joe Leydon, critic for Variety and a contributor to Maltin's guide, announced that the 2015 edition, due for release September 2, will be the last. 

Hat tip to Steve Stilwell.

7 comments:

Deb said...

It's just too unwieldy these days. The last year we got was 2011 and it was so big and packed so tight, we could hardly read the reviews printed on the inner columns; and over the years, Maltin has had to jettison so much--TV movies, all but a handful of black and white movies, fewer and fewer foreign films--and yet the book still kept getting bigger. It's time to say goodbye.

mybillcrider said...

I must confess that I haven't bought one in recent years. But I still keep the older ones handy.

Max Allan Collins said...

Leonard will do at least one more classic movies edition. For me, this is a sad day.

Anonymous said...

What a shame. For years I bought them as soon as they came out and went through them page by page. Then they started dropping movies I cared about in favor of newer ones I didn't (stay off my lawn!) and I drifted away. I haven't bought one in some time.


Jeff

Max Allan Collins said...

Pretty much everything dropped from the regular guide went into the classic one. I keep both by my living room chair and a couple others (both editions) in my office. Leonard is a friend and one of the nicest guys I've ever known -- talking movies with him is just a delight. I even wrote a very small handful of reviews for him, when I would tell him that he needed to update something or that he or his staff were wrong about a film. One of my proudest achivements is getting him to advance the musical LI'L ABNER from two and a half stars to three.

mybillcrider said...

That's another star in your crown, for sure. I love that movie.

Anonymous said...

You can't go wrong with Stubby Kaye, not to mention Julie Newmar.

Jeff