BOMB
(Investigator
126,
2009 May)
Leonard
Maltin's
2007 Movie Guide has 17,000-movie summaries on 1519
pages with ratings from "BOMB" to four stars.
I
consulted
Leonard
Maltin after checking the movie section of The
Weekend Australian and reading: "Underworld (2003)
A
beautiful werewolf-slaying vampire finds her
allegiances tested after falling for a werewolf."
Many
people
enjoy
movies with whose characters, stories or themes they
can identify. But how many beautiful, werewolf-slaying vampires with
tested allegiance because of falling for a werewolf have you met?
Such a
story I
suspected deserved a thumbs-down. So I consulted Leonard
Maltin to find out for sure.
Leonard
Maltin's
rating system contains seven categories which, from
best to worst, are:
****
***1/2
***
**1/2
**
*1/2 BOMB.
Of the
17,000
movies
over 600 are BOMBs including 32 in just the "A"
entries. Alligator II: The Mutation (1991), for example, is
"Lame-brained and dreary."
Maltin
gives Underworld
two stars whereas my evaluation was BOMB.
Maltin rates Paparazzi (2004), which he describes as "odious,
self
righteous revenge thriller", a Bomb whereas I gave it **1/2.
We
agree,
however, on
*1/2 for The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant
(1971). Maltin's write-up says: "The head of an insane murderer is
attached to the head of a mental retardate. Which head made this film?"
I considered it worth *1/2 rather than BOMB for the scene where the
two-heads, each controlling one arm, fight and throw punches at each
other.
The
total number
of
post silent-era movies made by movie studios
exceeds 100,000. I was told this without confirmation. Many movies
therefore are not listed in Leonard Maltin's. Nevertheless the book
will often be useful when deciding whether to watch TV or go to bed.
If we
assume
that the
average full-time employee's working week is 40
hours and that the average movie without commercials is 1 1/2 hours
long
then Mr Maltin worked 13 years full-time to watch the 17,000 movies in
his book! After that he had to write them all up!
This
useful
reference
book and the hard work that went into it will
help you avoid many BOMBs. My 2007 edition was purchased new and cost
only $24.