The Village Voice Film Guide: 50 Years of Movies from Classics to Cult Hits

The Village Voice Film Guide: 50 Years of Movies from Classics to Cult Hits
For decades the Village Voice set the benchmark for passionate, critical, and unique film coverage. Including reviews by some of America’s most respected critics, The Village Voice Film Guide compiles spirited landmark reviews of the Voice’s selection of the 150 greatest films ever made. Collecting some of the best writing on film ever put on paper, this is a perfect book for film buffs.
Customer Review: Some of the Best in Film Criticism
This volume contains some of the best examples in film criticism by some of the most important and influential American critics of the past 50 years. It covers not only the recent films of its day but includes reviews of all the retrospectives of classic films. A must-have for film buffs, film historians, and film writers...
Customer Review: A bizarre line-up
Editor Dennis Lim tells us the reviews he selected for this anthology were based in part on his wish "to shake off the cobwebs of the Eurocentric art-film orthodoxy." I'm not clear on what he means by "Eurocentric art-film orthodoxy," but apparently the directors to be excised include Herzog, who's completely absent from the collection, and Bergman, whose "Persona" is the only film included. Fair enough. Some people like Bergman and Herzog, some don't (although totally ignoring the latter seems a bit over the top). But there's also no Kurosawa, no Almodovar, no Woody Allen, no von Trotta, no Carlos Diegues, no Ki-duk Kim, no Truffault (and believe me: I could go on). So it's not only the "Eurocentric art-film" crowd that gets dissed by this collection. It's also some of the leading non-Eurocentric art-film directors. Inexplicable. Equally bizarre is the inclusion of reviews of lackluster films like Stanley Kubrick's bloated "Barry Lyndon," Hitchcock's WAY overrated "The Birds," Cronenberg's "History of Violence" (huh?!), Leone's spaghetti pulp "Once Upon a Time in the West," Eastwood's American pulp "Unforgiven," Terrence Malick's really really bad "Thin Red Line," and Romero's adolescent "Night of the Living Dead." Moreover, although Bergman's films rate one review, David Lynch gets three and Goddard four. Finally, several reviews of standby "classics" found in any similar collection get air time here as well. Let's face it. How many reviews of "Citizen Kane," "Rear Window," or "2001: A Space Odyssey" do we need to read? Every collection reflects the likes and dislikes of its editor. I accept that. But surely some kind of balance should be struck in a collection that claims to represent fifty years of film reviews from "The Village Voice." Ho-hum. Two-and-a-half stars.