What are the odds? I had my own Leonard Maltin encounter just a few weeks ago and it changed how I feel about the man. I was roaming around antique shops in Sonoma and I spotted Maltin in one shop with his wife, producer Alice Tlusty. I believe they may have been in the area for the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. I didn’t approach him but we did lock eyes and I smiled and nodded my head while he politely smiled back. I suspect he might have guessed that I recognized him but I’m always respectful of strangers (celebrity or not) when I’m in public and I had no intention on bothering him.

Like yourself, I’ve never been particularly fond of his books or criticism. I worked at a video store in the ’80s and word got ’round that he didn’t write all the reviews in his book and I just didn’t get that. And my own film tastes are somewhat similar to your own so I didn’t appreciate a lot of his reviews.

What I noticed about him in person is that he had good mojo and seemed like a very friendly, genuinely good-natured & approachable guy. Oddly enough I gained a level of respect for the man after making eye contact with him that I didn’t have before. Can’t explain it really. It’s just a feeling more than anything else. Good mojo indeed!

I have known Leonard for about thirty years, mostly through a mutual friend, and have gotten to know him better since I moved to SoCal. We have broken bread together a few times and I can safely say I have have every book of his signed and proudly displayed on my shelves.

My first meeting took place at the Detroit Theater where he was giving a lecture on classic animation. After it was over I managed to get his autograph on my copy of “Of Mice and Magic” (still his best book, IMHO) and got to ask him a question relayed by our mutual friend about Chuck Jones’ THE DOVER BOYS. He chuckled and told our friend to “shove it,” and we both laughed. I ran into him again later that year at Cinevent in Columbus, Ohio and also met the lovely Alice, who is a hoot (On the last day she was walking around with a bunch of donut holes and offering them to people very sweetly. I politely turned her down twice before she looked me right in the eye and said “Take one!” I laughed nervously and took TWO, and we both cracked up-she is a treasure) and his dad, who Leonard carries a strong resemblance to.

I have always respected his criticism even when I have disagreed with him, and I do about such films as THE COWBOYS, CHICAGO, the Monty Python films, the Star Trek films, Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies and a few others, but even when I do not agree with him I feel his arguments are strong and his points well made, as opposed to many other critics like John Simon, Richard Roeper (don’t get me started on his feelings about the Our Gang films-the dope) and the lightweights we had out here in the persons of Gary Franklin and David Sheehan.

Leonard’s writings on obscure comedies and classic comedians are still fun to read and whenever we see each other he really seems pleased to chat. For no other reason but his classic review on ET of one piece of dreck comedy where he said absolutely nothing before walking out on it and making depreciating gestures as he left (wish I could remember the film) I admire his work. One genuinely nice man.

I’ve always liked Maltin. The thing about this…

The Maltin guide seemed to argue for a heirarchy of movies, with CITIZEN KANE (1941) and ALL ABOUT EVE (1950) and GONE WITH THE WIND (1939) and their four-star ilk constituting a ruling class while too many good, entertaining movies were relegated to the slums, to the movie ghetto, to cinema steerage.

…is that it is present in every form and construction throughout life. If we don’t acknowledge that Alinea makes better pea soup than Joe’s Diner, that Richard Feynman is a more accomplished physicist than Stanton Friedman, that Greg Ferrara is a cooler guy than Richard Harland Smith, then what’s the point in trying? Seriously, though, I understand that movies that aren’t particularly well-made can be entertaining and, thus, good. I did a whole blogathon celebrating Ed Wood and I mean truly celebrating him, not ironically. He made some very entertaining films. Plan 9 is one of them. Others, like his later porn/horror mash-ups, are truly bad in that they’re not entertaining, just dull. But the point remains that I don’t want to view anything in postmodern relativistic terms of “we’re all winners,” because, bullshit, we’re not. Some movies are better than others, some are way better than others and there’s nothing wrong with acknowledging that either.

Robot Monster‘s crimes are not that it has a guy in a gorilla suit with a space helmet but that it is incompetently thrown together. It has nothing to do with genre and everything to do with execution. The Shining isn’t run down or exalted, one way or another, because it’s about a haunted hotel. It succeeds as a great film because of the brilliant execution behind it. So I can’t really fault Maltin or any critic for giving BOMB ratings to movies clumsily made. I think what happens is that, especially in the sixties and before, schlock exploitation producers ran the horror/sci-fi genre so a lot of it is subpar. I don’t think Maltin was hating on the genre so much as the low quality of so many of the productions. For every great Hammer film or City of the Dead or Psycho there were ten not so great rush jobs. And I’m pretty sure he gives BOMB ratings to a lot of movies in the drama, comedy, war, western, etc categories, too but we tend to focus on the ones that fall into our favorite genre.

So I’m glad you stopped hating him or I’d have to come after you and then your wife would beat me up and I’d be embarrassed but I’d still be cool. So, yeah, I’m glad all that didn’t have to go down.

But the point remains that I don’t want to view anything in postmodern relativistic terms of “we’re all winners,” because, bullshit, we’re not.

That’s one way to look at it (and, expressed in those terms, I wouldn’t like that either) but movies don’t have to be compared by way of a discussion of their individual merits. That a movie is expertly executed doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be more meaningful than one that is rushed together. All movies have something to say and sidestepping the urge or the rush to judge them is the best way to be receptive to their messages, both intentional and otherwise. One of the biggest pitfalls of Internet film criticism, it seems to me, is the conflation of opinion with analysis.

As a Video Watchdog emeritus, I also grew to resent in later years how some movies were assessed via bad video tape presentations. I don’t think a lot of the writers for the Maltin guide understood how seriously compromised was the intended presentation of these films, which were often as stylish and innovative as Hollywood product. But it’s all water under the bridge now. The Maltin guide is no longer the only authority on these things and so I’m content to let those assessments stand as what they are: opinions. Everybody’s a critic now.

I’d say that Maltin has always seemed to be the ‘Establishment” reviewer, the polar opposite of Joe Bob Briggs (in his day)who generally rated movies by how much ‘fun’ they were to watch.
Establishment equaled boring. I’ve never bought a Maltin book,nor visited his site (I assume he has one).
Nice guy. Finishes last.

I also grew to resent in later years how some movies were assessed via bad video tape presentations. I don’t think a lot of the writers for the Maltin guide understood how seriously compromised was the intended presentation of these films

That’s true. I often think of Carnival of Souls or my previously mentioned City of the Dead (aka Horror Hotel) in cases like that. I’ve seen both of those films in seriously degraded form, where it looks like the print was underwater with Candace Hilligoss the whole time, and I’ve seen them in beautifully cleaned up prints and the difference is jarring. The presentation really can make the difference.

However, one further point I would make is that the incompetently made movies aren’t necessarily being compared to others. Just because I would give Citizen Kane four stars (if I rated movies by stars which I don’t) and Zapped one star doesn’t mean I’m giving Zapped a lower grade on some kind of a sliding scale where it just doesn’t match up to Kane, although it doesn’t. I’m giving it one star because, all by itself, it sucks. Bad. If it were the only movie in existence we could look at it and say, “I wish there were other movies because this one is atrocious!” I’m just saying that a lot of movies rated “BOMB” are rated that because of their singular badness, not out of comparison.

I guess I’m in the minority. I’ve always liked him. I grew up watching him on Entertainment Tonight and was bummed out when they shortened his segments or only had him on the show sporadically. He, along with Siskel and Ebert, helped me to really appreciate movies, more than just the casual viewer. Most people will watch a movie and move on. I, like I’m sure all, or most of you do, watch the special features on the DVDs. If I really like a movie I will read about the movie, read about the director, watch any documentary about it I can find and so on. Leonard Maltin helped me to appreciate movies as more than just a fleeting two hours of time wasting. I greatly respect his vast, seemingly infinite knowledge of classic movies and Disneyana. I have always like the guy.

Oh yeah, and Zapped is a terrible movie. I agree with Greg that movies are, in most cases, rated on their singularity. Reviews of sequels and remakes are sometimes affected by the comparisons though.

This conversation is interesting. I hated the Maltin guides for similar reasons that Richard did and his tastes were just too mainstream for me. Star ratings, thumbs up/down, “bombs” etc. tend to turn my stomach because I always judge things on their own terms. Comparing PLAN 9 FROM OUTERSPACE to STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN for example is just utterly absurd to me and yet it’s done all the time. I come across a lot of critics who routinely compare low-budget films to multi-million dollar productions. And I’d even go so far as saying that “established film canon” thinking has really screwed up film criticism in general. People are using ideas and guides established by folks in the ’60s (the Cahiers du Cinéma crowd for example) that 1) Had their own biases and 2) Didn’t have access to a fraction of the films we do now. But they were at least willing to break with etablished thinking back then and framed marginal directors like Hitchcock as a genius, which is commonly accepted as true today. It’s complicated but I find that there’s much too much following going on in film criticism now and not enough leading.

I think my issue with the Maltin style of criticism is that it has a tendency both to reinforce existing hierarchies without ever questioning them, and to puff up white elephant movies forever without checking if they’re actually _good_. It winds up shutting out smaller movies, genre movies, things that you really _need_ a movie guide for because they’re hard to find out about, in favor of big middlebrow Academy style puffery (Gone with the Wind, I’m looking in your direction.)

On the other hand- I think that’s actually Maltin’s taste, and I can’t really fault him for having different taste from me. I mean, I still read Jonathan Rosenbaum, and I almost _never_ agree with him- the best critics are weird old cranks, and if Maltin’s form of weird old crankiness is that he likes the filmic equivalents of the Eagles, than fair enough.

Kimberly, in the comment section of my last post (on remakes) I bring up the subject of critics just copying what other critics say and sometimes not seeing the movie at all they’re judging. Give it a look.

And I’d even go so far as saying that “established film canon” thinking has really screwed up film criticism in general. People are using ideas and guides established by folks in the ’60s (the Cahiers du Cinéma crowd for example) that 1) Had their own biases and 2) Didn’t have access to a fraction of the films we do now.

The movie that immediately comes to mind when I think of things like this is Spirit of the Beehive from 1973. I absolutely loved it when I first saw it two years ago (I’ve since watched that beautiful meditation on childhood two more times) and yet it wasn’t even available to view outside of Spain until recently. I thought I had seen all the great films from 1973 (The Long Goodbye, American Graffiti, The Exorcist, etc) but I was wrong and I wonder how long it will take, if ever, that the canon adjusts to include movies like Beehive. It also made me wonder, “What else is out there that we don’t know about?”

Kimberly, it’s funny you should mention canonical thinking because I recently reread Paul Schrader’s piece in Film Comment a few years ago in which he contemplated ranking the film canon… and essentially gave up. I’m inclined to agree with you in this regard, as I don’t see how a hierarchy of movies — even if such a thing is inevitable — helps us understand, appreciate or love movies any better. And I’m not necessarily saying that’s what Maltin was doing with his guide, just that that’s what it felt like. I hasten to point out that I now absolve Maltin of his sins because most of them were of my own making… and I guess part and parcel of a star rating system.

Tom – Lots of truth in your observation.

Greg – I think SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE is pretty well respected. It’s been making the lists of “Best Spansih Films” for at least a decade or two. I think it’s also been showing up on Sight & Sound polls for awhile as well. And of course Criterion released it. Just about every Criterion release is met with open arms by critics and the general public. Criterion has become a trend-setting taste dictator. On the other hand there are thousands of lessor known films begging to be rediscovered. I’d love Criterion to release a boxset of Servando González’ films for example. Now that would impress me! A Criterion release of CITY OF THE DEAD would also make my day although the current DVD is pretty darn good.

Richard – I really like Schrader’s film criticism and essays. His piece on film cannons (“Cannon Fodder”) is a great read. He makes some very important points about the hierarchy of movies, which can be damaging. What often gets lost in the conversation about cannons is how young the film medium is compared to other arts (literature, music, etc.). And contrary to popular belief, film criticism is still in its infancy. Critics are still making up the rules and setting the tempo of the conversation.

Tom S, I love your observation that the best critics are weird old cranks. That means there’s hope for me yet. The most critics are always the ones with a strong individual point of view; they should be able to show us something about films even if we don’t agree with them. I also am frustrated by critics who never speak highly of a classic film that hasn’t been anointed by the 1960s Cahiers crew.

TCM rewrites film history every day by making so many classic movies available to us.

Circling back to Leonard Maltin: his kind of guides are very useful as an indication of mainstream taste. It’s probably a better starting point than a more idiosyncratic guide unless your tastes coincide closely. Starred ratings are absurd for many reasons, but publishers, etc. tend to insist on them. I did meet Leonard Maltin and his wife at the last festival, and they were both very approachable.

The big reason I bought Maltin’s Guides (a new one every 5 or 10 years since they came out, my most recent being 2000) was that they were far and away the most accurate and complete of the other guides I had seen, as far as being able to cram the most important details, credits, and trivia into a book that size. It was consistently good information compared to anything else I could easily get, especially on early thirties genres. I noticed that our tastes diverged occasionally, but I never felt any resentment if one of my faves was labeled BOMB. I kind of got a kick out of it.

I once answered the phone and it was a wrong number for Leonard Maltin, and it really tickled me. My brush with greatness!

Before the advent of the IMDb, Maltin’s guide (like the Steven H. Scheuer guide it sought to emulate) was the best first stop resource for checking a movie title against a thumbnail plot description. And that is where I found most of my enjoyment from the book… just rifling the pages and wondering what these movies were really like. I have to admit I did find my curiosity piqued more by the BOMB ratings than by the four-star designations.

The rewriting history thing with increased availability thing is huge- part of that is the Criterion effect that was mentioned for Spirit of the Behive (and to a lesser degree the Masters of Cinema effect) where anything released from certain labels gains a certain cachet automatically, and part of it is just that some movies aren’t going to be mentioned much because nobody’s _seen_ them in thirty years, or nobody’s seen them in good shape.

A good example of both aspects operating at once is Leo McCarey’s Make Way for Tomorrow- a forum of cinephiles I post on, criterionforum.org, does list projects where we all watch as many movies as we can from a given decade for about six months, discuss them, and then make lists of our top 50. The last time a list was made, in 2006, Make Way for Tomorrow barely made it on, down in the lower 80s. This time, it was number 12. The movie hasn’t changed- it’s been a great movie all along- but both Criterion and Masters of Cinema put out a release, so now everybody can see it easily, and because it’s on a major label (as it were) it’s a movie people have heard of.

On the other hand there are thousands of lessor known films begging to be rediscovered.

Well, yes, and that’s what happened with Beehive, it was rediscovered. It was released in 1973 and then not seen again until 2007. Tim Lucas even wrote a piece in 2007 about it being a movie so many had heard of but never seen. As a result, it’s never received more than this single vote on a Sight and Sound poll, the 2002 poll. I expect a better showing next year for the 2012 poll. I’m glad to see respect has grown for it so fast that it feels like it’s been in the canon for decades but it’s a recent phenomenon and I hope it will continue with many other movies awaiting rediscovery.

Tom – It’s amazing how much a DVD release can impact the popularity of a film now. It’s partially due to the www and how quickly we’re able to share information, etc. Previously it would take years or decades for films to gain recognition.

Greg – In my comment I stated BEEHIVE has been popular “for at least a decade or two” with critics. I should have just said one decade so apologies for the confusion. I didn’t realize we’re going to be nitpicking here but I’ve been reading about the film in various books about fantasy/horror films since the early ’90s so it seems like a long time. I think the first time I took notice of it was around 1993 or ’94 when I read an interview with Guillermo del Toro and he mentioned it being one of his favorite films. But I should point out that BEEHIVE is part of the highly regarded Janus Film Collection and has been easily accessible on video in the US since at least 2000, which is about the time I first saw it. The Homevison Cinema label (like Criterion) often dictated taste in the video era. If they released a foreign film critics took notice. I don’t know why Tim didn’t see the film before the 2007 theatrical re-release since it was released on DVD by Criterion in 2006. In the scheme of things 10 years isn’t that long but a Criterion release is now guaranteed critical attention & respect, which was the main point in my original response.

I didn’t realize we’re going to be nitpicking here but I’ve been reading about the film in various books about fantasy/horror films since the early ’90s

My apologies, Kimberly. I wasn’t trying to nitpick and I’m sorry for coming off that way. In a clumsy way I guess I was just expressing how great it is that a movie with limited availability has become so cherished so fast, and I’m glad of that because I think it deserves it.

As for Tim, maybe it was a 2006 Video Watchdog I’m thinking of. You seem to know a lot more about the movie’s history than I do.

Anyway, it’s the whole idea that, thanks to DVD releases, so many films that we only read about in the seventies and eighties suddenly became available to see. Growing up with my movie books there were so many movies that I could only dream of seeing that are now readily available but in the last decade I’ve realized there are so many more movies never mentioned in my movie books at all that deserve so much more. Unfortunately, it’ll take a long time for every movie to get the proper release it deserves.

Tom S., I have an issue with one of your previous comments:

“(M)y issue with the Maltin style of criticism is that it has a tendency both to reinforce existing hierarchies without ever questioning them, and to puff up white elephant movies forever without checking if they’re actually _good_. It winds up shutting out smaller movies, genre movies, things that you really _need_ a movie guide for because they’re hard to find out about, in favor of big middlebrow Academy style puffery…if Maltin’s form of weird old crankiness is that he likes the filmic equivalents of the Eagles, than fair enough.”

I take it that you have never looked at the section at the beginning of the Maltin annual guides in which he has some small lists where he recommends films that might have flown under the radar, or the list in the “Classic” guide that suggests classics that might have been missed, or his book “151 Best Movies You Never Saw.” He may like the filmic equivalent of the Eagles (a group I happen to like, by the way) but he also does like some things that are off the beaten path-they are not “shut out,” as you say and there have been many films that I discovered because of his books. So I must beg to disagree with you on this point.

By the way, just so everyone knows how badly I misread Tom’s statement, I thought he meant the football team Eagles. Even weirder, it kind of made sense to me.

No worries, Greg. Having worked in a video store in the ’80s I started taking notice of things like video labels and how distribution companies like Janus dictated critical taste and opinions. I find the whole topic pretty fascinating. And access is incredibly important. A film as fascinating as ISABEL (’68), which I wrote about recently, can languish in obscurity for decades without much notice only because it’s never been made easily accessible. Naturally all this reinforces my earlier point about the redundancy of film canons that are only about 40-50 years old at this point. In 20-30 years film cannons may hold more weight for me (If I’m alive to see the changes) but right now, they look more pointless with each passing year.

By the way, I’m imagining the back-and-forth between Greg and Kimberly being done in the rapid-fire style of Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant in Howard Hawks’ His Girl Friday. Which I give 4 stars.

That’s because you’re comparing it to the 1931 version where I go back and forth with Tom, only slightly slower and with very bad ambient sound. Also, lots of pops and hisses on the soundtrack. How can it possibly match up?!

The ’31 version of THE FRONT PAGE is one of those films that deserves a full chemical restoration. In the meantime, the best print to see is the one that TCM uses-less splices and lost footage and the sound is as good as we can get these days. It is probably also the closest of the films to the original play, even if the closing line is censored, but oh, so creatively.

The Hawks version is certainly the funniest, and I find it fascinating that even though the Wilder version has all the vernacular, it does not have the snap of the two earlier versions, although I think Matthau makes a pretty good Walter Burns. My main problem with that version is Lemmon, who is too old for the role and Carol Burnett, who is just too much.

And don’t get me started on SWITCHING CHANNELS, another film that should have all but one copy destroyed and have the remaining copy transferred to nitrate and stored in a fireworks factory.

Richard once told me SWITCHING CHANNELS was his favorite film. Hand to God.

Ha! If I was as quick tongued & as cute as young Rosalind Russell in HIS GIRL FRIDAY I’d start my own film review show on Youtube with Greg “Cary Grant” Ferrara called “She Said/He Said: Deconstructing the Cannon and Creating a New One.”

Richard once told me SWITCHING CHANNELS was his favorite film. Hand to God.

Actually, it’s IMPROPER CHANNELS. I’m a sucker for false-accusations-of-child-abuse comedies!

@JeffH

Fair enough, it’s been a long time since I read a Maltin movie guide, and I was going mostly off of what I’ve seen of his show and his movie intros- I’m glad to hear that he makes an effort to bring up lesser known stuff, absolutely. I don’t think it totally answers my issue with him, which is that he’s largely really hidebound and tends to reify the canon- but if he’s also willing to highlight movies to his taste that aren’t well known, that just reinforces my point that while my taste doesn’t agree with his, that doesn’t mean he’s a bad critic. He’s just someone who elevates a certain kind of well-made film above all else, and that’s not what I look for and tends to reinforce production values and such over things that mean more to me.

(And I wasn’t especially trying to slam The Eagles, it’s just that they’re a good example of a super glossy, high-production value, very mainstream band. That doesn’t mean they’re bad.)

@Greg

Look, our version isn’t saddled with a go-nowhere romantic subplot, and it carries a lot more of the feel of the original play. Kids today just want the new modern zazz of a movie from the 40s, damn whippersnappers.

This isn’t specifically related to the topic, but Gerald Nachman wrote a piece about old movies in the most recent issue of The American Spectator. As I’m sure most of you might not consider purchasing or even going to the web site of a Conservative opinion magazine, I have pasted the link here:

http://spectator.org/archives/2011/08/03/theres-gold-in-them-thar-holly

It’s a fun little piece by the author stating why he prefers older movies to current ones.

Nice link, Duke-good article and while the reasoning had to be made a bit simplistic for a short article, the arguments are pretty good. Being a bleeding heart liberal I would rarely read the American Spectator, but I am glad you mentioned this one.

Interesting you would mention hack writer/welfare queen Ayn Rand. She truly is the Ed Wood of literature only not near as original, profound or pretty as Ed Wood.

Did someone mention Ayn Rand? I must have missed that.

She’s mentioned in the article as a measure for book-thickness.

Ah, thanks. I scanned the article again looking for her name. I guess I didn’t look closely enough.

Maybe you should have used his book as a reverse guide to movies, like some people used the Vatican’s Index of forbidden books to see which books were worth checking out. ” Maltin hates it? Must be worth a watch!”

There have been critics that I have used in reverse. Here in L. A. we used to have a couple of critics on TV that made you cringe with not only their lack of insight but for just plain laziness. Gary Franklin (with his ONE2TEN license plate) once hosted some event in Hollywood and took every opportunity he could to plug himself or his TV appearances. David Sheehan was notorious for arriving late, leaving early and paying more attention to his dates than the movies (I was a witness to all three when he came to a showing at the AFI festival years ago).

If either one of these two liked something I knew I wouldn’t and vice versa. Never had that problem with Maltin.

In many respects, the Maltin guide is the most BALANCED (content) and ACCURATE (credits) film catalogue out there. As for the bomb ratings, there are those which are well-deserved, and those which are affectionate. The accusation that his commentary centers on“mainstream” is interesting, because the Maltin guide goes back to the 60’s, before there was really very much in the way of historical film criticism, so the Maltin guide actually helped CREATE mainstream opinion, not just cater to it. The guide DOES lean toward fondness for older films, mostly (but not always) adhering to “conventional” taste, with more rigorous critical standards for new releases, though I’ve always attributed this to an expectation that recent filmmakers have less excuse for substandard work than those during the earlier stages of cinematic development … besides, Hitchcock really did make better films than DePalma. Maltin recognizes film as an art form, which is vitally important … don’t get me wrong, DePalma is definitely an artist, and Hitchcock was one of the most commercial film directors, but Hitch’s output is of a calibre, vision and influence virtually unmatched in cinema, as I’m sure even DePalma would attest. This is reflected in most of the ratings a’la Maltin (and/or his staff), although I do get a little peeved at an occasional steadfast refusal to tweek an obviously misjudged allotment of stars, always checking the new editions to see if BLADE RUNNER gets bumped up a notch, and emitting an audible sigh when I see that it hasn’t.

Anybody knocking ‘Duck Soup’ in the future will be dealing with me.
Only jokin’…

Having read this post,I’d like to make a more serious contribution to the discussion if I may.

I have always disliked what I call movie snobbery. For example if someone prefers Hitchcock to foreign language films, which I do, others may find it pertinent to look down their noses at them. This kind of aesthetic unfortunately can also lead to a blandness in one’s taste, where quality gets a thumb of the nose and you may let yourself be led down a track of trendy rubbish, titles that may be fashionable for you to like because are rubbish just the same. I find I have a hard enough time keeping up with things that I know I will enjoy, and filtering out other genres or titles for the simple reason that I do a life away from movies and cannot be expected to watch every movie ever made.

The first movie guide I ever bought was Steven Scheuer’s ‘Movies on TV’ when I was fourteen years old. I slept with it under my pillow. He was a liberal kind of critic, but if anything he saw was different to his narrow interpretation of ‘quality’, or if the print he watched was so bad he couldn’t see the thing, it would be given a poor rating. He comes from a different era when we watched movies either on TV or in the cinema. I like lists but don’t like ratings and in my new blog which I only started last week I refuse to use any kind of star system if it discourages people from seeing the movies that I review.

* It’s been a pleasure to skim through all of these comments here … I guess what I wanted to add — what it boils down to for me that makes Maltin so invaluable — is that when an old movie comes on TV — & I’m trying to decide whether to check it out — what I’m interested in MOST at that moment is NOT NOT NOT NOT whether Geoff Andrew accuses it of “sentimentality” (oh horrors!) — or God forbid breaks out his favorite word “po-faced” (erm, didn’t I try one of those down in New Orleans?) –

OR … to look on the IMDB and find that all of the best-rated reviews for some of the worst movies on earth are written by far-out fanatics who for some particular reason believe that those particular horrible movies are the greatest of all time & saved their life & so on (you always have to click on “hated it” to even get any semblance of objectivity!!)

BUT RATHER to actually obtain a quick and clear assessment of whether it’s a movie WORTHY OF MY TIME AND ATTENTION … so that I don’t get sucked into it if it’s just going to wind up sucking … And on this basis, Maltin tends to be accurate about 87% of the time give or take a half-star or so in my book … Which makes him invaluable !!!

Richard

once again you are the film critic that kicked the hornet’s nest….I go way way back when Maltin wrote this regarding THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN…”Pretty good for this kind of trash”….he has always been personable in public and why not? He has a great job and 90% of his public think he is great….so what’s to complain about.? He is clueless when it comes to so many films that placing him in such a position is why so many films fell through the cracks and were forgotten…..good for you once again Richard…..

The secret of the various Maltin guides is to remember they’re tough graders. A two-star rating means it’s worth the time, if not $10 at the multiplex. And as with any critic, you develop a sense of where your tastes diverge with Maltin’s.

Maltin was the driving force behind the Walt Disney Treasures DVDs, so he deserves a shrine for that alone. His “politically correct” intros and “vault” segments are sometimes mocked, but they do their job clearly and honestly — and I suspect made it palatable for Disney to release a lot of items previously locked up tight.

His fame as the family-friendly ET movie guy enabled him to spotlight cartoons, shorts, B movies and other Hollywood stepchildren back when they were abandoned to undiscerning nostalgics and snide ironists. At the same time, he still speaks up for new and interesting stuff. Maltin could have easily and profitably gone the Medved route of pandering to his mass audience; instead he keeps trying to lure them beyond “feel good” movies into neat stuff of all eras.

Well, I have nothing to forgive Maltin. He stands on his work.
Watching him on TV he comes across as warm and sincere, sometimes with a chagrin on his face as if he is going to reveal a hidden secret. If you can make a career at selling books on films(multiple times) then I guess you can call your life a success. He gives intelligent responses, and asks informative questions, and doesn’t cater to studios whims. If I don’t agree with every review, then good for me, it means that we still have free will, and exposition is left to the reader. My only question , does he use real money when paying for his ticket at the end of his review show ?

If readers actually prefer Plan 9 or Robot Monster to Casablanca or The Letter, they should apologize to Maltin!

A bit of news: Leonard had to undergo emergency surgery for a detached retina this past weekend in El Paso and is now recovering at home. I forwarded this listing to him to see how fellow film mavens feel about him, which appears to be pretty favorable. Keep him in your thoughts.

Detached retina? Please tell me somebody didn’t punch him in the face!

Not cool, Richard.

I’m sincere! I gas on about punching Leonard Maltin and kicking his ass (in jest, of course) and you report that he’s got a detached retina. I fear I’ve been a bad influence.

You are sincere, but you could have at least tempered the comment with just a bit of concern. I can’t stand Michael Bay movies, but if the same thing happened to him I might make a cynical comment adding that I hope he recovered.

Given that I admitted in my piece above that I was ready to tackle a stranger if he got weird with LM, I assumed that we could take my concern “as read.” Speedy recovery.

All the best to Leonard Maltin. I wish him a speedy recovery. He may even laugh at Richard’s comment. Who knows? Solely For his influence in helping the Walt Disney Treasures series get released, I owe him a debt of gratitude. I wish those were still being released. I have every single one.

He may even laugh at Richard’s comment.

And if he doesn’t, why I’ll… I’ll… I’ll understand, of course.

Given the subject and title of the post, I think Mr. Maltin might take the exchange with good humor. He seems to be a very affable and gracious gentleman.

I, like many, have multiple copies of TV Movies and have loved arguing Mr. Maltin for years(the same can be said of Mr. Ebert’s various reviews in his books).

I never care what critics say about moives. It is right there in their name: critic, so they critize the movies. It is their job. Well, it is my job as a person with her own mind to think for myself and choose what I want to watch.

Back when AMC and TV Land were relevant and the NHL was real hockey (no shootout nonsense), I used Leonard Matlin’s guide to decide between AMC or one of the others. Saw a lot of good film noirs I had never seen. Now I just turn on TCM and sit back.

Grew up on the blue Maltin book, always loved movies but he had the most complete access to what I wanted , a veritable encyclopedia of film. Dog eared with underlining and comments it was a fun book. Though I don’t agree with every thing he critiqued or did not , he exposed a lot of people to movies they probably would never have viewed. As one previous comment stated the BOMB rating piqued the curiosity even more.
By the way Conrad Veidt was sinister, evil and spooky. Loved him. Thanks TCM
Red

I am just guessing, but I will wager that most of the Morlocks and their devoted fans have more ingratiating on camera personalities than Mr. Maltin does.

I always figured that he got as famous as he did because of his extensive knowledge about movies.

You see, I believe I knew who he was before the “Entertainment Tonight” days and before those giant coffee table books he authored.
I was a poor college student (I graduated in 1974) and bought some small paperbacks he wrote or edited – “Movie Comedy Teams,” “The Real Stars” (a series of books about the careers of character actors) and “Hollywood: the Movie Factory,” edited from an obscure periodical he put out, “Film Fan Monthly.” I spent some time in New York City from 1975 to 1978 and attended some films in a series he programed for the Museum of Modern Art – all about American film comedy.
Of course, back in those days we did not have VCRs or DVDs or Internet to watch the old films and since he obviously spent a lot of time tracking down obscure classics, I was impressed.

I still like Maltin but these days I am impressed by the Morlocks and their fan base. Keep up the good work!