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Questions For The Movie Answer Man

Questions For The Movie Answer Man

List Price: $10.95
Your Price: $8.21
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Roger knows it all
Review: A terrific book, both for Roger Ebert's crisp and witty writing, his knowledge of the subject, and the information about films and filmmaking. Drawn from Ebert's must-read "Ask the Movie Man" section of his annual Film Guide series and his newspaper/internet column. Highly recommended.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Roger knows it all
Review: A terrific book, both for Roger Ebert's crisp and witty writing, his knowledge of the subject, and the information about films and filmmaking. Drawn from Ebert's must-read "Ask the Movie Man" section of his annual Film Guide series and his newspaper/internet column. Highly recommended.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Everything you never thought you needed to know about films.
Review: Another great salted-peanuts offering from Roger Ebert, whose "Little Movie Glossary" affectionately lampoons every hackneyed Hollywood convention under the sun. A few handfuls of "Questions for the Movie Answer Man" and you won't be able to put this one down, either. Ebert's readers have a million questions about things they saw in movies, or movie promotions, or the media that covers the movies, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist nearly always has the definitive answer for them. The questions are as entertaining to read as the answers; Ebert's legion of readers include some critic-grade movie buffs, and their intelligent, insightful viewpoints lend a great deal to the book. My letter appears on page 6

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Entertaining, but ...
Review: I have always enjoyed Ebert's lucid and engaging writing. He answers questions on a wide range of topics of interest to movie buffs. As he freely admits, however, some of the questions were fabricated where he felt "the need comes upon me to answer a question I have not been asked." There seem to be a lot of questions from the same few characters, too, especially one Andy Ihnatko of Westwood, Mass. And as much as I like the book, I have some doubts about Mr. Ebert's scholarship. On page 61, he says that Japanese term for the bittersweet awareness of transient things is "nolo con aware," when in fact it is "mono no aware" (the Japanese don't even use "L" their language). Whenever I find I one factual error in a book, I start to wonder how many more are in it.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Enjoyable, quick read
Review: I tore through this quick reader the same day it arrived (while staying home sick from work.) It put a smile on my face, and made me want to see or re-see a bunch of movies.

The book is pulled together bits of a newspaper Q&A style column, and therefore comes off overall a bit disjointed. I don't care for the somewhat arbitrary organization of the excerpts, but of course, I can't come up with a better way -- related Q&A's are grouped together under general categories (ie "Minnesotans and Mississippians" and "Injuries") and then the categories are alphabetized.

Dispite these problems, I enjoyed the book.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great book of q & a
Review: Interesting and often hilarious questions to and answers from Roger Ebert over the years. Extremely entertaining and highly recommended.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Like Cecil Adams' "Straight Dope", only about films
Review: It's reassuring to know there are people out there who obsess over the same details of movies as you do, and Roger Ebert has found them (or they've found him).

The book is at its best when Ebert's more witty correspondents write in with smart-aleck observations and questions; Ebert always rises to the occasion trying to one-up them.

Loads of fun! (Could use a more complete index, though...)

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Waiting for the sequel
Review: Quite informative and not at all simply a "bathroom read" as one reviewer here has opined. The book covers topics from A to Z (E.g. "Actors", "Fireballs", "Talking in the Movies"). However, if your particular interest is "Goofs", the basics are covered (E.g "Bloopers", "Boom mikes") but you'll find much more for specific movies at the Internet Movie Database (imdb.com). Another reviewer here states the index could be better. I agree. The index seems to be inconsistent, listing only some of the book's topics, but lots of movie titles and actors. For example, a question on the book jackets asks" Why don't movie actors wear seatbelts?". Good luck finding the answer easily. A handful of the movies chosen for inclusion may seem obscure, but this is still an entertaining book. And you'll also find out a little more about Ebert's way of thinking.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Waiting for the sequel
Review: Quite informative and not at all simply a "bathroom read" as one reviewer here has opined. The book covers topics from A to Z (E.g. "Actors", "Fireballs", "Talking in the Movies"). However, if your particular interest is "Goofs", the basics are covered (E.g "Bloopers", "Boom mikes") but you'll find much more for specific movies at the Internet Movie Database (imdb.com). Another reviewer here states the index could be better. I agree. The index seems to be inconsistent, listing only some of the book's topics, but lots of movie titles and actors. For example, a question on the book jackets asks" Why don't movie actors wear seatbelts?". Good luck finding the answer easily. A handful of the movies chosen for inclusion may seem obscure, but this is still an entertaining book. And you'll also find out a little more about Ebert's way of thinking.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Two Thumbs up for Rober Ebert
Review: The latest book by America's favorite film critic is the best commode reading since Reader's Digest. I mean that in a flattering way, too. You probably wouldn't want to read through the whole book in one sitting, but a few pages worth kill time very nicely.

You'll find loads of great facts, info, and trivia about your favorite movies, all done with humor and wit, and backed-up by the encyclopedia-like knowledge of the Movie Answer Man.

If you check the fine print, you'll find my question about Strange Days


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