Leonard Maltin reviews no longer featured on IMDb (1 Viewer)

[Craig Cunningham]

Does anyone know why the Maltin Summary link is no longer available for titles in IMDb? Are his reviews available anywhere else on the web?

 

[Artur Meinild]

Yeah, this is too bad, I liked the Maltin summaries. Now it's Amazon.com summary... Bwah!

 

[Jay E]

Yeah, I just noticed this also. Guess I'll have to keep his book handy at work.

 

[Bjorn Olav Nyberg]

Guess I just got a reason to buy his book...

 

[Tom-G]

Darn, I won't get to read that a certain movie is "too long" or "drawn out."
I was curious about this myself. I just noticed that the link to his summaries was gone.

 

[Scott Calvert]

This has got to be a result of book sales. I dunno how his books have been selling lately, but I haven't bought one since I discovered the imdb almost 5 years ago.

 

[Nick Sievers]

I usually check out his summary on the imdb as well, even though I don't particulary value his opinion. I like to see a star rating on what a critic's thought of the film was rather than just a summary by Amazon.com .

Darn, I won't get to read that a certain movie is "too long" or "drawn out."

So true, it's in nearly every second review.

 

[Todd Phillips]

I BET that it's just another feature dropped from the regular free IMDb to get people to pay to subscribe to the IMDb Pro.

Amazon still has Maltin summaries on their DVD and Video pages, so it seems they still own the rights to them.

Sigh...another great internet tool is succumbing to market pressures.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I BET that it's just another feature dropped from the regular free IMDb to get people to pay to subscribe to the IMDb Pro.

Nope, his reviews are not listed on IMDb Pro!

Crawdaddy

 

[Mitty]

Sad.

I guess IMDB has to pay the bills just like the rest of us. Sadly, for older films, the Maltin summary was about all there was in the way of criticism on that site, save for the invariably polarized (and thus mostly useless) user comments.

Pop ups, the dreadful "Celebrity News" column and now this. It's still a great site, and an invaluable resource, but IMDB definitely is swaying in the corporate, lowest-common-enominator direction more than ever before.

 

[Scott Weinberg]

I for one won't really miss the Maltin blurbs, since A) I like to get reviews from more than one critic, B) I like my cinematic analysis somewhat more in-depth than a 2 sentence blurb and C) Maltin's a clueless tool.

 

[Brian Lawrence]

Funny thing is, that until I saw this thread, I had never even known that the Maltin Guide summaries where even on the IMDB and I use the site pretty much every day. In any case I usually buy the Maltin Guide every 3rd or 4th year anyhow. Before I got internet it was the only way to look up a films aspect ratio (Halliwell's guide also listed the filming process but required you to know what it meant to know the aspect ratio).

I've always found Maltin's area of film knowledge to be heavily geared towards the classics. As Mitty stated, the User comments on that site can be pretty useless.Most of those people seem to always think that a movie is the best thing they have ever seen, or the worst film ever made.

One of the things that has always bothered me on these various movie & video guides are that they do not follow the capsule reviews with the initials of the individual who wrote it, so we can't really judge the persons taste. Maltin's guide has capsule reviews for about 20,000 films and we know that Maltin himself did not review all of them. Bringing up the question of, Just who's opinion is being stated here??

 

[Robert Crawford]

I for one won't really miss the Maltin blurbs, since A) I like to get reviews from more than one critic, B) I like my cinematic analysis somewhat more in-depth than a 2 sentence blurb and C) Maltin's a clueless tool.

I take some exception to that statement in that I believe Maltin has done a great deal for movie critics on a whole but moreso for the average movie fan. Furthermore, the reviews are not the sole work of Maltin but also written by Mike Clark, Rob Edelman, Michael Scheinfeld, and Alvin Marill as well as some others.

Crawdaddy

 

[Scott Weinberg]

We can respectfully agree to disaree re: Maltin. While I enjoy the work of dozens of critics, I simply don't care for LM. While I would not refute the influence Maltin has had in the industry, I'm not a fan.

Additionally, you are correct about the Maltin Guide contributors. My comments should not have reflected their work.

 

[Cees Alons]

I noted it too, and was about to post a question here, when I found this thread (of course...).

I like his "summaries" for a specific reason: quick judgement whether or (certainly) not I would be going to like a move, without any spoiler ever. AND a quick reference in my collection-DB to remember what that movie was all about, in cases of doubt.

Like "my" other preferred critic, Roger Ebert (for a quite different reason): I don't have to agree all the time, to generally respect their opinions and be able to apply them for my own use.

Does anyone know if Leonard Maltin's reviews are on-line somewhere else?

Until 1997, I bought the Penguin electronic version of his book (included the book too). It came with a database program, that I could link to my own DB. Unfortunately, they stopped releasing that version.

Cees

 

[Walter Kittel]

I certainly am going to miss the Maltin summaries for many of the same reasons already stated by others, especially Cees and Mitty. I still purchase quite a few older films on Laserdisc, and Maltin's summaries were one of the better resources ( but not the sole one ) that I used to assist me in my purchase decisions.

( Guess I'll have to start using a book again, vs. the convenience of an attached link. )

- Walter.

 

[Brian Lawrence]

I agree, Maltin is by far the worst critic ever. Has he ever written a review that is more than two sentences?

That's a pretty bold statement when we have critics like Michael Medved & Rex Reed. I agree that for films made in the last 20 years Maltins opinion is worthless to me personaly. But the man has a greater knowlege of classic cinema than 99.9% of the critics working today. He's not just some schmuck who failed as journalist so was bumped into a critic's position (That I believe describes over half the critics working today) But he is a long time film historian.

You don't have to agree with his opinions but Maltin much like Ebert really does have a passion for films and I would say that he is far from the worst critic working today. (Granted that awful HOT TICKET show is not helping his credibillity)

As far as the length of the reviews, His guide is not intended to be an in depth analysis on movies. If so the book would have to be at least 20,000 pages long.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Does anyone know why the Maltin Summary link is no longer available for titles in IMDb? Are his reviews available anywhere else on the web?

The above post is what this thread starter asked. He did not ask for any negative opinions regarding Maltin. Therefore, I have and will continue to delete comments that expressed negative opinions regarding Maltin. If you want to discuss Maltin's short-comings as a reviewer then do so in another thread. Thank you.
Crawdaddy

 

[Cees Alons]

This change certainly makes the IMDb less interesting for me. It used to be one of my main sources if I wanted to decide whether or not to buy a DVD unseen (as I often have to do). That may reflect on Amazon too, in practice I often reached them through the IMDb as a portal. And I do not trust the Amazon Summeries like I did reading Maltin, not knowing their source: they are certainly less consistent.

I'd say: they better reconsider this decision!

And, to repeat the original poster's and my own question: does anyone know if Maltin's reviews are elsewhere (I know where I can find Ebert's!)?

Cees

 

[Josh_Hill]

Post removed by moderator.



Donny, you posted this thread-fart even after Robert's warning.



If your personal contribution to some other member's concerns cannot be better than this, we'll have to ask you to go somewhere else.



Your opinion is very valuable to us, but we like to help each other out - not use our opinions like buckets of sh%!t.



If your intention is to start a discussion about Leonard Maltin's merits, please do that in an appropriate thread, as Robert suggested.



Cees