|
Leonard
Maltin’s 2005 Movie Guide for Pocket PC
Reviewed
by: Paul
Schneider, PhD, November 2004, send
e-mail
Published
by: Landware,
Inc., go
to the web site
Requires: Pocket
PC 2002 or 2003, 3.6MB available system memory
MSRP: $19.95
(download)
It’s Friday night and you find yourself wandering
the aisles of the local Blockbuster/Hollywood Video
or perusing the local movie listings wondering what
should I watch tonight? Been there, done that! Or
even worse, you find yourself thinking back to that
great movie your buddy told you about, but you can't
for the life of you remember just what it was called
as you continue to blindly peruse the rental isles.
If any of these situations sound familiar or you
simply like movies, read on as we examine Leonard
Maltin’s Movie Guide. We reviewed the software
on a Dell Axim X5
Leonard
Maltin’s 2005 Movie Guide aims to
provide you with all the basic tools you need to
ensure that your movie going experiences are the
best they can be. Leonard Maltin’s 2005 Movie
Guide is divided into three core areas: Viewing Guide,
Movie Manager and Movie Events. These three features
are all wrapped around an intuitive and extremely
easy to use interface. Among other things, the interface
allows you to sort your search results by any of
the fields listed. It even allows you to add or remove
some of these fields from the listing display. As
I was learning to use this program there were a number
of times that I thought to myself "it sure would
be nice if…" only to discover that what
I desired was actually an option staring me right
in the face, waiting for my tap! |
|
Leonard Maltin’s 2005 Movie Guide Viewing Guide
represents the program’s core. Here you will find
access to thousands of movies from both the cinema and
TV. Does it have every movie? No, but in a recent trip
to Blockbuster I only saw one recent foreign release that
I could not find in the database. The product spec sheet
states that you will find 7,200 DVD, 7,000 Laserdisc and
14,000 Videocassette listings. Of course, as you can imagine,
there is some overlap between these formats. Each movie
listing provides a succinct review by Leonard Maltin coupled
with all the pertinent details such as the director, year
of release, running time, rating, awards received, genre
of movie, principle cast list, film rating, and what media
it was released on. The greatest thing about this tool
is how easy it is to find what you are looking for and
then, once you find it, to go off on a tangent and find
another movie you didn't even think about.
Leonard Maltin’s 2005 Movie Guide finder tool helps
you locate movies in several ways. First, you can start
by just entering the title of the movie. As you enter letters,
the list of movies that fit your initial entry begin to
appear and narrow as you continue to enter the full title.
You can locate movies this way by searching either the
entire movie database or by looking through popular movies
in one or more categories. The “popular movies” section
takes the ratings of about a 100 movie buffs and breaks
movies up into lists of popular westerns, comedies, sci-fi,
etc. This section is particularly helpful for finding a
new movie of a certain genre. You can also use the advanced
search to specify criteria such as Title, Year, Rating
(min or max), Genre, Stars, Directors, Awards, and more.
If you can't find what you are looking for after that,
you need more help than a computer can offer!
When reading a review you can also easily get a list of
all the other movies credited to the director and cast.
I found myself playing a bit of 6 degrees of separation-type
game, looking for all the different movies that someone
worked on and then finding myself moving off on another
tangent with a new director or actor. Best of all, this
kind of exploration is easy to do and accomplished with
a minimal number of taps.
Okay, so you
find yourself searching through various movies and then
you come across one you would like to see, but
simply don't have the time to watch at the moment. Worry
not! With the Record button you can add the movie title
to “My Movies.” The Movie Manager/My Movies
section helps you to manage, among other things, your own
movie collection and a list of movies you would like to
see. From the Movie Manager you can make a list of your
favorite movies, your personal top 20, a list of movies
you've recorded, ones you want to buy or ones you want
to rent. And if that isn't enough you can create your own
categories too. The individual database records store just
about everything you could want to know about the entry
and allows you to modify and change the data as well.
The Movie Events feature is a set of calendar events designed
to keep you informed about DVD releases, film festivals
and movie premiers. Each time you synch your Pocket PC,
the lists are updated with the latest information. The
calendar information is published by LandWare and although
the system does allow you to add additional calendars,
I didn't see any indication or links to other calendars
that would work with the Guide. Overall, this is a nice
feature, but personally, I didn't find it particularly
useful. The events are listed accurately, but no additional
information about the event is provided beyond the date
and title.
Leonard Maltin’s 2005 Movie Guide is what I was
looking for. Although you may not agree with Leonard’s
movie reviews every time (why did he give Lord of the Rings
only 3 to 3 ½ stars?), the program will probably
prove to be invaluable for both casual movie viewers and
the cinema buffs. The comprehensive database that is updated
every time you synch provides an easy and flexible way
to find what you want, provide recommendations, and track
your own information and wants. Although not particularly
robust, the calendars of upcoming events are a nice bonus.
Overall, I give Leonard Maltin’s 2005 Movie Guide
3 ½ stars. Recommended.
Letters to the Editor are welcome and occasionally abused in public. Send e-mail to: whine@kickstartnews.com
|
|
