Regarding Cinemania

[Computing Section]

Hi Dougie here,

What is this cinemania all about?

[John Clifford Hole]

From the last issue - ever ?

Content Sources
Note from the Editor of Cinemania

Welcome to Cinemania 97, the most authoritative, reliable, and feature-packed multimedia movie guide available. There are several other CD-ROM movie guides out there, but what we're doing with Cinemania is unique. Unlike the other guides, we're not out to give you a single, anonymous paragraph on every single cassette that ever landed on a video shelf, nor do we clutter our disc with thousands of superfluous cooking and exercise titles just because they're available. Cinemania is designed to be a treasure-trove of solid, detailed, thoughtful, and entertaining expert information about the movies—and you'll find more of it in one place here than anywhere else.
We Know Movies And this year we're making Cinemania more exciting and interactive than ever. Not only are you able to download new reviews from Roger Ebert and Leonard Maltin, but we've expanded Cinemania onto the World Wide Web. Cinemania Online, our constantly updated online magazine, brings you the latest reviews (by former Los Angeles Times critic Sheila Benson, Cinemania assistant editor Jeff Shannon, and other prominent film critics) on the very day the movies are released, along with loads of fun and informative features, interviews, video release information, access to media on the studios' own websites, movie showtimes, and much more.
Cinemania Connections The Internet is an enormous and rather daunting morass of information, but much of it is unverified and untrustworthy. And there's a proliferation of skimpy movie sites that offer you nothing but a few misspelled cast lists and sketchy plot synopses. But there's a lot of wonderful, imaginative stuff being done on the World Wide Web, too. So, whenever we find fun new sites that offer interesting and reliable information, and actually add to what we already have in Cinemania, we will offer you a Cinemania Connection from the related topic on the CD that will take you there with just a couple clicks of your mouse. So, for example, if you decide you'd like to see more info on the films of Stanley Kubrick, and we've found some good stuff out there, you can connect to the Web directly from our Kubrick bio or from a Cinemania review of one of his movies. It's stuff like this that we feel supplements the already awesome array of information in Cinemania 97. And as we uncover more of these sites, we'll be adding more Cinemania Connections that you'll be able to download along with your monthly updates.
Digging Down Deep Cinemania is a little bit like the internet itself: It's so full of stuff that it's hard to know where to start. So we've concentrated this year on ways to bring out some of the information that's in Cinemania and make it more accessible. Our new contents screen, for example, offers you a new trivia question, a featured biography, and a "team pick"—a film recommended by somebody on our team of Cinemaniacs—every time you boot up.
Take a Tour We're also adding guided tours through certain subjects in Cinemania, hosted by filmmakers, performers, and critics. These tours, written in collaboration with the celebrity "tour guides" themselves, offer you personal insights into the enormous riches inside Cinemania—whether it's "The Prince of Puke," John Waters, talking about the history of showmanship in exploitation films; or brilliant cinematographer Haskell Wexler looking back over his own illustrious career; or screen diva Sandra Bernhard looking at the careers of the great ladies of the movies, from the silent era to the screwball heroines of the '40s; or Cinemania contributors Roger Ebert and Leonard Maltin on such topics as wide-screen movies, black-and-white movies, and romantic comedy; or the aforementioned foray into the slick, sexy world of blaxploitation movies with Melvin and Mario Van Peebles. These tours were so much fun to put together that we're going to continue writing and recording them throughout the year and make new ones available for downloading from Cinemania Online.
More Filmographies This year, we've used our database of thousands of reviews and cast/credits lists to generate around 5,000 new filmographies for people who 1) don't already have a biography and complete filmography; and 2) have 10 or more films to their credit in Cinemania. You can also use our filters to generate your own Cinemania filmogs for directors or performers with fewer than 10 credits. Just click the find button, choose the Movies filter, select the occupations you're looking for, and type in the name. Any films fitting the criteria you've selected will appear in the Find window.
Still Number One I've said it before and I'll say it again: Never before has there been a motion picture guide that combines so many respected film reference and critical works into one interactive CD. No other movie guide on the planet gives you …
· the writings, and frequently contrasting opinions, of major, internationally respected critics (Roger Ebert, Pauline Kael, Leonard Maltin, and the contributors to CineBooks' mammoth The Motion Picture Guide)—not just blurbs by people cribbing from other published movie guides
· more than 200 additional reviews from Roger Ebert's archives—reviews that are not included in his Video Companion—and hundreds of extra reviews from Leonard Maltin that aren't included in his Movie & Video Guide, either
· as many detailed and well-researched biographies and filmographies (from Baseline and Ephraim Katz's The Film Encyclopedia)—not incomplete or inaccurate insta-bios pieced together by amateur movie fans with access to a database
· as many remarkable (and hard-to-find) stills, biographical portraits, film clips, dialogue clips, and musical excerpts from such a wide variety of films—not just snippets of promotional trailers or whatever's available from low-quality public domain materials, but actual scenes from memorable classic and contemporary films from all the major Hollywood studios, as well as independent and foreign film companies
· as extensive an array of articles and definitions—from a survey of film noir or blaxploitation films to an explanation of what a gaffer is (from Katz and original articles by the editors of Cinemania)
Cool New Stuff We've packed Cinemania 97 with as much media as a CD-ROM can handle!
· Movie clips: We've added a number of exciting new movie clips this year—as much as we could fit onto the disk. And, with pixel-doubling, we've been able to make those clips bigger than before. We've also provided all clips in their original theatrical (letterboxed) screen ratio, whenever possible. Want to compare surrealist images from the 1920s and the 1980s, to find out the link between Luis Buñuel/Salvador Dali and David Lynch? Take a look at our clips from the seminal surrealist masterpiece UN CHIEN ANDALOU (note the fluid, dreamlike dissolves between circular images) and the discovery of the severed ear in Lynch's BLUE VELVET almost 50 years later. For another kind of thrill, compare Buster Keaton's astounding falling-housefront stunt from the surreal cyclone sequence in 1928's STEAMBOAT BILL, JR., to Keaton fan Jackie Chan's elaborate re-staging of the same stunt (with a few twists) in 1987's PROJECT A PART II. And don't miss William Castle's personal introduction to his masterpiece of exploitation cinema, THE TINGLER—filmed in the miracle of Percepto! And you won't want to forget the screwball repartee between Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell in Howard Hawks' HIS GIRL FRIDAY; or the expressionistic imagery of Joseph Cotton and Orson Welles in the sewers of Vienna in Carol Reed's THE THIRD MAN; or the nail-biting suspense of an explosive time-bomb sequence from Alfred Hitchcock's SABOTAGE/A WOMAN ALONE. We've also added some classic moments from (relatively) recent cinema: Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) showing off an amp that "goes to 11," from Rob Reiner's THIS IS SPINAL TAP; Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks) jumping shrimp-boat to greet Lieutenant Dan (Gary Sinise) from Robert Zemeckis's FORREST GUMP; Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman) receiving his lecture on "plastics" from Mike Nichols' THE GRADUATE; Buggin' Out (Giancarlo Esposito) noticing that there are "no brothers on the wall" of Sal's Famous Pizzeria in Spike Lee's DO THE RIGHT THING; Robert Blake reminiscing about his father in front of a rain-streaked window from Richard Brooks' IN COLD BLOOD; Martin Scorsese as a disturbed passenger in the back of Travis Bickle's (Robert De Niro) cab in TAXI DRIVER….
· Dialogue clips: Whether it's Kevin Spacey talking about the mysterious Keyser Soze from THE USUAL SUSPECTS; or Cheech and Chong crossing the border in UP IN SMOKE; or Leslie Nielsen requesting that he not be called Shirley in AIRPLANE!—we've added some of the most quoted and quotable lines from some of our favorite movies. Listen to Tracey Walter explain the "lattice of coincidence" that underlies everything in REPO MAN; Cary Grant ask Jean Arthur for a match in Howard Hawks' ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS; or Herbert Marshall and Miriam Hopkins, a couple of high-class jewel thieves, talk shop and make romance in Ernst Lubitsch's sparkling romantic comedy, TROUBLE IN PARADISE.
· New Images: We've added hundreds of new images—biographical portraits, stills, even a few lobby cards and posters—from movies old and new. And thanks to improved compression technology, they look better than ever, a remarkable improvement in quality over what was available just a year ago. If there's just one image I would choose to represent the pleasures of Cinemania, it would be the still from Terence Davies's paean to the movies, THE LONG DAY CLOSES (yes, it's a better movie than CINEMA PARADISO)! A few more favorites: Barbara Stanwyck and Nils Asther in Frank Capra's masterpiece, THE BITTER TEA OF GENERAL YEN; Ryan O'Neal in Stanley Kubrick's magnificent BARRY LYNDON; Kirk Douglas in Billy Wilder's ultra-cynical BIG CARNIVAL/ACE IN THE HOLE; Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton and Kevin Bacon in Ron Howard's APOLLO 13; Gary Cooper, Miriam Hopkins, and Fredric March in Ernst Lubitsch's risque DESIGN FOR LIVING; Irène Jacob in Krzysztof Kieslowski's luminous THE DOUBLE LIFE OF VERONIQUE; Don Cheadle and Denzel Washington in Carl Franklin's wonderful DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS; scads of disgusting images from the collected works of John Waters, viewable from his bio, including: PINK FLAMINGOS, FEMALE TROUBLE, DESPERATE LIVING, and POLYESTER; Jean Arthur and Marlene Dietrich in Billy Wilder's A FOREIGN AFFAIR; Vincent Price in flames in HOUSE OF WAX; Jerry Lewis in THE NUTTY PROFESSOR; Rock Hudson in John Frankenheimer's creepy, terrifying SECONDS; Robin Givens, a knockout in A RAGE IN HARLEM; Jane Fonda getting a leg up on a friend in BARBARELLA; James Stewart, Thelma Ritter, and Grace Kelly in Alfred Hitchcock's REAR WINDOW; Bob Cummings in Hitchcock's SABOTEUR; Harry Dean Stanton in Alex Cox's raucous REPO MAN; one of many crazy images from CITY OF LOST CHILDREN; Sean Penn in FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH; and the ghostly imagery from Carl Dreyer's VAMPYR.
Our disclaimer If there's a still or film clip you wish you could see in Cinemania—well, chances are, we wished so, too. It isn't easy to license all this material—but, believe me, we've tried. In some cases, we've been turned down by the copyright holders year after year until, finally, they've given us permission to use whatever image, sound, or video we've been asking for. In other cases, we haven't been so lucky. We've also hit the wall with disk space and are currently introducing new kinds of compression so that we can fit more and more media onto a single Cinemania CD.
Who we are Cinemania is put together by a small but dedicated team of people—developers, designers, editors, testers, aquisition specialists, photo/sound/video production experts, proofers, text-preppers—collectively sometimes known as Cinemaniacs. Our staff, here at Microsoft as well as at each of the publications that supplies us with our content, is made up of a whole spectrum of movie lovers: critics, scholars, historians, and just plain fans (hence, this year's Team Picks). We hope that range of interests comes across in the work we've created—from the lively scope of critical opinions represented, to the wide assortment of movie images, sounds, and clips you'll find inside. I've spent most of my life dealing with movies one way or another—as a film critic, a university film series and Seattle International Film Festival programmer, an "art house" movie theater booker … I even had the rather mindboggling experience of co-writing a major studio picture not that long ago. It was a little comedy called IT'S PAT, it disappeared without a trace, and Leonard Maltin's Movie & Video Guide gives it the lowest rating possible in Cinemania 97. This is a great job, but it can be humbling….
Why I love Cinemania I first started using Cinemania when the original version came out in 1992. I was working as a film critic in Los Angeles (for the Orange County Register) and my first impression was: Where has this been all my life? I used it all the time to double-check people's bios and filmographies, movie release dates, character names (who did Margaret Dumont play in NEVER GIVE A SUCKER AN EVEN BREAK?) and to refresh my memory about plot synopses of films I hadn't seen in years. It was so incredible having all these valuable reference books on one disk and being able to search across all of them at once. And I loved agreeing or disagreeing (vehemently!) with some of the often conflicting opinions expressed by the Cinemania critics. (I will restrain myself here. But just let me say that, well, for example, there's this one review by a Person Who Shall Remain Nameless of a certain David Cronenberg masterpiece that's simply wrong, wrong, wrong! There, I feel better now.)
Follow your bliss Probably the thing I love most about Cinemania is that it is broad enough, and deep enough, to allow me to get lost in it for hours, jumping from one hypertext link to another—from a review to a bio to a filmography to another review to an article on a related subject … and so on. With Cinemania, you can instantly follow your own endless train of thought/memories/associations through movie history just by clicking your mouse.
Find a mistake? Putting together a work as ambitious and complex as Cinemania presents us with unprecedented challenges—not the least of which is our attempt to reconcile all the often-conflicting movie information (from release dates and birth dates to filmographies and plot synopses) to be found in our various sources. That's one reason we've included the introductions to the books we have in Cinemania this year, to give you an idea of the purposes, goals, and guidelines our contributors have established for their own works. We work very closely with our contributors to get to the bottom of any inconsistencies we find, but if you find something you think is an error, do not hesitate to let us know! As with any reference work of this magnitude, we know that some things may slip through the cracks and your feedback is greatly appreciated. It helps us, and our contributors, improve our already high standards for quality and accuracy. Please send your discoveries, questions, or comments to us at: cinm...@microsoft.com.
Go for it! As you can see, there's a lot more to Cinemania than just movie listings. So what are you waiting for? Get in there and explore!
Jim Emerson
Editor
Microsoft Cinemania

© 1996 Microsoft Corporation and/or its suppliers. All rights reserved.

John Clifford Hole [MVP] [of Enfield,Middlesex,UK]

Computing Section wrote in message <01bd532f$308a9a00$14be...@m15comp.cardonald.ac.uk>...