Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide was a book-format collection of movie capsule reviews that began in 1969, was updated biannually after 1978, and then annually after 1986. The final edition was published in September 2014. It was originally called TV Movies , which became Leonard Maltin's TV Movies and Video Guide , and then Leonard Maltin's Movie and Video Guide , before arriving at its final title. Film critic Leonard Maltin edited it and contributed a large portion of its reviews.
50-740: General Commander is a 2019 direct-to-video American action film produced by Philippe Martinez and directed by Martinez and Ross W. Clarkson. Set primarily in the Philippines, the film stars Steven Seagal and was released direct-to-DVD on May 28, 2019. A botched mission in Phnom Penh , Cambodia that results in a fatality leads to the disbanding of a CIA Global Response team led by Jake Alexander (Steven Seagal) and whose remaining members include Sonia Dekker (Sonia Couling), Tom Benton (Byron Gibson), Maria Lopez (Mica Javier), and Ben Harrison (Jai Day). Against CIA Agent Jessica Thompson's orders,
100-542: A star rating system. The lowest rating was "BOMB", followed by one and a half stars, rising in half-star increments to a maximum of four stars, and frequently giving out two-and-a-half star (**1/2) reviews. The sole exception to this was Naked Gun 33 + 1 ⁄ 3 : The Final Insult , which was rated with two and one third stars out of four, referencing the film's title. Maltin did not cover direct-to-video films because of their great number (six released each week by 1994). Made-for-television films were included in
150-566: A bid to stop World War III", based on a screenplay by Philipe Martinez and Bey Logan and produced by SPI International and Saradan Media. The series would have had nine episodes each with a runtime of 45 minutes. Principal photography began in December 2017 in Manila. While shooting scenes for General Commander , lead actor Steven Seagal also re-shot some scenes in Attrition that were set in
200-434: A direct-to-video movie may get a limited theatrical screening in order to build excitement for the actual release of the video such as was done for 2010's Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths , and Planet Hulk , 2016's Batman: The Killing Joke or 2013's Sharknado . In some cases, other direct-to-video films can also be theatrically released in other countries. As DVDs gradually replaced VHS videocassettes ,
250-481: A high-profile star) can generate well in excess of $ 50 million revenue worldwide. A production studio may decide not to generally release a TV show or film for several possible reasons: a low budget, a lack of support from a TV network, negative reviews, its controversial nature, that it may appeal to a small niche market , or a simple lack of general public interest. Studios, limited in the annual number of films to which they grant cinematic releases, may choose to pull
300-465: A reference to the source material for the film if it was based on previously published material. Films were listed alphabetically letter-by-letter, ignoring punctuation and spaces. Articles were also ignored and transposed to the end of the title. The Guide was notable for containing what the Guinness Book of World Records calls the world's shortest movie review. His 2 out of 4 star review of
350-467: A stigma of lower technical or artistic quality than theatrical releases. Some films released direct-to-video are films which have been completed but were never released in movie theaters. This delay often occurs when a studio doubts a film's commercial prospects to justify a full cinema release or because its release window has closed. In film industry slang, such films are referred to as having been "vaulted". Like B-movies shown in drive-in theaters in
400-460: A successful live action film straight to DVD, due to a lack of budget in comparison to the original. During the Golden Age of Porn in the 1970s, many pornographic films were released in theatres, some of which became some of the highest-grossing films in their release years, and in the pornography industry altogether. Toward the 1980s, porn began to shift to video release, because video allowed
450-469: A third of the average cost of a Hollywood release. According to Variety , American Pie Presents: Band Camp sold more than one million copies in a week. Some direct-to-DVD releases recently have tended to feature actors who were formerly bankable stars. In 2005, salaries for some of these direct-to-DVD actors in the multimillion-dollar range from $ 2 to $ 4 million ( Jean-Claude Van Damme ) and $ 4.5 to $ 10 million ( Steven Seagal ), in some cases exceeding
500-555: A trend in China; these films are called "Online Big Movies" ("OBM"; 网络大电影 in Chinese, or simply 网大). The word "Big" in the name was meant to be sardonic , as most of these films are often made on a very low budget and featuring mostly unknown cast members and sometimes nonprofessional actors. However, increasingly, the budget for these films have been slowly climbing up, due to the success of these films on digital distribution platforms;
550-538: The Emmy Award -winning Special Bulletin (each from 1983), and "Outstanding" for Minstrel Man (1977). Certain theatrically-released films (usually low budget, obscure, foreign, concert, or serial films ), as well as the majority of films based on Edgar Wallace novels, were also removed from the guide over time to allow the inclusion of new titles. Another notable feature of the Guide was that each review included
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#1732768608160600-529: The Tribeca Film Festival in April, where it was reviewed positively, but only received modest distribution offers. At the time, it was not very common for consumers to make digital movie purchases. As part of a push by the service towards original content, the subscription video on demand service Netflix began to acquire feature films for distribution on its service in the 2010s, including
650-432: The 14,000 films available for television at the time and contained 535 pages, including 32 pages of photos. Unlike Scheuer's book at the time, TV Movies included the movie's director, running time and larger cast lists. A second edition appeared five years later. After a third in 1978, new editions appeared every two years, and after 1986 every year. Maltin's regular appearance on Entertainment Tonight from 1982 and
700-408: The 1948 musical Isn't It Romantic? consisted of the word "No". Another very short review concerned the film Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed where Maltin wrote, "It is what it is." Yet another was of Are Husbands Necessary? which asked the rhetorical question , "And what about this film?", and one more right behind these is Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol where, in comparing it to
750-475: The 2013 documentary The Square , and its first feature film in 2015 — Beasts of No Nation . Netflix pursued a simultaneous release strategy for its films, partnering with a distributor for a limited theatrical release (in order to maintain eligibility for awards requiring theatrical release, such as the Academy Awards ) simultaneous with their availability to subscribers. As this practice violates
800-579: The 2014 film The Interview was released simultaneously on digital and at selected cinemas, after major chains dropped the film due to terrorist threats by a hacking group believed to have ties to North Korea (whose regime is satirized in the film). The group had also leaked confidential data from the internal servers of the film's distributor, Sony Pictures . The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in worldwide closures of cinemas due to economic restrictions and guidance against public gatherings, which prompted direct-to-digital releases for several major films;
850-520: The CIA and disappears. Alexander's team refuses to reveal his whereabouts; Hayes nonetheless locates him and subsequently orders a drone strike on Alexander, just as he is reunited with his lover in the Filipino countryside. General Commander was originally envisaged and marketed as a television series following "a top-secret, rogue international paramilitary unit that fights major criminal organisations in
900-714: The Chinese film Lost in Russia was acquired by ByteDance for 630 million yuan (almost 100 million in US dollars) and streamed on its platforms (including TikTok ) for free in lieu of a theatrical release, as part of a larger relationship with the company and the film's distributor Huanxi Media. A number of U.S. films were shifted directly to video-on-demand rentals in lieu of a theatrical release, while some have been sold directly to subscription services, including Disney+ , Max , Netflix, and Amazon Prime Video . OV ("original video") are movies made for direct-to-video release in
950-561: The Duck , 1980's Jazz Singer , The Karate Kid Part III , Little Man , Mame , Mannequin , The Missouri Breaks , the 1980 adaptation of Popeye , Prêt-à-Porter , 1998's remake of Psycho , Silent Night, Deadly Night , 2007's remake of Sleuth , Street Fighter , 3000 Miles to Graceland , Valley of the Dolls , Van Helsing , 1985's Water , Year One , and Your Highness . High-school senior Leonard Maltin
1000-487: The Japanese market. OVA (" original video animation ") is distinguished from OVM ("original video movies") or V-Cinema, which usually refer to non-animated works. Different production studios may use other labels like "V drama". The OVA market developed in the mid-1980s. The lax restrictions and censorship in comparison to broadcast television appealed to filmmakers, allowing them to include more controversial content, as
1050-500: The Philippines. Filming of General Commander took approximately nine months. General Commander was released in Blu-ray and DVD on May 28, 2019. Direct-to-video Direct-to-video or straight-to-video refers to the release of a film , television series , short or special to the public immediately on home video formats rather than an initial theatrical release or television premiere . This distribution strategy
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#17327686081601100-463: The United States was Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation in 1992. The practice of creating and releasing regular fiction specifically for video did not really take off until 1994, with Disney 's The Return of Jafar and Universal 's The Land Before Time II: The Great Valley Adventure , neither of which was intended to hit theaters at any point in its production. Several of
1150-588: The Vanities , The Cannonball Run , Cannonball Run II , Captain Ron , Celtic Pride , College , Cop and a Half , Delgo , Driven , The Dukes of Hazzard , 88 Minutes , Endless Love , Every Which Way but Loose , Fatal Beauty , Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas , Four Rooms , Freddy Got Fingered , The Garbage Pail Kids Movie , Grease 2 , 2010's Gulliver's Travels , Howard
1200-408: The actors' theatrical rates. With the increasing prominence of digital distribution platforms in the 2000s and 2010s, direct-to-digital releases began to emerge alongside, or in lieu of home video. In November 2007, Ed Burns ' Purple Violets became the first film to "premiere" exclusively for sale on iTunes Store , being exclusive to the platform for a month exclusively. It had premiered at
1250-537: The additional title permitted it) and many others that never had. The latter category includes the "complete" (according to Maltin's introduction) Saturday matinee cowboy programmers of John Wayne , William "Hopalong Cassidy" Boyd , Gene Autry and Roy Rogers . The second edition of the Classic Movie Guide , published in 2010, moved the cut-off date to 1965. Since the 2013 edition, the Movie Guide
1300-479: The animated sequels, like MGM 's The Secret of NIMH 2: Timmy to the Rescue from 1998, have sparked criticism due to the deliberate neglect of the original source material by creative content limits as these franchises will abruptly discontinue. Several other film series will be continuous if they become more successful, like Scooby-Doo for instance (their video debut Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island became one of
1350-473: The app was taken down in 2014 due to Penguin Group being unable to come to an agreement with Mobile Age, the creator of the app. Besides Scheuer's Movies on TV , similar books include Halliwell's Film Guide , by Leslie Halliwell , and The Good Film and Video Guide , by David Shipman . Scheuer's guide was the first published, in 1958, preceding Maltin's by ten years, and the two were competing titles until
1400-472: The best-selling DTV films of all time ). By 1994, an average of six new direct-to-video films appeared each week. Erotic thrillers and R-rated action films were the two most successful genres. Family films became more important than such genres later in the 1990s, as retailers stocked more copies of blockbuster films instead of more titles. According to the Los Angeles Times : Often,
1450-540: The budget for these films can now range from less than 1 million yuan to upwards of 10 or 20 million yuan. Although these "Online Big Movies" rarely feature well-known actors, in recent years, many "Online Big Movies" have hired veteran actors from Hong Kong action cinema and Taiwanese cinema to join its cast. These movies are also to be differentiated from films that are made for theatrical release but were later acquired by digital streaming services, in that these "Online Big Movies" are produced by internet companies with
1500-563: The completed film from the theaters, or never exhibit it in theaters at all. Studios then generate revenue through video sales and rentals. Direct-to-video films are marketed mostly through colorful box covers, instead of advertising, and are not covered by publications like Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide . The first direct-to-video release to go into production was E. Nick: A Legend in His Own Mind in 1984 produced by CineTel Films . Direct-to-video releases have historically carried
1550-498: The downfall of live-action family films at the box office is their strength on video. Their appeal is to families with young children, who may go to only a couple of movies per year but who will watch many videos multiple times. The teens and young adults who drive blockbuster box office statistics stay away from family movies. Some horror films that are unsuccessful in theaters, like Witchcraft , begin successful direct-to-video series. Studios may also release sequels or spin-offs to
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1600-534: The explosion in quantity and variety of such movies established and cemented genres like J-horror and yakuza films . The success of OVAs and V-Cinema has resulted in less stigma regarding direct-to-video releases in Japan than in western markets. While there are still OVA and V-Cinema releases, the market is considerably smaller than it was in the 1980s and 1990s. In the mid-to-late 2010s, low-budget B-movies that are made exclusively for digital streaming became
1650-461: The films did not need to rely on sponsored advertisements for financial support. The result was animated films with greater sexual, violent, or political content. The market continued to expand during the Japanese asset price bubble and began to decline with the collapse of the bubble in the late 1980s and early 1990s. With the rise of VHS home video and the decline of the Japanese economy in
1700-478: The final edition listed the following contributing editors: Earlier contributing editors included John Cocchi, Alvin H Marill and Maltin's wife, Alice. In 1992, the movie guide was released on CD-ROM as part of Microsoft Cinemania . In 1994 it was released separately on CD-ROM. Cinemania was discontinued in 1997. A mobile application version of the guide was released, in 2009, to the App Store. However,
1750-447: The guides for many years, though in the late 1990s, Maltin gradually began to phase them out to make room for current feature film releases. All had been removed by the early 2010s, and no TV movies made after 2004 were included in new editions. Maltin used a different system for rating TV movies: "Below average", "Average" or "Above average", with select variants for highly rated films, including "Way above average" for The Day After and
1800-502: The last minute due to the success of another film with a similar subject matter or an ultimate studio decision. Batman: Mask of the Phantasm is an example of this. However, despite the movie's critically acclaimed success, its box-office performance was very poor, which has been attributed to the last minute nature of its theatrical release. The film had much better commercial success in its subsequent home video releases. Other times,
1850-567: The late 1980s, film studios struggled to recoup investments on big-budget films. Inspired by the success of OVAs, Toei released its first V-Cinema, Crime Hunter , in March 1989. Following Toei's success, other studios began to release a slew of direct-to-video movies. Relaxed censorship in V-Cinema gave way to the premier and rise of expressive auteur directors such as Takashi Miike , Hideo Nakata , Shinji Aoyama , and Kiyoshi Kurosawa . As
1900-495: The mid-20th century, direct-to-video films employ both former stars and young actors who may become stars later. Direct-to-video releases can be done for films which cannot be shown theatrically due to controversial content, or because the cost involved in a theatrical release is beyond the releasing company. Animated sequels and feature-length episodes of animated series are also often released in this fashion. The first feature length animated film to be released direct-to-video in
1950-539: The previous installments, he commented, "More of the same, only worse." Along with typically listed worst pictures of all time , the hundreds of films Maltin designated as a "BOMB" in his guide also included the following: American Gigolo , the Woody Allen -directed Anything Else , Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever , Battlefield Earth , The Benchwarmers , Best of the Best , Bobby Deerfield , The Bonfire of
2000-476: The producers to work on extremely low budgets and dispense with some film production elements, like scripts, and the increased privacy and convenience of the format change were preferred by the target market. During the late 1990s and onward, pornographers began releasing content on the Internet. Occasionally, a studio that makes a movie that was prepared as a direct-to-video film will release it theatrically at
2050-462: The release of these titles were outside of usual distribution, studios and directors worked quickly to capitalize on niche markets or upcoming and current trends to increase financial returns. This period of history in Japanese cinema has been described by film journalist Tom Mes as "a far more diverse and vibrant film scene [than previous eras]". By 1995, the V-cinema industry was in decline, but
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2100-422: The rise of home video and cable television saw an increase in sales of the book. In 2005, logistical problems of a single book prompted him to launch a companion volume, Leonard Maltin's Classic Movie Guide , restricted to films from 1960 and earlier, several of which no longer appear in the annual publication (some had been deleted over the years to make room for newer films, others removed at this point because
2150-423: The sole intent of digital release. In additional to the digital distribution of these films in China, many of the "Online Big Movies" have also been released on digital platforms outside of China, such as on YouTube . Several YouTube channels, such as Q1Q2 Movie Channel Official and YOUKU MOVIE are popular channels that distributes these "Online Big Movies". Leonard Maltin%27s Movie Guide The book used
2200-618: The team continues their hunt for arms dealer Gino Orsetti (Edoardo Costa), with the financial assistance of Hong Kong -based magnate Katarina Sokolov (Evgeniya Akhremenko). While in Bangkok, Tom secures a meeting with Orsetti by posing as an interested buyer in the organs he offers for sale. Meanwhile, CIA Agent Alec Hayes (Robert Rownd) unsuccessfully dispatches a hitman to assassinate Alexander and thus prevent his team from carrying on with their illegal mission. After their layover in Thailand,
2250-508: The team moves to Manila, where Sonia and Tom meet with Orsetti, while the rest stake out. Halfway into the sale, Sonia and Tom strike at Orsetti and a shootout ensues, followed by a car chase. Orsetti's car is overturned, and Tom shoots down a helicopter piloted by one of Orsetti's henchmen with RPG-7 . Alexander kills a struggling Orsetti. Two weeks later, after being questioned by Thompson on his role in Orsetti's death, Alexander resigns from
2300-409: The term "direct-to-DVD" replaced "direct-to-video" in some instances. However, the word "video" does not necessarily refer to videocassettes. Many publications continue to use the term "direct-to-video" for DVDs or Blu-rays . Both disc-based release types may also be referred to as "direct-to-disc". A new term sometimes used is "DVD premiere" (DVDP). Such films can cost as little as $ 20 million, about
2350-462: The traditional release windows mandated by the cinema industry, major chains have typically declined to screen the films. Since 2018, Netflix has partially backpedaled from this strategy, giving its films a one-month theatrical run before their premiere on the Netflix service. Unique circumstances have also resulted in direct-to-digital releases, sometimes alongside a limited theatrical release;
2400-459: Was prevalent before streaming platforms came to dominate the TV and movie distribution markets. Because inferior sequels or prequels of larger-budget films may be released direct-to-video, review references to direct-to-video releases are often pejorative . Direct-to-video release has also become profitable for independent filmmakers and smaller companies. Some direct-to-video genre films (with
2450-478: Was publisher of Film Fan Monthly . In spring 1968 a teacher introduced him to an editor at Signet Books , which wanted a competitor to Steven H. Scheuer 's Movies on TV ; impressed by Maltin's ideas for the book the editor hired him immediately, without telling others that he had hired a 17-year-old. The first edition of Maltin's book, originally called TV Movies , appeared in September 1969 featuring 8,000 of
2500-467: Was subtitled The Modern Era . Maltin announced in August 2014 that the 2015 edition, to be published in September 2014, would be the last: An entire generation has been raised to acquire all their information online from their mobile devices or computers. These are not the likely customers for a physical paperback reference book. Our sales have sharply declined in recent years. In addition to Maltin,
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