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Gold Medal Software 5
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Gold Medal Software - Volume 5 (Gold Medal) (1995).iso
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cyberr02.arj
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MOVIES
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Wrap
Text File
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1994-10-18
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10KB
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158 lines
Movies To Go!
review by
Eliot M. Gelwan
Movies To Go! bills itself as "your ticket to finding the best
movies." It is essentially a searchable database of capsule reviews,
cast and credits, for (as of summer 1994) 7500 classic and current
films. It describes itself as a guide to selecting movies to get
from your video store to cut down on the frustration of browsing the
aisles. The reviews are written by "ordinary people who love
movies" rather than critics, the manual asserts, and movies are
pre-selected to meet their standards for being "enjoy able to
watch."
The program, which runs under DOS or Windows, has a mouse- or
key-driven graphic interface with some animated icons. When you
select a film, a screen appears framed by a "Now Showing" marquee
with flashing lights. Credits, cast, setting and what the authors
call "special categories" (e.g. Disney, pirate movies, etc.)
appear as text in the marquee. Other information, such as genre,
MPAA rating, and length appear iconized. A meter shows a quality
rating for the movie, although it is difficult to see how this was
derived. Since the authors have selected only quality movies, this
rating doesn't help you much, since most are rated in the excellent
range. In random browsing, I could only find about 10-20%
considered as low as "average."
You click on an icon (or hit a function key) to bring up a
"critical review" (more on this later). This often appears in a
cartoon balloon spoken by either a goofy mouse or a goofy human
character (I couldn't figure out whether the choice of character has
any significance).
You can search the database by clicking on a word in the text.
For example, if "Charles Laughton" is in the cast, and I click on
his name, the program will compile a list of films he appeared in.
Or if the plot summary includes the fact that the character goes to
South America, I can click on the latter and search for all movies
in the database with "South America" mentioned in the plot summary.
You can click on any of the icons to have it spit out a list of all
the movies of a given MPAA rating, a given q uality, or a given
category such as "family" movies.
The data in Movies To Go! is in a compressed form that makes it
impossible to add your own movies to the database, although you can
annotate each entry (they suggest you use this field to keep track
of which movies you've seen). However, the database is updated with
about 200 new movies each month, the authors write. Each update
(which consists of a new copy of the entire database, on two high
density disks) is $9.95 plus shipping, although they plan a price
increase in 1995. You can also subscribe to thei r Movie Update BBS
Service for an annual fee of $25, which allows you unlimited
downloads of updates.
So what didn't I like about this program? Speaking broadly,
major aspects of its conception and performance. First some
background. My family and I are intense film buffs. We go to the
movies a lot, and rent a lot of videos as well. (This has been true
especially in recent months since the birth of our first son keeps
us from stepping out much.) We read the credits at the end of the
film too. And we keep a slew of film reference books on the mantle
in the living room. Questions, curiosities, connections, c
onstantly arise in watching films closely, and we enjoy good
reference sources. If you're reading this review, you might be like
that as well. I've noticed that an increasing number of people, for
better or worse, live in "film consciousness." Dinner parties and
other social gatherings in our circles rarely fail to include a
discussion of who's seen what new film. There's a market out there
for good film references, especially one with an interesting
approach or a unique niche.
Conception: So, for me at least, the conception of this program
has important problems. When I go to the video store, it's not in
fear that I won't find anything. I'm either seeking out one or more
specific movies; or I want to browse the aisles and discover some
obscure curiosity or be reminded of something I always wanted to
see. I don't need a program trying to help by doing a poor job of
predicting what I'll like. I think it would take some AI
application (probably with fuzzy logic or some such) to do that
adequately...
Okay, so why not just use it as a reference source? As I
mentioned above, because they've pre-selected only movies that meet
their standards of quality. The edition of Halliwell's Film Guide
(in print) that I refer to, from several years ago, has nearly three
times as many film entries. The manual for Movies To Go! includes
an outline of the criteria they use to select movies for inclusion.
Top box office grossing movies, nominees for major Academy awards,
movies acclaimed by several critics or enthusiasti cally reviewed by
users of the program, and those with big stars in the cast, almost
guarantee inclusion. Domestic rather than foreign, newer rather
than older movies, and those available in video are preferred. For
someone who departs from the mainstream, e.g. into foreign films,
or 'B' movies, or older films that weren't big hits or Academy award
winners, the selections here aren't adequate. They relentlessly
refer to their subject as "movies," rather than "films," I noticed.
Call it snobbery if you will, but there's a difference.
Each entry also lists any elements of "objectionable content" in
the film. Ignoring for a moment all the debate about what
relationship the moral depravity of society has to the sexual and
violent content of our media, there's a little too much of a "moral
watchdog" tone about this aspect of Movies To Go! for my taste.
On the other hand, while I object if someone dictates my tastes
to me, I do appreciate critical comments. I read film reviews, even
if I don't agree with them. And a poor review doesn't necessarily
dissuade me from seeing a film. This brings me to my next major
complaint about the program. What it calls its "critical reviews"
are merely brief plot summaries or, in one case I came across in
browsing, just a list of the songs that appear in the soundtrack!
Nothing I would class as critical comments appears a nywhere. To be
fair, one of the technical notes at the back the manual observes
that recent reviews have been longer and longer, so ImagiSoft may be
addressing complaints similar to mine.
Performance: The authors say that the "compressed hypertext"
nature of the database makes searches fast. But on my 486DX2-50,
with a fast hard disk, a large cache and fast video, it crawled when
doing a search or updating a screen. Apparently this is a common
complaint from their users, because the manual addresses it at
length, and the distribution disk includes a text-only version that
requires only 256K DOS memory and 1.5 megabytes on your hard disk
free, as opposed to 525K and 3 megs for the complete p ackage. The
manual also goes into detail about how to install a memory manager
and load most of your boot configuration into upper memory to make
room for Movies To Go! to run in lower memory. If you run a
complicated Windows environment as I do, you might have the same
experience as I did, of never being able to make enough room in
conventional memory for the program to run under Windows.
Nevertheless, I could get it to run easily from the DOS prompt after
a plain vanilla boot (easy enough with DOS 6 by h itting F5 at
start-up).
If you install the text-only version, you will miss out on some
of the graphics features movie posters, actors' photos, and a
variety of animated icons and sound files of actors' voices. I
never came across any, but there are also supposed to be photographs
of the grassroots reviewers whose submitted reviews are accepted.
I couldn't even get the install program to run under Windows.
No matter which choice (install under DOS, under Windows, or quit) I
selected in the initial install menu, after a brief delay I'd land
up right back at that same menu, getting nowhere fast. At least the
install screen was pretty. I installed the program from the DOS
prompt, after exiting Windows and rebooting.
So who should buy this program? Well, I don't think it's for
seasoned film buffs. If you are, however, a movie fan, and
especially one who frequently experiences existential angst while
lost in the aisles of the video store, you might find useful
guidance here. A word of advice though if it's take-out Chinese
food and a movie to go, don't eat your food before you begin your
search in Movies To Go! . You'll be hungry again by the time you
find what you're looking for.
Requires: MS DOS compatible
VGA monitor
3 megabytes of hard disk (1.5 megabytes for text-only version)
525K for the full program (256K free for the text version)
386 or faster machine
SoundBlaster compatible sound card and mouse recommended.
ImagiSoft, Inc.
PO Box 13208
Albuquerque NM 87192-3208
(505) 275-1920 (voice)
(505) 275-9697 (BBS/FAX)
CompuServe 70632,1177