Leonard Maltin's 151 Best Movies You've Never Seen
Maltin, whose Movie Guide is a regularly updated best-seller, and who holds the Guinness record for the world’s shortest movie review (of the 1948 musical Isn’t It Romantic?—“No”), proffers a roster of movies he hopes fans will consider “unfamiliar” because they’ve failed to find the mass audience. While noting the occasional major studio release, he sticks primarily to independent, foreign, and documentary films released during the last 20 years or so, in time for high-speed Internet, streaming video, and all-region DVD players to make them readily available to prospective viewers for the first time. Among his most interesting recommendations are Errol Morris’ unusual documentary Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control, a study of four people and the jobs they love; Idiocracy, Beavis and Butthead creator Mike Judge’s little-seen (and, by its parent studio, even less-loved) futuristic comedy; and Guillermo Del Toro’s supernatural suspenser set during the Spanish civil war, The Devil’s Backbone. Maltin’s still king of the succinct review, making this a handy reference for cineasts who think they’ve seen it all. --Carlos Orellana