Movie Box Hardcover – October 1, 2012

I approached this book with no small degree of trepidation, wondering how engaging a book could be that distilled cinema down to stills alone, with little text to supplement it. It seemed too cumbersome to act as informative, and too small to act as a glossy coffee table book. This wasn't helped as when I started to read it from the beginning, I soon realised that what text there was, was hardly illuminating and often overtly pretentious. However, as I worked through it, I found the pictures - while unsurprising - made for interesting viewing, and the categories had a kind of logic that helped structure the collection.The information is not without errors - if I am able to spot a couple of obvious ones, then it seems to me that the chances are quite high other less obvious ones may exist. However what started as pretentious verbiage became for me an acceptable interlude to set up the next batch of pictures, and very occasionally an interesting anecdote is found. The format is of high quality glossy paper, in a hardbound book that looks set to last, and a novel magnetic clip style closing arrangement.The photographs themselves are of variable interest, most if not all of which have appeared elsewhere, but are nonetheless interesting for being brought together. The portraits are probably one of the most interesting chapters, though parts of the candid behind the scenes shots were also fascinating. Weakest are the ones mostly towards the end, which are dominantly electronic press kit material, and feel less like a legitimate artistic collection of merit and more free advertising for the movie.. it cheapens the book I feel. Overall, I still think that a larger book to really show off the photos in coffee table format might have made more sense, but it's not like the book has no value - and may still end up on my coffee table for movie related evenings.

The book has a brilliant start with forty-three superb star portraits and I thought this book was perhaps going to be something special but after page sixty-nine it soon became clear that the rest of the book was basically made up of movie publicity photos with brief captions. Italian film critic Paolo Mereghetti seems to have taken the easy option of collating the 418 photos into ten chapters (one of which: 'Playing roles' is sub-divided into another eight sections) and writing a short essay for each though there are text pieces about some directors and stars throughout the pages.The book is well produced with the gimmick of a magnetic opening flap (following the same format as previous titles: FashionBox; MusicBox; PhotoBox) but it is mostly a collection of commercial film stills from the movie biz publicity machine. Any dedicated movie fan will have seen most of these stock shots published elsewhere over previous years.

This book has been really informative and brings back great memories of favourite films and film stars from the past.

Love the book - packaging could have been better, book arrived slightly creased at the corners. (This book was a gift and the recipient is very fussy!!)

-un gran libro sobre el cine,trae muchas fotos,y anécdotas de actores y rodajes, es muy ameno,quizás es algo aparatoso de leer por las solapas,tiene cierre magnético, mi copia tiene como unas marcas atrás en la contraportada no se si lo apoye en algún sitio que no debía,yo lo compre a buen precio unos 8 euros congastos de envió,si eres cinefilo no te lo pienses es un buen libro de cine y muy ameno de visualizar.(descubri la oferta de este libro gracias al youtuber duridevil)