Movieman (Total Film)

Member Name: bigbtommy

Product:	Total Film
Date:	11/07/04 (97 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Mine was free, Impartial reviews that mirror my gut feeling, Not too much celebrity worship

Disadvantages: Future editions won't be free.

Let me admit something. Something that will probably get me expelled from this dear site. I've never bought a copy of the magazine I'm about to review. Therefore, I can never really have consumed it.

Fortunately, there are higher goals in this world. So, having not spent £3.00 on this delightful glossy monthly, I will promptly review it.

Total Film is a truly great magazine. That is said up front, just in the hope that either my name will be printed on some testimonial page, or the nice people who publish it will send me a lifetime subscription as long as I keep this sort of thing up. But seriously, it is a great magazine. Everybody loves films, right? Even people who don't really go to movies love movies.

And Total Film is brimming with movies. Lots of lovely movies. And interviews with celebrities. Some of them even seem like nice, normal people. Okay, so, with a few exceptions, I wouldn't want most of them over for a cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit, but it's nice to see celebrities treated relatively normally. Just as a science magazine would treat a scientist or a sports magazine would treat a sportsman.

Total Film have the usual sort of thing you expect from a modern, hip magazine. Lots of nice features, articles and all the silly bits they pay typewriter manacled hacks like me to write while under the command of some pie-faced journalistic dominatrix with a penchant for non-matching socks and novelty Christmas singles to cough up.

In the edition I have beside me, they have a lovely picture of Spiderman on the front cover. Okay, well, it's not Spiderman - there is no such thing - but it's pretty all the same. And inside, they make some wonderful jibes about Hulk Hogan's movie career (the highlight of which is either Mr. Nanny or Suburban Commando).

They are also tastefully cynical about movies. Let me explain. Go to any cinema in Britain (or look on the web) and when the tr
ailers come on, just think about the idea. Many times it sucks. I mean, take a look at the trailer for The Day After Tommorow. Yes, it's a box office success. But that doesn't mean it doesn't suck. Look at the new Thunderbirds Are Go movie that's being touted in the cinemas (or at least it was when I saw the delightfully excellent Harry Potter Trois last night). That's going to suck. It'll be succesful, but it'll suck.

How do you know? Gut feeling. And the reviewers for this mag seem to have a very similar gut feeling as mine on a lot of the movies. Hollywood is an evil place. Not, as the moralists would say, because it's full of pornographers and people who say things that just aren't acceptable in polite company. But because they make things that suck and inflict them on our culture. Magazines like TF have a great job to play - to play Devil's Advocate towards sucky ideas.

And they do it wonderfully. Minimal celebrity worship, a healthy cynical attitude towards the film industry and a love for great films. All that adds up to a decent magazine. Whether it's worth £3 or not is dependent on two things. First of all, whether or not you like IMDb. I love IMDb, and am fairly sure that a film magazine is redundant for my tastes (I just don't go to that many movies). And second of all, how much you love movies. If you love movies more than I do - which isn't difficult - you'll probably enjoy this mag. If you love movies as much as I do, you'll enjoy this mag when somebody gives you a free copy.

Which, if the publishers are wise, they'll be doing about now.

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