Showing posts with label film reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label film reviews. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Quick guide to finding film reviews

This post is not an exhaustive guide, but provides a couple of tips and quick strategies to get you out of a jam with a question.

Search tips:  
  • A "contemporary" film review is one that was published around the film's release date.
  • If you don't know a film's release date, Wikipedia is quick and handy for this task.
  • Always put the title of your film in quotes to keep the words together.
  • If the film title was also a book, add the word "film" or your keyword search.

Here are two quick strategies using the film "American Graffiti" (released: August 1973) as an example:

Academic Search Complete:
  • in the top search box type: "american graffiti"
  • in the 2nd search box type: review
  • leave it on "Select a field" for largest search
  • limit the published date from "1973" to "1974"
  • results: 13 
  • click on UC-eLinks if no PDF or full text link is present (click here for how-to guide)
Cruzcat, for reviews in print:
  • do a title search for "Film Review" (McH Stacks PN1993.F624)
  • we have volumes for 1944-1992, so this is good for older films
  • look up the title of the film in the index
  • patron can photocopy or scan pages
For more film review sources, go to the Film & Digital Media Research Guide, and click on the articles tab, and use the search tips above.