Rough Guide Review

It's a little odd to see a review of The Rough Guide to Film in the LAT. I mean, I like Rough Guides and all, but a review? Don't you basically know what you're getting when you buy one of these? The review seems to strain for much to say:

The new "Rough Guide" mimics Thomson in that it creates a dictionary from criticism, but it is systematized differently -- that is, the focus is on directors, more than 800 of them. Nor is there one essayist chipping away at a masterwork but four (listed) critics, who are up to what feels more like a recycling exercise of old reviews from the "Time Out" series of city guides.

The best of the four named writers is CNN.com film critic Tom Charity. If an entry is deft or insightful -- such as the essays on Curtis Hanson, David Lean or Howard Hawks -- chances are that there will be a tiny "TC" at the end of it. Charity's entry for Hanson is typically nimble: "To get his membership of the Directors Guild of America in the mid-1980s, Curtis Hanson needed the endorsement of three members. He went to John Cassavetes ('the maverick independent'), Don Siegel ('the consummate studio director') and Sam Fuller ('who worked in both worlds'). The anecdote reveals the extent to which Hanson was already a Hollywood insider. . . ."

Referring to a Rough Guide as a "collection of criticism" seems a little imprecise to me, especially given that the review likens Rough Guides to the For Dummies series.