Empire Magazine

I started reading empire around 1995 and since about 1999 it's been not good, i switched to total film but that's gone the same way, I haven't read either for about 3 years now...It's a shame, both were excellent (empire in the mid 90s, total film when it first started)
 
A monthly review magazine by nature is out of date when it hits the shelves. How much longer can the market can sustain numerous versions of the same mag?
Empire has definetly gone down hill over the last year, i seem to buy it out of habit now.
 
CoverFofle wrote: "I think sometimes they get excited about films and then when they see them they are disappointed with the final outcome. Which I think is fair enough to a certain extent, but sometimes I do think they make the wrong decision when featuring films that haven't yet been released."

Come on! If magazines stopped previewing films because they might be rubbish then you'd have a very short magazine! Lots of people are bound to be interested in the latest blockbuster even if it turns out to be awful or looks awful to begin with. If Tom Cruise starred in Transformers the Movie he'd probably still be on the cover and get six pages of coverage inside because it will sell issues.
 
I used to subscribe to Empire until about a year ago. I still have about 100 issues in my study, and can notice a distinct trend in them.

They have become obsessed with blockbuster films like Star Wars. The reviews have dumbed down. Even the quality of the "freebies" has dropped.

I don't blame them - although I can't stand Star Wars, I do understand that a fair proportion of their target market does. Maybe I am getting old, but Empire certainly doesn't appeal to me any more. The problem is that there is no alternative magazine out there for people like myself, who love films, want quality reviews but don't want to be bored by overkill or overly erudite articles.

IMDB and other websites are more current, give you more useful information and opinions from a wide cross-section of viewers rather than one reviewer's (not always independent, I suspect) opinion.
 
Sight and Sound fits this description perfectly, although you have to remember not to read the synopsis bit at the start of the review if you haven't seen the film yet.

I stopped buying Empire and Total Film when they began writing all their articles in the style of a teenage nerd.
 
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