Movies, movies, movies!  FLICKIPEDIA: Perfect Films for Every Occasion, Holiday, Mood, Ordeal, and Whim offers readers 1,300 film recommendations geared to everyday situations and subject preferences. This wonderful resource book makes a perfect gift for any movie lover on your holiday shopping list.  

Authors Michael Atkinson and Laurel Shifrin have organized their helpful book into six sections titled “Home for the Holidays,” “My Favorite Season,” The Time of Their Lives,” “World Traveler,” and “Flashback.” Both oldies-but-goodies and contemporary movies are included in each section. Under “Home for the Holidays,” there are recommendations for a couple of holidays I didn’t know existed, including Grandparents Day. (I can hardly wait to tell my grandchildren about that one.)

Atkinson explains that movies are now subject to the currents of our lives in ways they never have been before. “Gone are the days of movies as fabulous occasions -- events around which we must retrofit our busy routines,” he writes. “Today they are as manageable and selectable to us as fashion, furniture, and food. As a cultural experience, movies now conform to us…It’s a big, fat new world of movie love and cinematic experience out there, willing to intersect with our glories, our doldrums, our disappointments, and our joy.”

For example, if you’re under the weather and taking a sick day, FLICKIPEDIA suggests viewing movies that are engaging but not too challenging -- and lists Laura, The Third Man, The Flight of the Phoenix and Little Big Man among its recommendations. Or if you’re going through a mid-life crisis, the authors advise checking out movies like The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, Network, The Hospital, Calendar Girls and Wonder Boys. For those starting out in a new job, Atkinson and Shifrin think it might be a good idea to take a look at The Bank Dick, Blue Collar, Clockwatchers, Boiler Room plus other similar films. And that’s just the beginning. There are movies included for the heartbroken, the lonely, sports fans, students, retirees, parents, people going through a divorce -- and much, much more. 

Because I’m in a nostalgic mood right now, the FLICKIPEDIA “Flashback” section is my favorite today. According to Atkinson, films “serve as a kind of cultural memory well into which we can escape and get lost, and find ourselves at liberty in 1890s Europe or 1940s New York or the intoxicating meadows of the 1960s.” If I had the time, I would love to wallow in nostalgia this morning by watching some of the films mentioned that I haven’t seen before, such as Mauvaise Graine (1933), the only movie the great Billy Wilder filmed in France. Fortunately, by using the resource list and the tips included in this excellent movie guide, I'll probably be able to find a copy for viewing the next time I feel this way.   

FLICKIPEDIA is published by Chicago Review Press. Click here for more information.