Mind you, this books does not contain a ranking of the best 1,000 movies ever made. It merely contains a laundry list of the 1,000 best movies ever made. And, everyone has their own interpretation of what makes the movie the "best," such as great storytelling, performances, cinematography, etc...
To rationalize this daunting task, editor Peter M. Nichols writes in the preface:
The idea behind this book, of course, is to provide the film buff or anyone renting a video with as full an account of a movie as possible. But unedited reviews also leave no way to wriggle out of judgments made on deadline years ago. Are these really the one thousand best films? An impossible question, of course, but from the accumulated evidence, it's apparent that Times critics knew a great movie when they saw one.Yep, 1,000 movies the NY Times Film Critics thought were "great." Think about the brainstorming session that went into this:
Editor's #1 & 2 sit in the kitchen of their swanky Upper West Side apartment, with a legal pad at their side and PowerMac at their disposal.
Editor #1: Well, we've got 947. That's not a very round number.
Editor #2: Is it a prime number?
Editor #1: Ooh. Maybe.
Editor #2: I'll start dividing it by numbers.
Editor #1: Now are there any movies named by prime numbers...?
Enter Subletter in Editor #1's apartment
Subletter in Editor #1's Apartment: Dude, you're out of bread. I can't make a reuben if I don't have any rye.
Editor #1: Reuben? What's a Reuben?
Subletter: The only completely invented sandwich? Hello? It's a freaking Reuben! A Reuben!
Editor #2: Did he just say Reuben, Reuben? That was part of a sextuple feature I watched in high school while foregoing my prom. It was pretty good. Put it on.
Editor #1: Reuben, Reuben! Great!
Subletter: Screw that. I can't make a Reuben without any bread.
Editor #1: Hmm... bread. Nope, don't know any movies about bread. Let me punch Bread into IMDB.com... Bread, Love and Dreams. Sounds light years ahead of its time. Yeah, that could work. No one will watch it anyway.
Editor #2: 949.. That's like a number anagram. We could stop now.
Subletter: Let me see that...
Subletter in Editor #1's apartment rips away the legal pad with the 949 movies listed. He flips through, page by page.
Subletter: Henry V? Which one?
Editor #1: What do you mean which one? The Shakespearean one, you fool!
Subletter: No, you moron. They remade it a few years back. There's at least two of them.
Editor #2: Great. We can use both.
Subletter throws the legal pad at editor #2
Subletter: Look, guys. Take a fucking break, go down the street get some rye bread and corned beef from the Butcher. Boy.
Editor #1: The Butcher Boy! I watched that on TV the other day before I left to watch that Bela Lugosi Iron Man Movie Marathon Last Thursday through Saturday! It was not bad.
Editor #2: Fantastic. That brings us to 952. That's an even number. Can't be a prime number.
Subletter: Pi is a prime number.
Editor #1: Ignoramus. You clearly have no idea what you're talking about.
Subletter: Much like the moron who ends his sentences with prepositions. Douche.
...end scene.
I have reservations about any list that can include RoboCop but forget SpaceBalls, Terminator, and the Oscar Award Winner for Best Picture in 1977 (Rocky) and 1998 (Titanic), among others.
The majority of movies in this book are among the "10 Best Films" chosen by critics at the end of each year.Right.
It's a coffee table book, NY Times Editors. Made presumably because you feel infalliable about movies and had some time on your hands. Nothing more.
1 comment:
No Rocky? That's awful. If Ghost made the list, I'll finally have the motivation to stop buying the occasional New York Times at an airport.
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