My ten great movies: An introduction

If you’re a regular visitor here, you know that I’ve had a busy few months, but this week probably takes the cake: having just hosted my parents for Thanksgiving, I’m delivering the final draft of City of Exiles to my publisher today, then getting on a plane with my wife tomorrow for a trip to Hong Kong and China. With all this activity, you’d think that this blog would quickly fall by the wayside, but you’d be wrong: as I noted yesterday, I’ve gone one full year without missing a day, and I’m not about to stop now. As a result, for the next two weeks, along with any dispatches I manage to file from overseas, I’ll be indulging in an activity dear to my heart: counting down my ten favorite movies.

Needless to say, many of these films have been discussed on this blog before, and if you’re curious as to what to expect, this list is a pretty good indication—although there may be a few surprises as well. (And not every movie I love made the cut, although luckily I’ve already covered Vertigo.) Still, just compiling a list like this, and finding new things to say about the films in question, is a revealing exercise in itself. I’ve said before that assembling a personal canon is the closest to an honest self-portrait that most of us will ever get, and even more than my favorite books, the films in my life are the clearest illustration of where I’ve been and where I’m going. So you can think of this, if you like, as your chance to find out who I really am.

Coming up on Monday: The greatest of all space operettas.

Quote of the Day

No one has ever written, painted, sculpted, modeled, built, or invented except literally to get out of hell.

—Antonin Artaud