1,000 Movies To Watch

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Have You Seen...? by David Thompson.

Have You Seen...?: A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films
By David Thomson
Knopf; 1,007pp.

The Gist:
There's something about film critics (or maybe all critics, or possibly just people who like things) that makes them susceptible to the lure of lists. Top Ten Films of All Time, Top 14 Movie Villains, Top 25 Serbian Horror Flicks—the combinations are endless. In his latest, Have You Seen...?, film critic and historian David Thomson, author of the singular The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, delivers a binding-busting list of one thousand flicks you need to check out. Not that he likes—or even respects—all of these movies. Rather, he writes, "This is a book created to meet the question frequently asked of anyone with a reputation for knowing about films. It's 'What should I see?' So Have You Seen...? is a response to that uncertainty."

Highlight Reel:
1. On Woody Allen's Annie Hall: "The film is full of jokes and funny observations. It has great scenes. But it is not a story or a drama. It is a comic's sad monologue filled out to the dimensions of a movie (93 minutes) in which the impenetrable, impregnable self-regard of Alvy fends off a delightful woman. This is not quite feminism. Indeed, it is a kind of celebration of male infantilism (otherwise known as the movies)."

2. On Peter Fonda's Easy Rider: "It is unwatchable—unless you are benfitting from the illegal substances it advocates."

3. On Mike Nichols' The Graduate: "A mess, a film that cries out for thorough reconstruction and critical debate. I think it's a cold, heartless entertainment, never more ruthless than when dumping charm on us...Still, for the moment it is said to be one of everybody's favorites!"

4. On David Fincher's Se7en: "More than the director knows, or gives himself a chance to notice, the film identifies with and embodies that cruel intellectual superiority of the killer. To that extent, Se7en—quite beautiful and piercing—is one of the most truly sadistic works the cinema has produced. Its very achievement is disgusting."

5. On Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood: "This is the most haunting film I have seen as I close the writing of this book, and I take it not just as vindication of the career of a man like Paul Thomas Anderson (now clearly the leader of his generation), but a sign that will and luck coexist still in America to make a resonant film about everything. Just as with Citizen Kane—or Greed or Magnolia or Chinatown—this could have been called "American."

The Lowdown:
Have You Seen...? is wonderfully idiosyncratic. It's so idiosyncratic, in fact, that much of the time you'll read one of the 1,000 brief essays, look up, shake your head, and think "What the hell is this guy talking about?" For that, you should be grateful. All too many books about film regurgitate the same old pablum about the same old movies over and over again. Thomson, however, isn't afraid to tear down critical darlings (he hates Stanley Kubrick), isn't afraid of spoilers (there's a strong argument to be made for film criticism that can only be read after having seen the movie, not before), and reveals a cinematic knowledge of frightening depth. This all makes for a bracing, infuriating and ultimately illuminating work.

The Verdict: Read

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