Left to my own devices

This year's TCM Classic Film Festival will feature, among other things, a Q&A with actor Michael Douglas, following a screening of his 1979 film The China Syndrome . Also scheduled are interviews with the casts of Kentucky Fried Movie (1977) and Best In Show (2000). Now, I haven't seen Kentucky Fried Movie , but China Syndrome and Best In Show are fine films. But are they classics? Eh... The Oxford English dictionary defines 'classic' as "judged over a period of time to be of the highest quality and outstanding of its kind." The phrase "period of time" is meaningless. It can be stretched to mean anywhere from five years to fifty. The three films mentioned in regards to the TCM festival range from 17 to 40 years in age. 17 years seems, at least to my mind, a tad too recent to consider classic status, though 40 years would seem to be long enough ago.

It's Alfred Hitchcock day on TCM , a special Sundays With Hitch programming feature during September. One of the films airing today is the classic Spellbound , starring Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman. Alas, it's not a very enjoyable experience. Allow me to explain why that is. As mentioned before on this blog, I grew up listening to the radio at bedtime. At first it consisted of Larry King (back when he did overnights), and then switched to old-time radio shows from the '30s, '40s and '50s. I would purchase the programs on cassette, and drift to sleep with the sounds of Arch Oboler , Suspense! , The Shadow and others in my ears. One of the shows I listened to most was Screen Directors Playhouse . It aired on NBC Radio from 1949-51, and consisted of dramatizations of popular movies. Indeed, this is where I was introduced to such cinema classics as Call Northside 777, The Killers, The Spiral Staircase, Lifeboat, Shadow of a Doubt, The Uninvited and, fi...

Over the past couple of years, I've acquainted myself with some of the films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Known collectively as The Archers, Powell & Pressburger had a string of successful and innovative movies throughout the 1940s and '50s. I haven't watched everything in their collaborative filmography, but have had the pleasure of watching six of their features, and cannot recommend them enough. It's always exciting to discover new, quality entertainment, even when said 'new' entertainment is decades old. Classic cinema is truly a treasure trove of great wonders and ideas. Just for the heck of it, I've decided to rank and (briefly) overview each of the Powell & Pressburger movies I've seen. If anything on the list sounds like it might tickle your fancy, by all means, check it out. They're available on DVD and Blu-Ray.  All right, here we go:

It's easy to be subjective. Quick, name your five favorite movies. Or simply five films that you really quite enjoy. Now, try and be objective . Name what you think are the five best movies that have ever been made. It's never been an easy task for me, hence why, despite a fondness for list-making, I've never attempted to create a list of what I objectively consider to be the best films of all-time. But now, after nearly a week of great movies at the Roger Ebert Film Festival , plus a bit of perusing the Sight & Sound once-per-decade greatest films poll , I'm ready to sit down and do the list. Here, then, are what I consider to be the Top Ten Best Movies Ever Made.

The other day I was listening to the song Screaming by the Pet Shop Boys. It had featured on the soundtrack to Gus Van Sant's 1998 remake of Psycho . The remake taught me something, and that is that filmmaking styles can become dated, but the films, themselves, can sometimes still be timeless. This in-turn leads me to wonder: What makes a film timeless?