Errata is a web journal written by Robert Davis who has neither spent a night in a ghost town nor pulled a turnip from the earth. He doesn't even know if turnips grow in the ground. Perhaps on trees, like candy corn. Therefore, Errata is a non-commercial project.

Observation #1: It may be appropriate, when leaving a movie theater, to say "mysterious."

Observation #2: It may be appropriate, when leaving a movie theater, to say "mysterious" at the top of your lungs. Bring your eyebrows together before you say it. Effective!

Observation #3: Same for books. Even at libraries.

There is a prize for people who correctly guess the thing about Metropolis, Nevada.

Except where the text specifically states otherwise, Errata's vagaries are indicated vaguely and its authors are indistinct in the traditional way of the Internet, except where the authors lay claim to their work. In some cases Robert Davis lays claim to work that is not his own but has been abandoned like so many ghost towns. Except where held presently, fistfuls of dirt are suspended via dispersal, or dispersed via suspension (in the air), and thus their dissolution is their transcendence, or their transcendence is their dissolution. And yet our eyes tear, and our vision is impaired, demonstrating for the umpteenth time that one entity's gain is another's fit of sneezes. Except where indicated, storms shall outlive the clay upon which they rain, unless storms are improperly delimited by their clouds, which dissolve, rather than by their inevitable return. Thus the clay loses, unless the clay is said to own the storm, to use it to make itself heavy, to make itself cling to white garments, refuse dispersal, cake upon the facades of abandoned buildings, and sit like Man [sic] upon the earth where it is pelted by a storm that it owns. In which case the clay still loses, if you ask us.

Some of the above is legally binding and should be considered a mental contract between Errata and those upon whom it acts. The bit about the prize should be considered an overstatement insofar as prizes differ from dirt and prize dispersal differs from dirt dispersal. Please recall that ownership is a weight and, therefore, hope that you do not win the prize.

One day Errata or its representatives will call upon you for a favor. It is expected that you will hop-to without delay.

You may contact Robert Davis by email unless it's about the rock that was thrown in anger. The rock is more properly called a clod. Why do you continue to raise the topic?

6 December 2003

Lists of Movies

The year-end "best of 2003" lists are starting. And the truth is that — even though I know nobody can truly have seen and evaluated every movie released in 2003, and calling something the "best" anything when you've seen only a sampling is ridiculous — I love these lists as much as anybody. Not the ones full of movies everybody saw. Who cares if so-and-so put Master & Commander at number 3 and what's-her-name put Mystic River at number 2. For me, the lists are a great way to find out about movies I missed during the year, or about some that I ignored because I thought they wouldn't be any good, or about some that I saw and didn't like. What's someone else's idea?

The surprises in these lists are invariably more interesting than the easy guesses. Take these lists from Artforum, for example, which I found via GreenCine Daily.

As someone who has recently begun to spout off about movies, I'm also interested in why critics want to make lists. Here's Andrew Sarris in a 2001 article about Pauline Kael:

Pauline once called me a ?list queen? to my face, but by then I had become accustomed to her reflex insults. But it started me thinking. To my knowledge, Pauline was the only critic never to compile a 10-best list. Her admirers might say that Pauline was above such trivial journalistic diversions. But with a 10-best list, a critic puts his or her tastes on the line, and makes an easier target than one would get, for example, by plowing through Pauline?s steam-of-consciousness prose.

These lists educate. They expose us to unsung movies and put the little guy side-by-side with the mogul. And they put a critic's taste on the line, the benefit of which I haven't fully got my head around, but it somehow seems important.

(By the way, about this GreenCine Daily: it's one of those wall-of-links blogs, but they've so consistently pointed to interesting things that I've been turning to them regularly when I need an info-fix. Check it out.)

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