Not Coming to a Theater Near You

Matt Bailey

Contributor

Matt is a librarian and loves British female-led post-punk groups of the early 1980s.

Favorites

On 1/18/04 7:24 PM, “Matt Bailey” wrote:

I’m not submitting a list and would like to take this opportunity to announce my retirement from making lists of my favorite movies. In preparation for this feature, as I looked over the list I made just last year of my top twenty films, I realized that there were many films that I truly, honestly, and unabashedly love missing from the list, and in their place films that I might have put on the list simply because I felt they needed to be on the list. In attempting to rectify these injustices, I became even more conflicted. How could I quantify and compare the very different pleasures given to me by such diverse films as The Exorcist and Cleo from 5 to 7? Scorpio Rising and Twentieth Century? What possible rationale could I use to select one Luis Buñuel or Robert Bresson film over another? How would I reconcile my need to make a list that reflects the refined taste of someone who writes on film and has an advanced degree in the field with the fact that Don Knotts makes me laugh really, really hard and that I’ve seen Auntie Mame somewhere around 25 times? How do I finalize something that will remain static and public for some time to come when, in reality, it changes every day? How do I defend a list against criticism when I am perhaps the person most critical of it? The more I looked at my list, the more I realized that the answer to all of these questions is, “I can’t.” So, I’m throwing in the towel. I like what I like and I don’t feel a need to quantify and qualify it. I’m not saying that making lists isn’t fun or worthwhile. It’s just that I am no longer mentally prepared to tell Murnau or Antonioni that they didn’t make the cut this time around.

Matt

Recent Reviews 131 total / View All

Now, Voyager	04 May 2012
10 to Midnight	02 Nov 2011
The Others	08 Oct 2011
Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures	27 Apr 2011
God’s Country	01 Dec 2010
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde	09 Oct 2010

Recent Screening Log Entries 94 total / View All

Unfaithfully Yours	14 Sep, 2005
Lenny	14 Sep, 2005
They Died with Their Boots On	11 Sep, 2005
The Holy Girl	10 Sep, 2005
Three on a Match	31 Aug, 2005
Clash by Night	29 Aug, 2005

Recent Features 24 total / View All

Favorites: Transformations	30 Apr 2012
BRONSON!	02 Nov 2011
31 Days of Horror VIII	30 Sep 2011
Ralph Bakshi’s Cool Worlds	11 Apr 2011
Malle Entendu: The Ecstatic, Eclectic Cinema of Louis Malle	16 Nov 2010
31 Days of Horror VII	01 Oct 2010

Recent Comments 55 total / View All

Tomorrow I’ll Wake Up and Scald Myself with Tea	01 Oct 2010
Somewhere in Time	28 Aug 2010
Somewhere in Time	24 Aug 2010
Lost Highway	18 Jul 2010
Fahrenheit 451	07 Apr 2010