The other day this book was in the monthly e-mail I receive from A Common Reader, a book catalog which is almost as fun to read as the books they recommend:

> From: A Common Reader
>
> Dear Reader,
>
> After I lost the moviegoing habit, whole years of new films passed me
> right by, while older masterpieces I'd sworn to see remained unviewed.
> Subsequently, when VHS tapes became widespread, I thought I'd catch up,
> but somehow I just never took to the boxy things -- can't really say
> why. Here, though, is the good news: in the past six months I've grown
> to like DVDs so much that movies are becoming a part of my life again.
> Which movies? Well, I frankly wouldn't have known where to start, had I
> not chanced on "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die." Despite its
> over-dramatic title, this huge, lavishly illustrated guide to world
> cinema through 2002 is easily the smartest, best written sourcebook of
> its kind that I know. As I browse, the stills -- there are a gazillion
> -- catch my eye, I read the accompanying mini-essays, and instantly
> several more not-to-be-missed flicks have made my list. Which is why I'm
> calling this one the must-read for must-sees.
>
> "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die"
> http://www.commonreader.com/pr013725/0406BW

Oh come on!? I've seen many of the Sight & Sound 100. I'm really behind on the Promontory 323 (so far). Now 1001?

If it's any comfort, probably many of the 1001 are the same as those you've already seen?

But I'm afraid to read the book myself!

I saw this book yesterday at the local book store. It's as nice as the description on the website BethR pointed out.

But yeah, 1001? I've maybe seen that many movies in my life.

I just went through the New Yourk Times 1000 and I have seen 184 of them.

Doug Cummings posted his thoughts on this book over at his site, and he had some nice things to say about it.

I'll have to track it down.

Thanks for the plug, Christian. It is a very good book, both for its scope and writing, and would make an excellent viewing guide to take to the video store. I have no desire to count the number of films I've seen (particularly since the index alphabetizes original titles and their english equivalents), but flipping through, I'd wager I've seen all but about 25 of them. Now I can die a happy man.

Just picked up a copy of this from the library (I was first in the "hold" queue), but it feels futile already to try to get through the tome in 3 weeks. I was a little discouraged to stumble over two typos in the introduction, but that won't stop me.

I'm not sure how I'll tackle it. I guess the lesson learned is: Don't check it out of the library; buy it instead.

There's no problem, really -- I calculated that if you don't sleep for the next 3 weeks, you can make it through 252 films. Then, renew the book 3 more times, and mission accomplished!

This may be worth a new thread, but The Washington Monthly has a fun post linking to a site (that I can't pull up; may be related to some weather issues affecting my connection) covering Movies To AVOID Watching Before You Die.

The comments feature some worthy titles, and several spirited defenses of Starship Troopers.

I hope they included Lady in the Water...

I just picked up a "revised edition" of the hardback, which I saw at the library. But I think it's the same book that came out a few years ago.

In looking at Amazon, I see that a fully updated version is scheduled to be released:

Among their new additions are The Queen, The Lives of Others, Brokeback Mountain, and several more recent movies that have attracted worldwide attention.

So did they eliminate other titles to make room for the newbies? The capsule description doesn't say.

David Thomson has released Have You Seen?, his essays on a 1,000 "must-see films," according to the description at the linked page. I wonder how many of Thomson's 1,000 films match the 1,001 "must see" films in the book under discussion in this thread.

I'm going to add this one to my birthday/Christmas list, although that horribly ugly Thomson book cover gives me some pause. I greatly enjoy Thomson's The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, which I'm very surprised to find we don't have a discussion of here. Could've sworn we did.

One more Thomson digression: His new tome is reviewed at The Atlantic (HT: Ross Douthat):

Thomson has never been backward-looking—he’s remarkably open and generous to contemporary talent, and has been particularly astute if exasperatingly partisan in his assessments of our current actors (witness his mad crush on Nicole Kidman). But this is an elegiac work. Even while his fine eye picks up the subtle, brilliant costuming in Leaving Las Vegas (1995) and even while he neatly dissects the rigor and wit of The Queen (2006) and praises mightily Magnolia (a 1999 film that has grown even more in his estimation since the most recent edition of the Dictionary) and You the Living (2007), the evidence is in the reader’s hands:

"If you were to make a graph of when the films in this book were made, there is a great hump that stands for the thirties, the forties, the fifties. I can try to moderate it, but I do not apologize for it."

Got it! 1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, that is -- not the David Thomson book. Not yet.

The titles added since the first edition are good ones, with that glaring exception of Apocalypto, but I yield to the critical debate over that title and recognize that at least some critics find it a must-see. There was one title among the newbies I'd never heard of, so that's ... something. Something good, I think. Oh, and the dust jacket references two film titles that are nowhere to be found among the additions. I'm wondering if the jacket used European titles, and the actual entries used the U.S. titles. As is, it looks like a glaring error.

I don't have the volume in front of me, so I can't comment further at this time.

Tag-teaming back once more to Thomson's book, here's the New York Times review:(HT: MCN)

Thomson likes a good argument, and makes one well, but in this book, at least, he’s working more in the mode of a lively dinner party guest than a re-­education camp counselor; he’s not going to pummel you into submission the way Pauline Kael would. Really, his agenda here, besides selling books, is simply to encourage or provoke you to see a bunch of movies. Louis Menand, writing in The New Yorker a few years ago, said of “The Whole Equation,” “Thomson’s subject is not, strictly speaking, the history of the movies”; his subject is “the history of caring about the movies.”

Here's an excerpt from the book.