April 14, 2014
As a child, Los Angeles Times film critic Turan lost himself in the movies. Later, as a student at the Columbia School of Journalism, he took a seminar from Judith Crist, who told him that he could be watch films and write about them professionally. In this affectionate look at the movies that have meant the most to him, he chooses several films, beginning in 1913 with Louis Feuillade’s silent film Fantômas, and proceeds decade by decade up through Joseph Cedar’s Footnote (2011). He offers a brief introduction to the films of each intervening decade and then provides short and critically admiring analyses of his chosen films. The 1930s, he writes, were a “decade, as even the titles of the films like Bombshell and I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang indicated, that started with a ferocious burst of uncensored energy; the ability to speak filled the movies with a kind of dynamism that never went away.” Turan’s crisp and deft analysis of individual films offers fresh insights into them; of the length of Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai (nearly three and a half hours), Turan observes: “the passage of time has one final advantage: it shows us the entirety of the agricultural year, from planting to… final harvesting; that’s critical because the film’s final message is to reinforce the endurance of that kind of life.” Turan’s illuminating reflections do what the best essays on film always do: send us to watch the movie, whether for the first time or the 20th.
June 1, 2014
Popular film critic Turan (Los Angeles Times; NPR; Free for All) lists here what he considers to be 54 of the world's most memorable films--an ambitious task. Each entry contains a short plot synopsis, a brief background on the filmmakers responsible for the end product, and even one or two recommended related movie titles for further viewing. All in all, this is a reliable representation of a wide range of cinematic masterpieces, and includes many well-known (Casablanca; The Godfather), as well as several less-familiar (Sherlock Jr.; The Dybbuk) titles. What makes this book stand out is how each film is put into context of the time period it was made and Turan's reasons why each one sticks out as memorable and deserving of watching more than once. VERDICT This collection is a worthwhile companion to similar books of "the best in film," e.g., Roger Ebert's The Great Movies and Gail Kinn and Jim Piazza's The Greatest Movies Ever. Recommended for the casual movie fan as well as the serious film student.--Richard Dickey, Washington DC
Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
April 1, 2014
A veteran critic offers a decade-by-decade list of the films that have been like "friends who've enriched my life." Los Angeles Times and NPR's Morning Edition film critic Turan (Now in Theaters Everywhere: A Celebration of a Certain Kind of Blockbuster, 2006, etc.) confesses his discomfort with his own project: so many films. He was so uncomfortable, in fact, that at the end, he suggests two others for slot 55, then appends yet another list of 54 that he's loved. Film lovers will eagerly swoop in to see if their favorites are present, and there are certainly some surprises. Turan does not mention either Charlie Chaplin or Harold Lloyd. Citizen Kane does not make the first cut--though it does appear as a recommendation at the end of his discussion of Sweet Smell of Success; it also appears in the appended list (as do two other Welles films). Turan's tastes are eclectic: documentaries (Stranded), Westerns (The Unforgiven), an animated feature (Spirited Away), crime films (Kiss Me Deadly), musicals (Singin' in the Rain), films based on classic novels (Great Expectations), films everyone's heard of (Casablanca) and films that few beside the cognoscenti know (The Best of Youth). In each case, the author introduces each decade and discusses the directors and performers; in many instances, he summarizes the plots and/or gives some back story about the making of the films. Principally, however, he explores how each film affected him and how the filmmaker managed to do what he did (male filmmakers dominate here). Among the principal factors are cinematography, music, individual performances, the power of the plot, the settings, the ambiance, the effect of surprise and the styles of the directors. Although Turan discusses many Hollywood studio films, he also includes films from Japan, Italy, Denmark, Israel and elsewhere. Like most other "my-favorites" projects, this one will surely ignite debate, disdain and delight.
COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
June 1, 2014
Turan, film critic for the Los Angeles Times since 1991 and a regular contributor of reviews to NPR, approaches movies, as did the late Roger Ebert, on their own terms, trying to understand what a filmmaker is trying to do and assessing a movie's success or failure in light of its maker's intent. This book isn't a collection of film reviews per se; it's a look at Turan's personal favorites, which range from the easily recognizable (The Godfather, All about Eve, Casablanca, Unforgiven, Vertigo) to the for-devoted-film-fans-only (The Dybbuk, Seven Men from Now, The Best of Youth). His comments about the movies are always insightful: he calls The Godfather, for example, excessive but natural, larger than life yet always lifelike, which nicely encapsulates the film's dual nature, and his writing is fluid and accessible. Richly deserving of shelf space alongside Ebert's The Great Movies (2002), Pauline Kael's For Keeps (1994), and Turan's own Never Coming to a Theater Near You (2004).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)