Kenneth Turan's Not to Be Missed, about his all-time favorite movies, has an epigraph from the great Swedish director Ingmar Bergman: film goes "deep into the twilight room of the soul." The popular Los Angeles Times and NPR film critic admits that these are the "films that meant the most to me.... I couldn't live without them." And why 54? It's a "lucky number."
He breaks his selections into decades, from the teens (Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr.) up to the "new century" (which includes the powerfully contemplative Of Gods and Men). Before the ink is dry on his 54 top choices, he can't stop himself from giving special attention to three films in his "Orson Welles Double Feature"; each of the three brief critiques is personal, perceptive and fun to read.
Turan continues to cheat on his numerical limit with chapters called "The Fifty-Fifth Film" (including Jean Cocteau's glorious Beauty and the Beast) and "A Second Fifty-Four," another chronological list of favorites--though these picks lack the in-depth treatment given to the first set. He's ecumenical in his selections. There are many American films, but a good contingent of foreign titles and documentaries. He captures each with a pithy phrase: Seven Samurai is a "humanistic epic"; Chinatown is "intricacy itself"; Vertigo is a "touch of genius... and madness."
If pressed, Turan can pick his favorite film: Marcel Carné's Children of Paradise, a picture "you experience more than watch... a miracle many times over." Turan's thoughtful list will inspire readers to rent some of his all-time favorites, and they can have the utmost confidence in Turan's wise and enthusiastic recommendations. --Tom Lavoie, former publisher