Seraphic Secret

Robert J. Avrech: Emmy Award winning screenwriter. Movie fanatic. Helplessly and hopelessly in love with my wife since age nine.

Citizen Kane

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

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“The chancellor, the late chancellor, was only partly correct. He was obsolete, but so is the State, the entity he worshipped. Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of man - that state is obsolete. A case to be filed under “M” for mankind—in the Twilight Zone.” —Rod Serling, “The Obsolete Man”, The Twilight Zone
“The chancellor, the late chancellor, was only partly correct. He was obsolete, but so is the State, the entity he worshipped. Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of man—that state is obsolete. A case to be filed under “M” for mankind—in the Twilight Zone.”
—Rod Serling, “The Obsolete Man”, The Twilight Zone

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Ten Greatest Movies Ever Made

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Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak in Vertigo, 1958.

Every ten years, Sight & Sound magazine, a British publication devoted to the — cue cultured BBC accent — Art of Cinema, surveys some 1,000 critics, directors  and know-it-all yentas, most of whom I’ve never heard, asking them to list the ten greatest movies in the known universe.

Here’s the survey.

For the past forty years, Citizen Kane has been numero uno. But this year, the number one slot for greatest movie of all time goes to Vertigo.

This is a welcome outcome. Seraphic Secret has always felt that Kane is a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. Normal people — the mass audience who did not go to film school — is bored stiff by Citizen Kane.

But, I have to admit that much as I love Vertigo — Brian De Palma and I screened it while we were working on Body Double — it’s grim and depressing, with none of the wit that elevates the best Hitchcock movies. But let’s face it, critics tend to favor “serious” movies.

Definitive movie lists are a challenge. You have to make ruthless choices. After thinking about movies and the history of movies for several days, after making list after list, and after inwardly debating the merits of various films, we made our choices, and now present Seraphic Secret’s list of the Ten Greatest Movies of all time.

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