Not Schindler’s List again (From Oxford Mail)

Not Schindler’s List again

3:00pm Wednesday 12th November 2008

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What is it with film lists?

Just what benefit do they serve other than giving lazy writers and editors something to do when the multiplex is awash with mediocrity? Perhaps this is reason enough; lest we suffer another editorial on just how amazing ‘The Dark Knight’ is and why it should clean up at the Oscars.

I only bring this up because anyone who bought Empire magazine this month may have been as dismayed as I was to discover the whole magazine devoted to the five hundred greatest films ever!

How did they arrive at that number? Why not the greatest five thousand? Five million?

Of course it was full of the usual suspects, Citizen Kane, Annie Hall and Lawrence of Arabia but more curiously films like ‘Hairspray’, ‘Bad Taste’ and ‘Enduring love’.

In what universe are they great films?

This just highlights the problem with these kinds of lists; the only thing they show is the lack of imagination of the voters and the shortness of their memory. If the list had been compiled last year it would have been completely different.

Anyone brave enough to trawl through the list in its entirety (no doubt suffering from déjà vu at all the regurgitated editorials and anecdotes) would have been somewhat disappointed by the top five greatest films ever – Jaws, The Shawshank Redemption, The Empire Strikes back, Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Godfather.

I know what you’re thinking, definitely worth the £3.90 price tag. (Unless of course you bought all one hundred commemorative covers, in which case all I can say to you is ‘credit crunch’) I think the only way to make these kinds of lists interesting is to refine them. Limit the number of films and reduce the timescale, maybe even pick specific countries. I’d much rather read a list of the top ten French films of the last fifty years. Even better, the top five French films ever, starring Jean Reno. Better still, the best French film ever starring Jean Reno and Natalie Portman.

Now there’s a thought…