ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, December 21, 1996 TAG: 9612230131
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: C12 EDITION: METRO
A movie critic must be a bit of a masochist. Because in spite of how much fun it may seem to the uninitiated to be paid to go to the movies, there is no escape from the weekly grind of more bad movies. There are lots of better ways to spend a sunny day than trapped in a multiplex with "Space Jam." Going to the dentist for a root canal springs to mind. Even going to a nondentist for a root canal.
Still, somehow, the love for film isn't an easy obsession to overcome. It's like that popular golf T-shirt that says, "I hate golf. I hate golf. `Nice shot!' I love golf." Every so often, you settle into a seat in a darkened theater - feeling the soles of your shoes adhere to the floor - and have a life-altering experience.
Recently, a reader contacted us and asked which movies we would put on our all-time favorite lists. Every week, he said, we judge the new releases. Where do those opinions come from?
It's a fair question.
It's also harder to answer than you might think. But after considerable soul-searching, and many revisions, we each settled on 10 favorites - the movies that made us the critics we are today, the movies we would want to find under our respective Christmas trees.
We also came to this conclusion: that these choices are sort of psychocinematic - going back to early childhood.
One of us, for example, chose ``King Kong,'' as a meaningful boyhood event, and tends now to like movies in which stuff blows up real good.
The other, meanwhile, tends to enjoy more foreign films because of a father who liked movies that go for the soul and who often let his daughter stay up late with him to watch movies with subtitles on public television. He also loved top-notch screwball comedies.
Either way, all of these movies still come down to a single expectation. For a movie to be really great, it must at least come close to re-creating the experience of being a kid, seeing a really terrific movie for the first time.
It must be something we wouldn't mind watching again and again. It must have had a lasting impact.
Which means coming up with a pair of lists like this really was the ultimate act of movie masochism. A top 100 would have been more realistic.
Anyhow, here we go ....
LENGTH: Medium: 55 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif in ``Lawrence ofby CNBArabia.'' color
2. Dorothy's ruby slippers from ``The Wizard of Oz.'' color
3. Nicolas Cage as a baby-napper in ``Raising Arizona.'' color
4. Humphrey Bogart as Rick in ``Casablanca.'' color
5. Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon take a novel approach to wooing
Marilyn Monroe in ``Some Like it Hot.''