Writers and filmmakers recall the sights, sounds and feelings that stay with them long after the lights come up
There’s more to moviegoing than the movies.
Oh, sure — a good film or, better yet, a great film, can have a profound impact. But when you think back on the most memorable filmgoing experiences of your life, chances are it wasn’t just the film that made it great. Other factors came into play.
Maybe it was the theater. A crumbling old movie palace; a gleaming new megaplex; a weed-choked drive-in; a campus screening room that smelled faintly of patchouli and pot; a concrete-walled, strip-mall monstrosity of the sort that Jack Nicholson once derided as a bowling alley with a postage stamp at the end of it: Whatever the place was, and wherever it was, something about it made an impression. When you close your eyes you can still see it.
Maybe it was the stunningly good or shockingly bad quality of the presentation that burned this experience into your memory. Or maybe it was the audience: rowdy or hushed, amused or repulsed, watching individually yet often responding as one. Maybe it was a rude line blurted out at precisely the right place. Or an argument or fight that overwhelmed the movie, or seemed in some odd way to comment on it. Or the sound of strangers crying in the dark.
Maybe it was the company you kept that day or night — or decided not to keep. Maybe you saw the movie with a dear friend or relative or lover — somebody who means the world to you, or who once did, and whose presence will always be associated with that film, that place, that time.
Or maybe it was your state of mind. The movie caught you at just the right time, and you laughed at things you’d never imagined you’d find funny, or flinched at shocks you’d smugly believed you’d see coming from 10 miles off. Maybe you went into the theater thinking that life made no sense anymore, that you’d lost the capacity to feel, that you were alone in the world, and this movie showed you how wrong you were and sent you out into the world seeing through fresh eyes.
We asked an array of film writers and filmmakers to share their greatest moviegoing memories here. We’d love to hear yours in the letters section. — Matt Zoller Seitz
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What if you could only watch the same 10 films and TV shows forever? Compare your list to these classics
SLIDE SHOW
You don’t need much of a setup for this one: It’s a Desert Island List of visual media that I’d like to have with me if I were shipwrecked.
Here are the rules:
1. This list is composed solely of motion pictures and TV shows. Music, books, paintings and other media are not included. It is assumed that you’ll have an indestructible DVD player with a solar-recharging power source, so let’s not get bogged down in refrigerator logic, mm’kay?
2. You can list 10 feature films, one short and a single, self-contained season of a TV series.
3. NO CHEATING. Every slot on the list must be claimed by a self-contained unit of media. You can put all 15 hours of “Berlin Alexanderplatz” on the list because it’s considered one long film (or if you saw it in Germany, a TV miniseries), but you can’t put “The Godfather” and “The Godfather, Part II” in the same slot because “it counts as one long film” (it doesn’t!). You can’t put 10 seasons of “I Love Lucy” on their, either, or “‘Twin Peaks’ up through the part in Season 2 where we finally find out who killed Laura Palmer.” Part of the fun of this exercise is figuring out what you think you can watch over and over, and what you can live without. Stick to the parameters, otherwise we’ll have human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, and mass hysteria.
I’ve listed my short film pick and my TV season first, followed by a list of 10 theatrical features in alphabetical order. Please add your own picks to the Letters section; I want to see what you’d put in your suitcase.
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It's easy to rank the year's best shows. But what were the individual episodes you need to see?
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This is the top half of my year-end list of the 20 best individual episodes of scripted TV dramas and comedies. This slide show covers items 10 through 1. To read 20 through 11, which ran last week, click here.
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Set your DVR: In the first of a two-part slide show, we count down the top 20 specific shows of the last year
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If most sports is a game of inches, most TV is a game of episodes. That’s why, at year’s end, I always feel a bit weird compiling a list of the year’s best series: Even a great series can have a bad episode, or a string of them, and even inconsistent or mostly mediocre series can produce memorable, even great installments.
Back in 2005, when I was a TV critic for the Newark Star-Ledger, I started publishing a yearly list of the best individual episodes of scripted TV shows. I’m continuing that tradition here at Salon with a citation of my 20 favorite episodes of scripted comedies and dramas.
For suspense’s sake, we’re breaking my 2011 list into two installments. This week’s covers items 20 through 11 on my list; next Friday we’ll count down the top 10.
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Slide show: From "Breaking Bad" to "Homeland" and with a surprise at No. 1, cable dominates the best shows of 2011
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We’re living in some kind of new Golden Age of scripted TV, and this year’s best offerings were amazing. I decided to be rigorous and restrict myself to just 10 entries. It wasn’t easy.
These 10 picks represent what I think were the most creative and consistently satisfying scripted comedies and dramas that aired on American TV during 2011. If I’d expanded the list to account for shows that were somewhat more erratic but that produced terrific individual episodes, this list would have had 30 or maybe even 40 titles on it. If anybody’s curious, I may post the expanded list in the comments section.
You may see some of the runners-up cited next week, when I will present a slide show honoring the best individual episodes of scripted series. There might be an article listing the best nonfiction programs as well.
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As "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" receives a stylish update, we survey our favorite espionage films, then and now
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There’s one big problem with compiling a list of great spy movies: How exactly do you define a “spy movie”? Do the spies have to be employed by a government agency? Does the action have to be international, or can it be domestic, even local? Do the characters have to engage in deception and/or information-gathering, or can they mainly be assassins, like James Bond or Jason Bourne? Is the “assassin film” its own separate genre? If movie characters have nothing to do with international politics but engage in surveillance and deception and other classic spy activities, can their story be grouped within the “spy movie” category?
James Bond wouldn’t spend five seconds contemplating any of that. He’d be too busy quaffing martinis with a diplomat’s wife and telling a dealer to pass the shoe. He’s represented on this list of great spy movies, along with grittier, more mundane depictions of espionage, deceit and international mayhem. I included a couple of TV programs as well as movies, because the genre’s emphasis on character and atmosphere makes it especially well-suited to the small screen.
Since these lists always seem to be compiled according to some mysterious private criteria, I’ll disclose mine upfront: If a film depicts characters navigating the treacherous labyrinth of the military-industrial complex, in their own country or abroad, and engaging in deception or impersonation or codebreaking or defection or assassination or other tried-and-true espionage mainstays, I considered it. But if too many of those aspects were missing, I ruled it out. That’s why you’ll see “The Ipcress File” but not, say, “The Conversation.” I’ve also arranged the list in pairs, or double features, because some of the films just seemed to fit together nicely. Let’s argue about it in the Letters section, where I hope you’ll volunteer your own list of great spy films, and your own definition of the category. Be sure to use a pseudonym and file from a secure location. You can’t be too careful.
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Can Greece thwart a complete meltdown? 
Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s alternative abortion history 
Inside Syria’s whirlwind of war 
Syria’s looming threat of civil war 
Santorum’s well-compensated love of fracking 
The Tea Party’s war on mass transit 
At the CPAC-Occupy beer summit 
Whitney Houston’s lessons in love 
Our non-withdrawal from Afghanistan 
“We don’t need someone to think” 
