This meme has been growing in intensity (and tiresomeness) for four or five years, ever since it became clear that new forms of media were eating away the business model of print journalism and that the elite cadre of professional cultural critics was being swamped by the blogulous hordes of InterTwitterMcGoogleyness. Do I really have to keep writing this paragraph of background explanation? I didn't think so. Thanks! (Salt Lake Tribune blogger Sean P. Means maintains an online list of downsized film critics that now includes 65 names.)

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The compilation of the 10-best list is the hardest chore of the year, not because it isn't a pleasure to look back on the movies that were the most delightful or affecting but because the final list never feels as definitive as it should. The things we love about movies are far too slippery for lists. Javier Bardem's face, so beautifully chiseled and yet a thorny argument against the tyranny of joie de vivre, in "The Sea Inside," for example: It's a face that could constitute a whole category in itself.

No character made me laugh harder than Edna Mode, the dictatorial fashion designer in "The Incredibles" -- as actors, cartoon characters get no respect. And a picture like Catherine Breillat's "Anatomy of Hell," flawed and difficult, has lingered with me longer than other movies I've seen that I love and admire more. How do you explain that? You don't. You simply make a list, which is, at best, a valiant attempt to fold the greatest number of intangibles into a measly handful of discrete, numbered items.

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"Lost in Translation" (directed by Sofia Coppola). A jet-lag romance not just for the modern age, but for the ages. Coppola meditates on the nature of intimacy and dislocation, sustaining a mood of rapturous melancholy that few older, more experienced filmmakers have matched. The characters played by Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson circle each other on currents of sleeplessness: Both suffering from travelers' insomnia, they repeatedly drift toward their accidental meeting spot, the bar in the Tokyo hotel where they're staying, as if they were tuned in to the same silent whistle. Johansson is luminous and touching; Murray, whose expressiveness radiates from within instead of just beaming off the surface, turns in the performance of a lifetime.

"In America" (directed by Jim Sheridan). A man moves his young family from Ireland to Hell's Kitchen, NYC, and figures out the difference between surviving and living. There's something emotionally rough-hewed about Sheridan's movie (which is based loosely on his own experience and that of his two daughters, who co-wrote the movie with him). Its edges aren't polished and smoothed under, which may be why the picture cuts so deep.

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The books listed here (with the notable exception of the first) place the emphasis on images rather than words, but all of them feed the mind as well as the eye.

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The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th edition)
Houghton Mifflin, 2,074 pages

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Dear Diary:

The Ice Man cometh; and the ambulance taketh away!

It's the epitome of sensationalism, an hour-long special about a street magician cum self-aggrandizing Zen daredevil encasing himself in a 6-ton block of ice for three days -- in Times Square, no less.

As Blaine's "Master Ice Carvers" patiently begin slicing away minuscule slivers of ice (hey, they had to stretch this out over an hour!), his doctor, a Dr. Ruden, explains the risks associated with the stunt -- blood clots and dehydration, and the potential of having to have a lung or two removed. It is all pretty silly, and I can not explain why I remain riveted to the TV for the duration of the broadcast.

Was it the celebrity appearances? Michael J. Fox makes a few witty remarks to the crowd as the hour progresses. An attempt to film Kevin Spacey making a clever comment at some point during the three-day ordeal proves fruitless. Uma Thurman is caught kissing the ice.

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That's sort of a bullshit sentence. I wrote it because reviews like this, about bold, important rock bands, are supposed to have bold, declarative openings. The lead is supposed to be forceful and opinionated, with a tone of grand importance. I'm making, you know, a pronouncement.

But it's bullshit, really, because I'm sort of posturing, as if I'm the first person to say that these three women from Olympia, Wash., represent a sort of last-ditch effort to save a fading form that has been at the center of nearly every positive cultural change in America for the past 50 years. As if. And even if it were true, with all of the fanatic critical support the band riles up, I'm just one more dork with bad posture and a word processor saying the same thing as all of the other dorks. At this point, I'm even repeating myself.

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In tune with the general air of excess surrounding the millennium, this season's gift books sometimes take lushness and extravagance so far they cross over into the outrageous: We don't recommend purchasing "Sumo," the $1,500 Helmut Newton book which comes with a folding table by Philippe Starck. We also took a pass on the mountain of books purporting to review the century that's about to end -- these scream "1999" louder than a ponyskin bag, and we want the books we give to look good on a coffee table for years to come.

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"Dogma" may, in fact, be a very good movie. We know in advance
of seeing it, however, that it treats very lightly subjects that are of supreme
importance to a believing Catholic. To suggest that it is offensive to
portray the Virgin Mary as non-virginal and her descendant as working in an
abortion clinic is not to say that such portrayals ought to be suppressed,
but only to state the obvious -- such a portrayal is offensive.

What is really at issue here is whether Catholics are wrong
to be so offended. No one would expect to start a civil conversation with a
Muslim with the opening premise that Mohammed was not Allah's prophet and
that anyone who thinks so is foolish. Yet, over and over again,
Catholics (and to a degree, all Christians) are asked to respond with unique
good humor to veritable broadsides against the content of our faith. Like
it or not, "Dogma" presents a mere caricature of Catholic faith and practice.
While it may, in a sense, examine "questions of faith," the fact that it
requires a foul-mouthed apostle, "fart and dick jokes," and other such
puerile devices does not lead one to confidence in the movie's ability to
answer said "questions of faith."

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I have not described "white male hippies over 50" as somehow a problem at KPFA
or anyplace else. What I have called attention to is the need for greater
diversity and a larger audience at KPFA and at other Pacifica stations. The
Arbitron data analyzed for us by Audience Research Analysis show that about
90 percent of KPFA's audience (only about 146,000 in a potential market of 8
million persons) is non-black and non-Hispanic. The greatest share of that
audience, which was in decline in the year before the protests started, is
male and white and over 45, with many over 50. I do not point this out to
play a race card but to deal with a reality. By the way, Arbitron Data was
already being collected and analyzed for Pacifica before I became chair; it
is not some recent innovation.

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Stephanie Zacharek is on the money about the dilution of Robin Williams'
movie performances. Maybe not surprisingly, his best performances are on the
talk-show circuit, embarrassing Leno and Letterman by pushing the network
censors, daring them to cut away from his endless masturbation gestures and
references. Why do those instances work and his recent movies falter?
Audiences. Give him a crowd to play to and he's Jackson Pollack. Give him a
camera and he's Anne Geddes.

There are two performances that illustrate his range, and I wish Zacharek had
made mention of them. In "Awakenings" he was at his best, restrained and
motivated, recreating Dr. Oliver Sacks. He had an actor of note to work
with (Robert De Niro) and he rose to the challenge, all but eliminating the
obligatory ad-libbed one-liner.

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David Horowitz's piece conflates "radicals" with "progressives," and
even implies that "progressives" are all now defending Kathleen Soliah. Maybe some
progressives. Plenty of others, however, think the SLA was a hyperviolent, sexist,
Marxist offshoot of the Panthers; we were then and are still horrified by the
Foster slaying, and think the whole group, had they survived the Los
Angeles fire fight, should have faced a jury, and if necessary a death
sentence.

All liberals and progressives are not apologists for
the SLA, any more than Horowitz and all his conservative buddies are apologists for
Timothy McVeigh. This liberal says that if there is probable cause to charge
Kathleen Soliah in the Sacramento robbery/homicide under the felony murder
rule, let's "throw the book at her." If the fact that liberals believe in
the rule of law makes Horowitz uncomfortable, perhaps he should examine
his pre-assumptions. Perhaps they have become prejudices.

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Excellent analysis of the sorry state of romantic comedies. I refuse to
see them because I don't like having my intelligence insulted. I
resent the notion that women will go see a "chick flick" because "it
reflects their experience" and not notice how bland and inane the films are
(although saying this in a group of women will often elicit narrow-eyed
stares with daggers behind them and pursed lips). I would follow Ewan
McGregor anywhere, but Tom Hanks? Please. I've seen Jimmy Stewart act,
sir, and you are no Jimmy Stewart.

-- Meredith Renwick

As a card-carrying specimen of the guy
species, I'm just as guy about Clint Eastwood and
Larry, Moe and Curly and things that go boom as the
next guy. Yet my favorite
movies are the romantic and screwball comedies of the '30s and '40s.

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Stephanie Zacharek's attitudes and comments about nudity in movies show exactly what is wrong with the American approach to nudity. Unlike Europeans, we equate nudity with sex. If there is a naked body in an American film, you can bet it is sweaty and heaving. Zacharek, too, mentions nudity only in relation to sex scenes. When is the last time, for example, that you've seen a naked body portrayed matter-of-factly in an American film? Americans are obsessed with sex (whether as prudes or voyeurs), and until we get over it, we'll either see no nudity or just more gratuitous nudity. Neither is particularly grown-up.

-- Stephan von Pohl
Oakland, Calif.

Contrast the energy with which the MPAA exerts its influence over sexuality with its total abdication of responsibility with regard to violence. While glorification of violence is certainly not the only cause, or even the main one, of the carnage in Littleton, it is probably one of the building blocks.

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Dennis Drabelle

WORST: "The Best Little Boy in the World Grows Up" by Andrew
Tobias (Random House). The title ends too soon -- "And Becomes an A-Gay
Snot" would round it out accurately. Andrew Tobias' follow-up memoir is so
name-droppingly smug that it sends you back to its predecessor, "The Best
Little Boy in the World," published in 1976 under the pseudonym John Reid,
to see if you misremembered that sometimes affecting story of growing up
gay in a homo-hostile world. And in fact, you did: In light of the new book,
the earlier one's tendencies toward self-satisfaction become all the more
noticeable. What a blunder -- to write a book so bad that it snakes back
and infects a predecessor that had been edging its way toward minor-classic
status.

BUY IT FROM barnesandnoble.com

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We first see the |berdetective through the eyes of his admiring if endlessly flummoxed Watson, Steve Arlo (Ben Stiller), Zero's emissary and his public face. It is Arlo who sits calmly on the couch at the beginning of "Zero Effect," negotiating with a potential new client with all the self-satisfied assurance of a Good Humor man cruising hell. He ticks off an impressive list of Zero's accomplishments, but he doesn't have to give too hard a sell -- the customer, Gregory Stark (Ryan O'Neal), is practically sweating desperation. Stark's a hugely successful Portland businessman who's lost an incriminating key and is being blackmailed. And that's all he wants to say about it. It's obvious, even to someone whose powers of observation are less than Zero's, that Stark's a scumbag. But he can afford the detective's mind-boggling fees and can live with his eccentric terms -- including Zero's insistence on not actually meeting or speaking with his client.

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Before we start handing out laurels, however, we'd like to stop for a moment to talk about the books that, in our estimation, weren't quite as successful. George Orwell surely got it right about book criticism when he said that most reviewers tend to be overly generous. "It is almost impossible to mention books in bulk without grossly overpraising most of them," he wrote. "Until one has some kind of professional relationship with books one does not discover how bad the majority of them are."

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"Oh, no, I can't!" she would twitter, porn-thirstily.

Something violent would happen; Joe would have a 'Nam flashback, or something
would make him pull a gun or compel him to rip the clothes off Barbie, who
liked it, even though she fought back.

"Let's have it, Tiger," Joe would growl.

"Oh, Joe," she'd hiss.

Then we'd clack their plastic bodies together for a hot round of inanimate
scrogging. This is the only thing you can do with a Barbie, besides dress
her, and if you weren't rich, chances are she only had a couple of outfits
anyway. We learned a lot from Barbie, in the vein of all that scurrilous
man-woman drama as-seen-on-TV. Even at 7, we knew she was a wanton,
submissive bimbo. After Joe left, she'd hang around naked for days, with her
hair all mussed and one of her toeshoes floating in the dog dish. She had no
self-respect.

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