Dear Readers of Movie Mezzanine,
Ever since first launching the site I’ve prefaced each film-focused list with the same run-of-the-mill spiel: ranking and objectifying art is an arbitrary exercise that for some inexplicable reason is enjoyable. Unlike films, which are ambiguous, elusive, unable to tamed or entirely understood, lists are definite, concrete, and final. Listing is a silly way to organize our thoughts on a medium that continues to delight, perplex, and affect us.
That’s why from now on, instead of merely aggregating all the ballots into a top ten list and then publishing that list, we’ve decided to dig deeper. Ardent readers of this publication have made note of the lack explanations and annotations delivered throughout the History of Film feature.
Starting tomorrow, for the next week-and-a-half each of the 10 best films of the 1980s that were chosen by our readers will be examined and discussed by a different writer on the Movie Mezzanine staff. The forthcoming pieces will range from vivacious love letters to telling personal experiences to cogent critical analyses of the films you folks chose to represent and define an entire decade in cinema.
We hope you enjoy what’s to come. As always, thanks for reading.
Sincerely,
Samuel S. Fragoso
