Not to be Missed: Fifty-four Favorites from a Lifetime of Film
Turan, film critic for the Los Angeles Times since 1991 and a regular contributor of reviews to NPR, approaches movies, as did the late Roger Ebert, on their own terms, trying to understand what a filmmaker is trying to do and assessing a movie’s success or failure in light of its maker’s intent. This book isn’t a collection of film reviews per se; it’s a look at Turan’s personal favorites, which range from the easily recognizable (The Godfather, All about Eve, Casablanca, Unforgiven, Vertigo) to the for-­devoted-film-fans-only (The Dybbuk, Seven Men from Now, The Best of Youth). His comments about the movies are always insightful: he calls The Godfather, for example, “excessive but natural, larger than life yet always lifelike,” which nicely encapsulates the film’s dual nature, and his writing is fluid and accessible. Richly deserving of shelf space alongside Ebert’s The Great Movies (2002), Pauline Kael’s For Keeps (1994), and Turan’s own Never Coming to a Theater Near You (2004). --David Pitt