The Film Books On My Desk

I decided to stack up some of my favorite film books and keep them right next to my computer.  Reference material, but I don't know, there's something about them that makes me happy, too.

Here's what currently makes up the stack.  What's on yours?

Qu'est-ce que le cinema?  - Andre Bazin (French version)
Pariscope
Hawks on Hawks - Joseph McBride
Movie of the Week - Peter Bogdanovich
The Films in My Life - Francois Truffaut
Who The Devil Made It - Peter Bogdanovich
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang - Pauline Kael
A Biographical Dictionary of Film - David Thomson
Essential Cinema - Jonathan Rosenbaum
"Have You Seen...?" - David Thomson
Le film noir american (wonderful French noir compendium)
La Politique Des Auteurs (great French book, compiling Cahiers interviews with Dreyer, Hawks, Bunuel, Hitchcock, Bresson, Antonioni, Lang, Rossellini, and Welles)
2 Copies of Cahiers du Cinema from the early 60s
Hitchcock/Truffaut
Brian De Palma (French interview book) - Samuel Blumenfeld/Laurent Vachaud
French New Wave - Jean Douchet

Favorite five, part 2

As I mentioned during my first entry in this series, I will periodically check in and mention the five films that have most resonated with me of late.  I'm taking in a good number of films at the moment, mostly via Netflix, but among what I've seen in the last month or so, here are the five I've liked the most:

Leo McCarey's Love Affair (Irene Dunne in as moving of a performance as I've seen from her)
Francis Ford Coppola's Tetro (A pretty damn personal film from one of my favorite American filmmakers)
Frank Capra's Lost Horizon (Some interesting spiritual subtext and thematic material)
William Wellman's A Star Is Born (Like the Cukor version, contains some of the most emotional scenes in all of Hollywood)
Ken Burns' Jazz, Disc 1 (For Wynton Marsalis being about as compelling a personality as I've seen in a long time)

It's discoveries like these that make me eager and ready to discover the next five.  Happy viewing to all.

Rex Sikes' Movie Beat, Part 3

Around this morning? Check out my live chat at 10AM CST with Rex Sikes on his excellent radio show, Movie Beat. It's Part 3 of our conversations and bound to be the best one yet:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/rex-sikes/2010/08/12/rex-sikes-chats-with-directorblogger-jeffrey-goodm