on year-end lists

The first year-end lists for 2007 have started to be released, which presents me with a slight problem. I love reading and writing year-end top tens/twenties/hundreds/whatever, though I do realize they have to be taken with a pinch of salt, and reveal at least as much about the critic's tastes as about any objective overview of the field.

It's ultimately a highly personal endeavour in which the list-maker filters through the year's cultural landscape, selecting the gems from the detritus, making an often heartfelt case for what they, as individuals, loved. It almost represents a process of canon-formation on a personal level, a recognition of what deserves to be remembered and preserved by one's own standards. And it's on this level - as a personal, rather than objective or externally-determined, canon - that I find year-end lists so entertaining.

Which brings me to the aforementioned problem. As someone who a) lives in Malta and b) is an impoverished student without the finances to purchase tons of DVDs, I am never in a position to create a definitive year-end top ten list at the end of any given year, simply because I am unable to watch all the year's films I want to watch by the end of the year. There are still films from 2006 I want to catch up on before writing a list for that year - 2007 is out of the question.

What I shall be doing is to start from the first year of the current decade, producing a top ten list for the year 2000, and working my way up year by year, hopefully, eventually, reaching the present. I cannot promise I will upload a list every few days, or every week, but I will upload one whenever I have some time.

Expect the top ten films of 2000 in a day or two...