It’s a funny thing, this business of prestige. Jonathan Kiefer uses that term to describe the crop of year-end movies he previews this week, you know, the kind that usually include the word “Oscar” somewhere in the marketing campaign and feature Sean Penn somewhere in the credits. Not that it’s always clear what’s going to get the laurels. For instance, Citizen Kane took the Number 1 slot on another Top 100 movie list earlier this month (from Cahiers du Cinema, the—what else?—prestigious French magazine), but it was a commercial flop when it came out in 1941.
Does your holiday tradition include a trip to the movies? Or do you have other ways to escape your relatives?