This is veteran film writer David Thomson's personal, irreverent, hilarious and utterly original take on the 1,000 films he has most loved - and hated - from esteemed classics to forgotten curiosities, guilty pleasures to noir treats, horror gems to kitsch disasters. The result is probably the most enjoyable film book you will ever read (and you'll never think about "The Sound of Music" in the same way again).
Reviews
'This might well turn out to be the greatest living film scholar's greatest work'--London Review of Books
'This book sets the bar. There isn't a more intelligent, insightful and provocative guide to individual movies in the world' Nigel Andrews, FT
'David Thomson is the world's leading sage about film … It's a book to have on your reference shelf … it's hardly been out of my hands for two weeks, and it's a constant source of fascination and pleasure to see what Thomson says about Rear Window or Don't Look Now … It's like having the most film-literate pal you can imagine sitting beside you in a multiplex, showing off his knowledge, provoking you to agreement or (more likely) fury.' John Walsh, Independent
'Have You Seen?, which contains characteristically eccentric assessments of copper-bottomed classics, obscure cult pleasures and interesting disasters, proves to be an absolute delight … The author's irrepressibly playful approach to criticism runs through this essential volume and helps elevate its status to that of literature.' --Irish Times
'Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful … Thomson's writing is … full of magical effects … What Thomson does not know or feel about films is not worth knowing or feeling … every piece here, pithy and engaged, is like listening to an intelligence so deft and enraptured with its subject that it has become almost musical' The Guardian
Author Biography
David Thomson is, among many other things, author of The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, now in its fourth edition. His recent books include a biography of Nicole Kidman, Fan Tan (a novel written in collaboration with Marlon Brando) and The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood. Born in London, he now lives in San Francisco.
