Entry points

The fifth edition of David Thomson's "New Biographical Dictionary of Film" is just out and . . . well, where to begin? Earlier this year, Sight & Sound asked 51 authorities what the five best books on film are. The "Dictionary" came in first, followed by Robert Bresson's "Notes on the Cinematographer," Andrew Sarris' "The American Cinema," Francois Truffaut's "Hitchcock," and Andre Bazin's "What Is Cinema?" Not a bad list. (Jonathan Rosenbaum, bless him, cast a vote for Jim Harvey's "Romantic Comedy in Hollywood from Lubitsch to Sturges," and the Pauline vote got dispersed among "I Lost It at the Movies," "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang," and "Reeling"). One measure of the enthusiasm for David's book (conflict of interest alert: We have been friends for 25 years and I'm in the acknowledgments) is that each of Geoff Dyer's choices was a different edition of the "Dictionary."

There are more than 130 new entries in the fifth edition. In an editorial snafu worthy of the Marx brothers (their entry starts on p. 633), Heath Ledger's got left out. The London Review of Books blog has it. Entries that actually got in include Judd Apatow, Eugene Pallette (you don't know who Eugene Pallette is? ho ho, are you in for a good time) both Gyllenhaals, Clive Owen, and Walker Percy. Yes, that's right, Walker Percy the novelist. Graham Greene and Johnny Carson are in there, too, as is the notorious Angie Dickinson entry. That's the kind of book it is, almost as full of surprises as it is of wonders. My two favorite new lines so far, both from entries making their first appearance: Jennifer Aniston is "the kind of girl the girl-next-door would hope to live next door to" (the more you think about it, the funnier it gets); and, concluding the Woody Harrelson entry, "He is the new Dennis Hopper." It's a comparison that honors both actors. As for David, he has long been the new Samuel Johnson.