Okie-dokie. Yesterday I set myself the rather ambitious goal of watching every movie listed in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, one each week for twenty years, or until my eyeballs fall out. We have begun.

Deciding where to begin was an early obstacle. The movies are listed in the book chronologically, from Le Voyage Dans La Lune (1902) to Kill Bill: Vol 1 (2003). Obviously I would have to chart a more oblique course which would provide me and my cotravellers with some variety. On a whim, I decided we should begin with 1977, the year of my own cinematic coming-of-age (Star Wars). We could have watched Star Wars (it seems appropriate that I see every film in the list, not just the ones I’ve not seen) but it’s only been a few weeks since I watched that film.

Having come home with an armful of newly-purchased DVDs yesterday, and having settled on 1977 as a starting point, we finally had to choose between Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Woody Allen’s Annie Hall. Sean, our dinner guest, expressed a preference which settled the question, and I’m grateful to him for that.

This is a wonderful movie, funny and clever, with numerous postmodern flourishes which had the four of us tittering with delight. A semiautobiographical tale, apparently, with Allen playing his nervous New York character and Diane Keaton absolutely stunning and entrancing as the eponymous Annie Hall.

Favourite scene: early in the movie when Allen is getting fidgety and nervous while waiting in a movie queue (they’re off to see a Bergman film) in front of a couple who are loudly discussing the work of Fredrico Fellini and Marshall McLuhan. Alternating between kvetching to Keaton and speaking direct to camera, he eventually gets into an argument with the guy behind, who claims to be an expert on the subject (he teaches a course somewhere). Allen grabs the real Marshall McLuhan from behind a nearby signboard, who tells the man his theories are wrong. “If only life were more like this,” Allen says.

Favourite line: “Sex with you is a Kafkaesque experience.”

All in all, a brilliant movie and a great start to our project. Four stars, 1000 movies to go.