When I made my recent choices for the twenty best movies to screen publicly in Memphis in 2007, I had between 300 and 400 movies to choose from.

I know that because each year, I keep a chronological count and roll call of the movies that open in Memphis.

When the final movies of 2007 -- "Juno," The Great Debaters," "Water Horse: Legend of the Deep" and "Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem" -- opened on Christmas Day, that list grew to 482 tles. That's a pretty astonishing number, in my opinion.