Putting together Issue 4 of The Film Journal has been a trying and extremely rewarding process. So much so, that our series on "Fringe Cinema" is being extended to Issue 5, where we will have a centerpiece on the avant-garde video catalog of Re:Voir USA, which includes films by Stan Brakhage, Jonas Mekas, Patrick Bokanowski and more.

I received a great variety of unsolicited essays for this issue, which was a great surprise. I encourage contributors and would-be contributors to continue doing this in the future. Some of the best pieces in this issue came completely out of the blue, like Adrian Martin's eloquent year-end recap and Richard Armstrong's almost breathtaking deconstruction of his own criticism's of the Isabelle Huppert-starrer, Cactus

Our year-end poll was conducted anonymously, so we could receive the largest amount of ballots possible. It was informal, unscientific and completely without guidelines. So what you have is a, like every other piece of objective listmaking, unimportant, though perfectly respectable list of the top films of 2002, as voted on by The Film Journal's critics, essayists, interviewers and, in some cases, readers.

As always, I hope you enjoy this issue and please feel free to pass along any comments, questions or suggestions directly to me.

Until next time.

Richard A. Curnutte, Jr.
Editor, The Film Journal