Saw the AFI's updated "100 Years, 100 Movies" 10th anniversary edition.
I am tickled that a list has an anniversary edition. I love lists insofar as they concern topics I give a crap about, and well, who doesn't love to debate movies? Plenty of people, I'm sure, but the hell with that.
You will notice that a whopping 23 flicks got the heave-ho. Of those excised, I can only really bitch about Amadeus, which has a hilariously severe F. Murray Abraham performance and many Oscars to its credit. The biggest loser, though, is James Dean's acting legacy: Giant and Rebel Without a Cause, see ya. Dying young doesn't have the luster it used to, I guess.
Seems then that the updated list is more than anything a shot at "redemption" for the AFI. Thus, we have the debuts of The General (stunning debut at #18, to please the Keaton freaks), Nashville (Altman fanatics somehow still not satisfied), Do the Right Thing (AFI now comfortable in honoring Spike Lee now that he is 100% irrelevant), and Blade Runner (for the subterranean cinephiles). All of those films deserved to be on there in the first place. Can't say likewise for Titanic (look for that to be gone next list) or Shawshank Redemption (what is with the cult that has built for that film? Pure inexplicable).
And Toy Story. Hmm. Nah. First off, I oppose Tim Allen in all his forms; secondly, anything that makes kids that happy I am immediately wary of.
Crazed revisionism: Raging Bull 24 to 4? Hey, Marty got his Oscar, that's enough love. That is like his third best movie anyway (behind Mean Streets and Goodfellas). The Searchers up 84 spots to #12. The Searchers? The friggin' Searchers? Look also at the leap for The Unforgiven--Is nostalgia for Westerns the new nostalgia for Frank Capra films?
Deserved leaps: Vertigo and The Deer Hunter. I wonder if current affairs helped influence the jump of the latter.
Final weirdness: #39 Dr. Strangelove dropped 13 places; #40 The Sound of Music improved 15 spots. #33 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest dropped 13 digits and #34 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs rose 15 places. HMMM. Interesting coincidence in the numbers and placement, but an even more intriguing trend so far as edgy films falling a bit out of favor while family classics shoot up in the list. No real indictment on my part, just a notice I took.
However, no Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. So I'm still kinda on the "screw this list!" tip.
AFI 100 Films
I am tickled that a list has an anniversary edition. I love lists insofar as they concern topics I give a crap about, and well, who doesn't love to debate movies? Plenty of people, I'm sure, but the hell with that.
You will notice that a whopping 23 flicks got the heave-ho. Of those excised, I can only really bitch about Amadeus, which has a hilariously severe F. Murray Abraham performance and many Oscars to its credit. The biggest loser, though, is James Dean's acting legacy: Giant and Rebel Without a Cause, see ya. Dying young doesn't have the luster it used to, I guess.
Seems then that the updated list is more than anything a shot at "redemption" for the AFI. Thus, we have the debuts of The General (stunning debut at #18, to please the Keaton freaks), Nashville (Altman fanatics somehow still not satisfied), Do the Right Thing (AFI now comfortable in honoring Spike Lee now that he is 100% irrelevant), and Blade Runner (for the subterranean cinephiles). All of those films deserved to be on there in the first place. Can't say likewise for Titanic (look for that to be gone next list) or Shawshank Redemption (what is with the cult that has built for that film? Pure inexplicable).
And Toy Story. Hmm. Nah. First off, I oppose Tim Allen in all his forms; secondly, anything that makes kids that happy I am immediately wary of.
Crazed revisionism: Raging Bull 24 to 4? Hey, Marty got his Oscar, that's enough love. That is like his third best movie anyway (behind Mean Streets and Goodfellas). The Searchers up 84 spots to #12. The Searchers? The friggin' Searchers? Look also at the leap for The Unforgiven--Is nostalgia for Westerns the new nostalgia for Frank Capra films?
Deserved leaps: Vertigo and The Deer Hunter. I wonder if current affairs helped influence the jump of the latter.
Final weirdness: #39 Dr. Strangelove dropped 13 places; #40 The Sound of Music improved 15 spots. #33 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest dropped 13 digits and #34 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs rose 15 places. HMMM. Interesting coincidence in the numbers and placement, but an even more intriguing trend so far as edgy films falling a bit out of favor while family classics shoot up in the list. No real indictment on my part, just a notice I took.
However, no Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. So I'm still kinda on the "screw this list!" tip.
AFI 100 Films
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