In light of my need to begin crossing things off my list, I started reviewing some of my 'things'. Luckily, there are many which I believe I can complete in the coming few weeks, although undoubtedly there are some that will take months, if not the 1001 days to complete.
One of the 'things' that I am most looking forward to is #58 'Watch all of AFI's Top 100 movies'. Some of you may know that I am an amateur-amateur-amateur film buff, and really enjoy watching movies and retaining the useless array of trivia associated with them. I consider myself to know a fair amount about mainstream American cinema (and a tiny bit about its non-mainstream and non-American counterparts), so I was surprised to find that I had only seen 26 of the top 100.
Here now is the list of top 100 films that I have not seen, arranged in alphabetical (ie. not ranked) order:
12 Angry Men
A Clockwork Orange
A Night at the Opera
All About Eve
American Graffiti
Annie Hall
Apocalypse Now
Ben-Hur
Blade Runner
Bringing Up Baby
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Casablanca
Chinatown
Citizen Kane
City Lights
Do the Right Thing
Double Indemnity
Dr. Strangelove
Duck Soup
Easy Rider
Goodfellas
High Noon
In the Heat of the Night
Intolerance
It Happened One Night
Jaws
King Kong
Lawrence of Arabia
M-A-S-H
Midnight Cowboy
Modern Times
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Nashville
Network
On the Waterfront
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Platoon
Psycho
Raging Bull
Rear Window
Rocky
Shane
Some Like It Hot
Sophie's Choice
Spartacus
Sullivan's Travels
Sunrise
Sunset Blvd.
Swing Time
Taxi Driver
The African Queen
The Best Years of Our Lives
The Bridge on the River Kwai
The Deer Hunter
The French Connection
The General
The Gold Rush
The Graduate
The Grapes of Wrath
The Last Picture Show
The Maltese Falcon
The Philadelphia Story
The Searchers
The Silence of the Lambs
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
The Wild Bunch
To Kill a Mockingbird
Tootsie
Unforgiven
West Side Story
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
As I watch these films (and I have already set about my research assistant, Mr. Meneer, to downloading as many of these as possible), I'll post my thoughts and update the list of "seen/unseen". I'd love to hear comments from anyone who has seen any of these films and any recommendations as to which I should watch first.
For the full AFI Top 100 list, see here.
Focusing on just the AFI though is just so Amero-centric though. That, and I STRONGLY disagree with the revised list being an improvement upon the original 1998 list. (Zhivago out, Titanic in? Come on)
ReplyDeleteBut that's just me. And Strangelove is damned brilliant. As are the old epics - Spartacus, Ben-Hur, Lawrence of Arabia.
If you ever need more movies, try anything listed here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Films_considered_the_greatest_ever
Just 3 titles off the top of my head that I truly enjoyed:
Talvisota - war movies are usually a dime a dozen, but there's something about this movie that's quintessentially Finnish - stoic, minimalist, and darker.
Triumph of the Will - don't yell at me. It's powerful - Leni Riefenstahl is a wizard with light... but incredibly haunting.
Russian Ark - gorgeous. A single 90 minute take that travels 600 years of Russian history as witnessed by the Hermitage Museum.
Granted, a lot of the older stuff is pure propaganda, and their beauty comes from the cinematography, juxtaposition, and montage techniques used - and that stuff is REALLY subjective. That, and probably a lot of my enjoyment from these titles came from understanding the political situation and the political motivations underlying the piece, so caveat emptor. I know I have the world's weirdest taste.
If you need help "acquiring" (never say the d-word online, especially now that you're on an American ISP) these films, just give me a shout.
P.S. I think I've dropped enough hints about who I am, but just in case you're freaked out at the long rant from a complete stranger, it's me, from WMT.
You're right Nathan- I knew about two sentences in who you were. :-P
ReplyDeleteAnd I have to make a rather embarrassing confession: as much as I love cinema and the film arts, my main reason for adding this to my list of 'things' was for the sole purpose of avoiding embarrassing social situations where I have to pretend that I've seen a movie that supposedly 'everyone' has seen. For instance, I'm always mortified when I have to admit that I haven't seen West Side Story- you would think that a girl who grew up living and breathing musical theatre would've seen it, wouldn't you?
Given the time line for completing this list, I'm thinking I'm going to have to average one of these movies a week- which means I'm not going to be able to savour and contemplate them like I normally do a good movie. Perhaps my next list (2 years from now) will include something a long the lines of 'make a list of 10 supremely amazing films and give them the proper time and devotion they deserve to be truly appreciated as the works of art that they are'. Remind of that at Old School 2010, okay?
p.s. Get off the computer and go back to picketing, you York-hippie! :-P
Do not get me started on York and the sheer and complete incompetence of CUPE 3903 on an ideological, economic, and logistical front. I've been keeping up to date with this thing from day 1 and the rhetoric is insane. These are people who think we deserve/need the school to set aside $10,000 dollars per person for a sex change fund. These are the people who initiated negotiations with a demand for a SEVENTY percent wage hike. Seven-zero. These are people who crossed their own lines to disrupt Schulich and Osgoode lectures and EXAMS when York restarted those two programs because they had the most to lose. Thank god McGuinty's finally off his ass.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't actually worry about the aforementioned social occasions though. It's unlikely youth/youth-adult borderline individuals of today would have even heard of, let alone seen, 90% of that list. The Dark Knight and 300 are far more appealing to them.
I also wouldn't worry about the savouring thing. You'll get time because no one, NO ONE, likes every movie on a top whatever list. There will be some films on the list where you'll go "this is crap" and either give up after 15 minutes or sit through it out of principle and pop in the next one on the list immediately after the credits in order to get the filth out of your brain.
But you can't exactly make a list in 2010 of "10 supremely amazing films" unless you've actually seen all of them. And even if you have, the paradox is that unless you take the time to appreciate them in the first place, you won't be able to appreciate their amazingness, and thus, they won't make your select list for rewatching and full appreciation. :-P
p.s. Don't tell Katharine I was ranting about smelly useless leftists - I just hate 3903 so very much.