The Top 100 Films

About a decade ago the American Film Institute put out the Top 100 American films. I set out to watch them all. Before I could get to the end, though, what did they do but change the list! Not just a small amount either. 23 films were dropped off the 1997 list and replaced.

Ah well. I've seen more of the films they added than the ones they dropped, so it got me closer to seeing them all (76 1/2, to date. I couldn't stomach finishing A Streecar Named Desire which might be heresy to some, but the play really is a lot better).

Anyway. Some of the films they dropped off just didn't have the chops to stick around: From Here to Eternity? Boring! Close Encounters of the Third Kind? Does a movie where Richard Dryfus sculpt his mashed potates really deserve to be on the list? Dances With Wolves? Good, but c'mon, Top 100?

At least two films should still be on there: The Manchurian Candidate and Fargo.

As to the new films, I'm glad to see The General, Shawshank, In the Heat of the Night, 12 Angry Men, and Toy Story make the list. And as must as I love LOTR: Fellowship of the Rings (best of the trilogy and best that came out in 2001) it feels a little soon to put it on the list. I think The Sixth Sense will drop off by the 2017 list. Titanic will stay (remember, cultural significance is weighed into the ratings, too).

Now that Ebert's back writing again (2007 really has been a good year, hasn't it?) I can quote him:

To read over the film institute's list is to remember spine-tingling
moments in movie theaters. The ballet of space ships in "2001." The soaking-wet
dance in "Singin' in the Rain." The scary perfection of Astaire and Rogers, the
perfect anarchy of the Marx Brothers, the anarchic warfare in "Apocalypse Now,"
the warfare of obsession in "Vertigo."

...

So in the last analysis, it doesn't really matter what movies are on the
list. What matters is the movies on the list, voted by 1,500 above-average
moviegoers who don't think "Citizen Kane" has aged one day.

Thanks, Rog.