Shane
The American Film Institute produced it's annual list of top movies, the AFI 100.
Actually, it's not really an annual list of top movies, it's actually an annual television show. This is the lede to their website introduction to the list.
They don't pick the movies because of some kind of metric of greatness, they don't even pretend to. They pick the movies that fit within the theme they've picked for this years TV show. That explains why Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing somehow got better in the last 8 years. It was not one of the top 100 in 1998, but became one of the top 100 this year.
Not only that, they make it a real pain in the ass to actually get the list. You have to give them an email address, which they send a verification email to, then you can logon to their download page and get a pdf file listing the movies. What jerks. These people are really trying to milk this crap for every penny of value they can get. I'm almost ashamed of myself for giving jerks like this any attention at all.
But their kind of empty hype works in todays America and this post will get me some hits and every hit helps with the Google ads. I'm as much a penny grubbing slimeball as they are, I guess.
Although they made the politically correct inclusion of one Spike Lee movie and one Woodie Allen movie, in today's political landscape they are able to leave off Cheech and Chong with impunity. The anti-immigration politics of today demands that the artistic vision of movies that glorify pot smoking Mexicans be ignored.
Ann Althouse gives us a list of the 10 movies on the list that she's never seen. What I find interesting about that list is that one of the movies, Shane, is the first movie I remember ever seeing. It was at a drive in, with my parents in the front seat and myself and my infant sister in the back seat. I was about 4. I don't remember much about the movie, but I know I saw the whole thing because what I do remember of it is the final scene with the little boy (who I identified with) yelling out to Shane to come back as Shane rode off into the sunset. Or maybe I just think I remember it because that scene has been replayed so often on TV in the 55 years since I saw the movie.
I'll have to make a list of the ones I haven't seen and add them to my NetFlix queue. I'll do that later.
Update: My thoughts on leaving Cool Hand Luke out of the top 100.
Actually, it's not really an annual list of top movies, it's actually an annual television show. This is the lede to their website introduction to the list.
They don't pick the movies because of some kind of metric of greatness, they don't even pretend to. They pick the movies that fit within the theme they've picked for this years TV show. That explains why Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing somehow got better in the last 8 years. It was not one of the top 100 in 1998, but became one of the top 100 this year.
Not only that, they make it a real pain in the ass to actually get the list. You have to give them an email address, which they send a verification email to, then you can logon to their download page and get a pdf file listing the movies. What jerks. These people are really trying to milk this crap for every penny of value they can get. I'm almost ashamed of myself for giving jerks like this any attention at all.
But their kind of empty hype works in todays America and this post will get me some hits and every hit helps with the Google ads. I'm as much a penny grubbing slimeball as they are, I guess.
Although they made the politically correct inclusion of one Spike Lee movie and one Woodie Allen movie, in today's political landscape they are able to leave off Cheech and Chong with impunity. The anti-immigration politics of today demands that the artistic vision of movies that glorify pot smoking Mexicans be ignored.
Ann Althouse gives us a list of the 10 movies on the list that she's never seen. What I find interesting about that list is that one of the movies, Shane, is the first movie I remember ever seeing. It was at a drive in, with my parents in the front seat and myself and my infant sister in the back seat. I was about 4. I don't remember much about the movie, but I know I saw the whole thing because what I do remember of it is the final scene with the little boy (who I identified with) yelling out to Shane to come back as Shane rode off into the sunset. Or maybe I just think I remember it because that scene has been replayed so often on TV in the 55 years since I saw the movie.
I'll have to make a list of the ones I haven't seen and add them to my NetFlix queue. I'll do that later.
Update: My thoughts on leaving Cool Hand Luke out of the top 100.
posted by Gary Carson at 11:30 AM
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