New AFI 100 (best American films)

[AlexM]

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And I am never going to take this list seriously until The Princess Bride and at least one Monty Python movie are it.

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[Triumph36]

none of the monty python movies were hollywood

i was going to ask why 'the third man' isn't on here, but it's not a hollywood film, either (at least that better be why it isn't on here).

[DrewDevil]

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Everyone knows that Empire was better than Star Wars, so any list that ranks Star Wars pretty highly and doesn't have Empire at all is obviously retardo.

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I disagree... I understand why people think Empire is better, but SW was such a groundbreaking movie in so many ways. A truly unique and original work.

Empire, while having snappier dialogue and the greatest surprise/secret in the history of the movies, was still a sequel after all.

[Rushmore]

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Well, Lone Star is not a documentary, but it definitely deserves a little more love than it generally gets, because it's a really fine film.

I have very little patience for these things, generally. I mean, you can justify the omission of Blue Velvet and Fargo? What about Fight Club?

If you're going to include The General and Tootsie and Toy Story and whatnot, go ahead and explain not including any of the three I mention here.

Go ahead.


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I think Blue Velvet is a very polarizing movie, but I was blown away the first time I saw it.

Fargo might have been on the first list because it was pretty new at the time and fresh in the voter's minds. Another reason it could have fallen off is that a lot of voters might have included one Coen bros. film on their list, but the votes were probably split.

As for Fight Club, not sure if it would be on my list, but I think the average age of the voters is high enough that many of them haven't seen or don't relate to it.

And yeah, obviously Lone Star is not a documentary. I should have worded my post more carefully.

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I think a lot of this comes down to what "great" means.

I mean, they have included a number of selections solely upon the fact that they are definitive, or, perhaps, because they ushered in a new genre or technique or technology.

I mean--Toy Story?

If this is the criteria, then Blue Velvet is a complete no-brainer--a modern noir masterpiece.

Fargo also belongs--there is a character to the style which had really not been seen before. The only predecessor I can think of is Anatomy of A Murder, and that's not really right.

Fight Club is important enough to enough people so that it might make it into the final ten.

And I pretty much knew you didn't think Lone Star was a documentary.

P.S. Inland Empire will be out on DVD in August.

P.P.S. Jean de Florette will be out in two weeks.

[cbloom]

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Were Newton's Laws and Einstein's Theory of Relativity the Best physics theories ever, or are any works that build on them automatically better? I think it's kind of like that.

But also, a lot of the movies from the old days are better than you think. I would personally rate Casablanca best of all time.

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QFT ; I think this is an excellent analogy. Nobody reads "Principia Mathematica" anymore, it's horribly written by modern standards, and hell most of the science is in fact slightly wrong, but it's still probably the #1 greatest scientific manuscript of all time. Just because a work has been surpassed by people who learned from it doesn't mean it's not the "greatest".

[elwoodblues]

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Fight Club is important enough to enough people so that it might make it into the final ten

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That statement is just on the border of laugh-out-loud ridiculous.

[Kneel B4 Zod]

another classic missing

[DrewDevil]

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Were Newton's Laws and Einstein's Theory of Relativity the Best physics theories ever, or are any works that build on them automatically better? I think it's kind of like that.

But also, a lot of the movies from the old days are better than you think. I would personally rate Casablanca best of all time.

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QFT ; I think this is an excellent analogy. Nobody reads "Principia Mathematica" anymore, it's horribly written by modern standards, and hell most of the science is in fact slightly wrong, but it's still probably the #1 greatest scientific manuscript of all time. Just because a work has been surpassed by people who learned from it doesn't mean it's not the "greatest".

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But wait a minute--Newton's Laws and E=mc2 are still accepted as correct and valid... if the Mathematica book is horribly written AND WRONG, HTF can it still be the "greatest" ??

That's why I don't get Citizen Kane. It may have been the best movie ever WHEN IT WAS RELEASED, and it gets marks for originality and groundbreakingness, but I don't think many would still argue that it's the "greatest" movie ever.

[Borodog]

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It really doesn't matter, though, as the omission of Cool Hand Luke makes the whole list a joke.

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Finally a slam on the list that I can agree with. I hadn't noticed, no Coll Hand Luke? WTF? [img]/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img]

[The Yugoslavian]

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newer movies > older movies

I hate this list.

Yugoslav

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you know i love u Yugo, but exactly how many of the older films on this list have you actually seen?

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Lol well one of my least fav movies ever is #1 on this list, [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img].

I haven't seen a ton of old movies b/c...well...when I watch them they often are very meh to me. I tend to try to watch movies I will like! [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

I've seen 40 of the movies on that list. Almost all the recent ones and some of the old ones. And a few of the old ones I really do like. But I dno, a bunch I really didn't get into like To Kill a Mockingbird, Gone with the Wind, double indemnity seemed good but I had no idea it was considered top 100 by anyone, bridge over the river kwai was v good but not great, jaws was lame, spartacus I couldn't enjoy b/c I saw it with like teenage ppl and all they could do was make gay jokes the whole time...

I don't think all old masterpieces are bad though. Just they are good or very good instead of amazingly good.

What should I be watching?

Yugoslav