Listing
The American Film Institute just updated their top 100 films list. What interests me is not the list, but how it's changed from a decade ago.
The biggest upticks, for the most part, make me think the new list is worse--Raging Bull up 20 to #4, Vertigo (well-titled) up 52 to #9, The Searchers up 84 to #12--none of these films should even be on the list.
And while I was glad to see The General enter (!) the list at #18, I didn't need to see a Lord Of The Rings films (don't care which one) enter at #50.
If you check out the link, you'll also see the 23 films that fell off the chart. I must say, I'm surprised I pretty much agree with all these choices. I only hope in future decades, they'll be joined by quite a few others presently perched too high.
PS There seems to be some problem with the link. Try this one.
posted by LAGuy @ 1:36 AM
3 Comments:
hey the link sends me to wikipedia article about the Amniotic Fluid Index
ry This
http://www.afi.com/
Interesting comment about generational prederences- I'm guessing the average age of the selectors in each index is about 40-60 so there are fewer reviewers born in the 30s with more reviewers born after 1960. This might explain why certain boomer films dropped (The Graduate-though its still very high, Clockwork Orange and Butch Cassidy). Gone With The Wind has held steady so that doesn't support my recent musings. Star Wars holds steady for this generation but I bet there is a big drop in the 2017 list. On these lists, you can almost never trust inclusions of the more recently-made films (The Sixth Sense?- thats a so-so Twilight Zone episode)
Films rise and fall with time on these sorts of lists. Some reps are so firmly established, it doesn't even matter if the film is any good. Others are popular now, but will be replaced by more recent popular films later.
Still, there's a certain amount of randomness on the list. Older films that are classics, such as City Lights and Duck Soup both made big leaps. I don't think it was a reappraisal so much as who happened to be voting. Some boomer classics, both those who do and don't deserve to be on the, rose while others dropped. This could be a shuffling of reputation, but more likely, still in the realm of randomness.
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