19 comments

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  Kevin Wolf

  2 years ago

  Wow. Interesting commentary topped off by fightin' words. Short Cuts for Nashville! My mind is reeling. Dark City is another one whose reputation, at least among certain critics, confuses me. It's not bad, but...
  
  Still, I'd vote for The Conversation too. And I join you in celebrating Do the Right Thing. After seeing Inside Man I decided Lee's movies should be, when they're good, better appreciated than they are.
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  Chuck Tryon

  2 years ago

  Dark City is probably borderline. I wrote about it a while back and really loved its noir meets si-fi genre mixing and its postmodern pastiche of allusions.
  
  Unfortunately, when I wrote this entry I hadn't had enough coffee, and I forgot what I regard as one of biggest exceptions: Julie Dash's Daughters of the Dust.
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  Dan Leo

  2 years ago

  Chuck, am I alone in looking at this list of clasics and alleged classics and thinking, yeah, fine, but I really don't feel like watching most of these movies again in the near future or maybe even the far future. Maybe I've just seen them too often; and one thing about seeing movies more than once, you start noticing a steadily increasing number of things that are wrong with them. Movies are like people in that way. Or maybe I just need another cup of tea.
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  Chuck Tryon

  2 years ago

  I don't think you're alone. There are a number of films on this list that I have no desire to see again, even if I think they're pretty good films. In fact, other than my favorite comfort movies, I rarely have any desire to see films more than once.
  
  And I won't speak for you, but like the Reeler, I sometimes look at these lists and simply want to yawn. Or something.
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  Edward Copeland

  2 years ago

  I know I'm one of the few dissenters on Fargo, but I don't think it ever belonged on the list. I loved the Coens' first four movies, but ever since I've been either disappointed or actually disliked what they put out. Admittedly though, their new one looks intriguing, as if they might be attempting something different.
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  Chuck Tryon

  2 years ago

  Edward, yes, I'll be curious to see how they adapt the Cormac McCarthy novel, and the trailer looks intriguing. I remeber liking Fargo well enough at the time, but I'll take Raising Arizona or Blood Simple over it any day.
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  Dan Leo

  2 years ago

  Chuck, thank you, and the Reeler, for assuring me that I am not alone. While I was doing my errands I was thinking about why I have no desire to bask once again in the glories of so many of these cinematic masterpieces, and I was thinking that besides the been-there-too-many-times syndrome (when so often once was plenty), so many of these movies are just too well-meaning, too sentimental, too nice and too obvious.
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  Sean

  2 years ago

  I'm with Dan on this one. This is like those Rolling Stone lists they wheel out every decade or so to make sure everyone knows their "blue-ribbon" panel is resting comfortably. Great to know that they find Toy Story, Forrest Gump, The Shawshank Redemption and oh, name any other of the 20 or 30 middlebrow diversions more memorable than
  Mulholland Drive. Hope their CBS tie-in got the applicable ratings.
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  Chuck Tryon

  2 years ago

  Sean and Dan, there are some mediocre choices in the top 100 (including all of the examples named by Sean), but those examples are so unremarkable--they show up on every list--that I decided to ignore them this time around.
  
  But in general, I agree that this list making activity is problematic on any number of levels.
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  Tom Watson

  2 years ago

  Hey what's wrong with middlebrow? Casablanca is middlebrow, all of Hitchcock is middlebrow, Gone With the Wind aspires to middlebrowdom.
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  Chuck Tryon

  2 years ago

  Middlebrow and mediocre aren't quite the same, at least in my reading. I could watch Casablanca or NxNW again. But even thinking about Forrest Gump gives me a headache!
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  Dan Leo

  2 years ago

  Y'know, there is nothing at all wrong with middlebrow (although as Chuck wisely points out, there is something wrong with mediocre) but let's face it, just about every movie on this list is middlebrow. Movies are basically a low-to-middlebrow art form. Flmmakers whose work I might call highbrow, like Bergman or Antonioni -- whose work is as demanding but potentially as rewarding as that of James Joyce or Proust or Samuel Beckett -- are very rare. I wouldn't call "The Seven Samurai" highbrow, but that doesn't mean it's not great. And we've all seen highbrow work that sucks donkey dick. In fact it's usually a good bet that if Hollywood attempts something highbrow it's going to turn out middlebrow and bad.
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  OutOfContext

  2 years ago

  Hey what’s wrong with middlebrow? Most of my favorite entertainment has one brow raised.
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  Tom Watson

  2 years ago

  ...we’ve all seen highbrow work that sucks donkey dick
  
  OK, that's quote of the week.
  
  It's true though - this list is about mass audiences. These movies were seen by many millions. Art-house flicks, not so much. This is a list of the best popular flicks...by men....in the USA...seen by millions...of all time.
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  Self Styled Siren

  2 years ago

  These lists are always fun for the discussions they sprak. But I do get irked at how safe and boring the AFI choices continue to be. No Lang, no Lubitsch. Epics, Oscar-winners, adventure stories, some comedies, some musicals (but nothing too fey), crime dramas (but nothing too dark or sleazy). And MALE. God is it male. And I am not talking about the directors. So few women's pictures, so little of anything that doesn't appeal to a very straight he-man sensibility.
  
  I posted more objections at my place too.
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  Kevin Wolf

  2 years ago

  Yeah, there's some really average stuff on the list and a few clunkers, like Forrest Gump, as mentioned above. That movie is so bad it calls the validity of the whole list into question.
  
  To name a favorite movie of mine, not on the list: John Huston's final film, The Dead. I need only run through the list of 100 and ask myself how they stack up against Huston's movie. Many of the 100 suffer greatly from the comparison.
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  Chuck Tryon

  2 years ago

  Wondering if The Dead was excluded because it was considered too British. That's why The Third Man, one of my personal faves, was taken off the list.
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  Tom Watson

  2 years ago

  I very much enjoyed The Dead, but put off seeing it for a long, long time. I knew Huston's work would be evocative and that I'd always "see" his vision - and my own personal version - when I re-read the story, which is one of my favorites. And I was right.
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  Weepingsam

  2 years ago

  I suppose this is as good a spot as any to make some general comments. Like - the dividing by zero moment on the 97 list was been rectified - The General is on the list. And Nashville, and Astaire and Rogers, and Sturges - all pretty much required. On the other hand - still only one Howard Hawks film? His Girl Friday being an obvious candidate, but so is The Big Sleep, Scarface, Red River, and god knows how many others. And Frankenstein dropping off is almost as bad as not having Keaton last time. The Third Man is more American than Lawrence of Arabia - that can't be the excuse can it?
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