Grab the popcorn!

About 10 years ago, AFI came up with their 100 top movies of all time. Like the poser I am, I was like, "I'm going to take this list and see them all!" But, 100 movies is not a lot of movies, especially since I had already seen a number of the movies on the list. Luckily, since this list was newsworthy, there were all sorts of other folks making their movie lists. And, since I am not the only loser out there, some guy put them all together on a website and made a "Greatest Movies" list of about 1000 movies. And, that's how I got "The Movie List."

It's a pretty impressive list; it takes up about 8 pages in 2 columns. I'm down to about 1 column of movies to go. It's just (mostly) American movies, so that is a limitation. No "Jules and Jim", German cinema, that sort of thing. What there is a lot of is Hitchcock. And John Ford. Not that I mind so much, but it's sort of a lazy thing when someone just spits out all of someone's work as "The Best."

Watching all of these movies has been really interesting. I'm surprised as to how much I enjoy the Westerns. And if it's from 1939, I'm there. I'm also surprised as to how much I really don't like the war movies. I also dislike that whole late '60s era ("Easy Rider", "The Graduate", "Bonnie and Clyde" -- sorry, just overrated, the whole lot of them.) 

I cannot get into silent movies and I stand behind this statement. Look, when they got the technology to make movies in color, not all movies switched right away. Heck, even now, they still will sometimes make a black and white movie. But when they were able to add sound, pretty much all movies switched over. There just are not a lot of silent movies after "The Jazz Singer." Sure, I appreciate the talents of folks like Chaplin, but, come on, say something! Plus, it's so annoying to watch about 30 seconds of mock dialogue, then a card: "The sheriff is coming!" Clearly, we are missing some details here. 

The best thing about The List is the "unknown"movies. The movies that I would have never watched if they weren't on The List. Movies like "Good-bye, Mr. Chips" and "Random Harvest." The bad news is that it goes the other way as well. The List is the reason I watched "Last Tango in Paris." Which, sorry List, they all can't be winners.