2007-06-21

Top 100 Films - Changes for Good & Ill

Here's the list displayed in full.

=Good News:
Kane, Godfather, and Casablanca remain on top (who cares what order!).

The 23 films dropped from the list, these deserved it, because....

...these were just too damned racist through their very premises, even though they represented technologial milestones. Screw 'em!
44. The Birth of a Nation (1915)
90. The Jazz Singer (1927)
wish we could add Gone With the Wind to this list; I'd certainly remove it.

...excellent, and genuine cinematic milestones, but just not one the 100 best films ever, though every film nerd must possess them in their vocabulary:

59. Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
63. Stagecoach (1939)
68. An American in Paris (1951)
64. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
87. Frankenstein (1931)
89. Patton (1970)
91. My Fair Lady (1964)
99. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)

... just never was good enough to begin with
75. Dances With Wolves (1990)

"The Graduate" dropped in its ranking, and probably deserves to fall off entirely, though it's a pretty damn good film. And thank the lord that the list retains Midnight Cowboy, which I fear people are forgetting.

Of the 23 films that got added, these deserved it:

59. Nashville (1975)
61. Sullivan's Travels (1941)
63. Cabaret (1972)
67. Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
72. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
77. All The President's Men (1976)
81. Spartacus (1960)
95. The Last Picture Show (1971)

=Bad News:

Of the 23 removed, these certainly should have stayed (especially when you consider the garbage that got added):

39. Doctor Zhivago (1965)
52. From Here to Eternity (1953)
53. Amadeus (1984)
57. The Third Man (1949)
67. The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
73. Wuthering Heights (1939)
82. Giant (1956)
84. Fargo (1996)
86. Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
89. Patton (1970)
92. A Place in the Sun (1951)

The following got added, but they don't even deserve to be watched!
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” (No. 50); Nadir's dad watched because he thought it starred Michael Flately.
Saving Private Ryan (No. 71); watchable, but not top 100.
Titanic (No. 83); barely watchable.
The Sixth Sense (No. 89); unwatchably awful.

I would watch any of the above undeserved dropped films 1,000 times before watching any of the above added movies just once.

These very good films got added, though they don't belong in the best 100 ever, certainly not replacing any of the unjustifiably dropped films:
75. In The Heat Of The Night (1967)
85. A Night At The Opera (1935)
87. 12 Angry Men (1957)
96. Do The Right Thing (1989)
97. Blade Runner (1982)

These films remain on the list, but never belonged there:
Schindler's List
(1993)
Star Wars
(1977)
To Kill a Mockingbird
(1962)
The Best Years of Our Lives
(1946)
The Silence of the Lambs
(1991)

And Steven Freakin' Speilberg has the most films on the list (five)? Oh, please.
"King Kong" remains on the list, but none of the deserving Wes Anderson films made it (Rushmore and Royal Tannenbaums), nor has "A Face in the Crowd" made it.

8 comments:

Nadir said...

I have no idea who Michael Flately is so that joke isn't funny.

Did you register to get the whole list?

Unknown said...

http://www.michaelflatley.com/

Paul Hue said...

Nadir: When you go to the article I linked, scroll down and you will see a link for "Comparing 1997 to 2007 Lists". Unfortunately, it shows these lists only in groups of 20, so each page shows only 20 films from each list.

You know Michael Flately as the main shirtless, sweaty, buff, head-banded white guy on the poster for "Lord of the Dance" on the ceiling over the bed in your dad's room.

uptownsteve said...

What happended to "Sweet Sweetback", "Panther" and "Shaft"?

Three monuments of cinema.

Paul Hue said...

Sweet Sweetback and Shaft are certainly not great; monumental, sure, but not great cinema. Cooley High might earn such a distinction, if we are considering black-made films.

uptownsteve said...

And how could I forget "Blacula".

Paul Hue said...

Yikes. I'm a Cornbread, Earl, and Me guy.

uptownsteve said...

Actually, I like "Fast Times at Ridgemont High".

One of my fondest memories of my late grandmother who passed on in 1991 was when she first got her cable unit installed in the mid-80s and I decided to visit her one weekend.

It was a blizzard in NYC, so she and I just spent the evening watching "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" on cable.

She was well into her 70s at the time, but the movie and especially Sean Penn's character "Spicoli"
had her doubled over with laughter.