AFI 100 Years of movies - How many have you seen

[c hoertjes]

Because it's incredibly crucial to the history of filmmaking?

 

/facepalm

[Mister Jack]

It might be historically significant, but that hardly means anybody should want to absorb its message. It's a list of great films, not important films.

[iLjaG]

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/birth_of_a_nation/

[Mister Jack]

A lot of these reviews seem to say the same thing. "Significant, groundbreaking for its time, but unenjoyable for its blatant racism." I'm paraphrasing, mind you, but it's the gist of it. I'm not arguing that it wasn't groundbreaking, but "great" seems like a misnomer to me.

[ixa]

How can you not like The Wizard of Oz? Or One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest? That movie swept all 5 major awards at the Oscars. It's fucking incredible filmmaking.

never said they were shit or anything. they are probably objectively good films (I guess, I don't know much about filmmaking), but that doesn't mean you have to like them. I'm sure there are things you don't like which are also objectively good/won a lot of awards.

[iLjaG]

Twilight swept the MTVMAs. Quality film right there.

[Mister Jack]

Turning to MTV awards as a credential is like trying to become an acclaimed artist by telling people how you color inside the lines on restaurant placemats.

[ixa]

well, that's true too Jack. but I think the point is that you shouldn't feel like you should make yourself enjoy something just because of how critically acclaimed it might be* and that "opinions opinions, opinions**".

 

*I probably could've worded this better, but I'm not good with words.

**opinions.

[c hoertjes]

Kanji is mocking me, but there's a big difference between the Oscars and MTV Awards.

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

Kanji is mocking me, but there's a big difference between the Oscars and MTV Awards.

 

There is but even I think The Oscars are bit skewed towards well known movies/directors.

[Mister Jack]

Oscars are bullshit anyway. I made up my mind about that establishment after they snubbed both Dark Knight and Wall-e for best picture nominations.

[c hoertjes]

Kanji is mocking me, but there's a big difference between the Oscars and MTV Awards.

 

There is but even I think The Oscars are bit skewed towards well known movies/directors.

True, but they were generally more fair back then, and it's still quite an achievement for a movie to take Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay. It's only happened two other times.

[Battra92]

Kanji is mocking me, but there's a big difference between the Oscars and MTV Awards.

 

There is but even I think The Oscars are bit skewed towards well known movies/directors.

True, but they were generally more fair back then, and it's still quite an achievement for a movie to take Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay. It's only happened two other times.

 

What at the Oscars? The Oscars were never fair. If the Oscars were fair James Cagney would've received an Oscar for White Heat.

[Battra92]

A lot of these reviews seem to say the same thing. "Significant, groundbreaking for its time, but unenjoyable for its blatant racism." I'm paraphrasing, mind you, but it's the gist of it. I'm not arguing that it wasn't groundbreaking, but "great" seems like a misnomer to me.

 

The problem with The Birth of a Nation (its original title by the way was The Clansman) is that it was and still is the most controversial film of all time. Birth of a Nation when viewed in 2010 is a much different film than would be accepted today and yet it should still be required viewing for all those who love the cinema. The film gave us cinema as we know it today. If you look at films before 1915 the only ones who were even attempting to turn the film into anything other than a simple one reeler were the Italians (and WWI was putting a damper on things over there)

 

What's amazing is that the film still strikes strong emotions 95 years after its release! It's still viewed and people still purchase it and view it. It's not really a film that the average Joe is going to watch to kill a few hours, though.

 

One of these days I should compile a list of silent films that everyone should watch before they die.

[Mister Jack]

It might be cheating to say a Klan movie still provokes strong emotions. If it didn't, I would be worried.

 

[Mr W Phallus]

Here's a thread I didn't realise we had. I reckon I've seen 39 in total. However ones in red I've only seen parts of or never watched it all in one sitting, and ones in orange I need to rewatch because it's been a long time since I've seen them (and I probably was too young to appreciate them fully). Purple is my favourite film (which I just watched again the night before last in fact).

 

The Godfather 1972

Lawrence of Arabia 1962

Schindler's List 1993

Star Wars 1977

The African Queen 1951

Psycho 1960

Chinatown 1974

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest 1975

2001: A Space Odyssey 1968

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial 1982

Dr. Strangelove 1964

Apocalypse Now 1979

Annie Hall 1977

North by Northwest 1959

West Side Story 1961

Rear Window 1954

King Kong 1933

A Clockwork Orange 1971

Taxi Driver 1976

Jaws 1975

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs 1937

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid 1969

Amadeus 1984

The Sound of Music 1965

MASH 1970

The Third Man 1949

Fantasia 1940

Raiders of the Lost Ark 1981

Vertigo 1958

Close Encounters of the Third Kind 1977

The Silence of the Lambs 1991

The Deer Hunter 1978

The Wild Bunch 1969

Platoon 1986

Fargo 1996

My Fair Lady 1964

Pulp Fiction 1994

Unforgiven 1992

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner 1967

 

 

As a bonus I've seen Steven Berkoff's play adaptation of On The Waterfront, but the film is still sat in my Lovefilm queue.

[fuchikoma]

At least 15...

I don't watch a lot of movies. In fact, I don't watch a lot... I have spools of discs of unwatched movies and TV shows/anime, but usually I surf the net and play video games instead... Lately I've been planning to pull a few anime marathons to shrink the backlog, but I'm just not as fanatical as I was back in high school. If I watch for 15-20 min, I feel like I should be DOING something.

 

 

 

If italic, I've seen part of it, or don't remember if I saw all of it. Bold if I thought it was exceptional.

 

2. Casablanca 1942

5. Lawrence of Arabia 1962

6. The Wizard of Oz 1939

9. Schindler's List 1993

11. It's a Wonderful Life 1946

15. Star Wars 1977

18. Psycho 1960

22. 2001: A Space Odyssey 1968

24. Raging Bull 1980

25. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial 1982

26. Dr. Strangelove 1964

28. Apocalypse Now 1979

46. A Clockwork Orange 1971

49. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs 1937

55. The Sound of Music 1965

58. Fantasia 1940

60. Raiders of the Lost Ark 1981

65. The Silence of the Lambs 1991

66. Network 1976

71. Forrest Gump 1994

87. Frankenstein 1931

88. Easy Rider 1969 (Does this one mean anything to people not alive in this era? Friends and I were disgusted at the pointlessness of it...)

95. Pulp Fiction 1994

 

 

 

To this day, I don't think I've watched an entire James Bond movie, though I've caught largish pieces of several. Also, if I could do a write-in, I'd want to add the 2001 "Waiting for Godot." Godot, Casablanca, and Bakemonogatari are the only titles I'd put on that tier for well crafted dialogue that I've seen so far. Network had some nice moments, but it felt more like the characters were delivering soliloquies or reading essays.

[Battra92]

Network is a film that can be watched in clips. In some ways, it's like a news show in that you can just jump in at any part provided you know the basics.

 

While most people take the line "I'm as mad as Hell and I'm not going to take it anymore" as the best line Howard Beale delivers but the line that stuck with me is the one directly before it.

"I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad. You've got to say,

'I'm a HUMAN BEING, God damn it! My life has VALUE!'

"

Edited November 13, 2011 by Battra92

[fuchikoma]

Yes, and I don't want to make it sound like it was badly written - just that I wouldn't put it on the top shelf for dialogue between characters, and that I did get the feeling at several points that these were just essays the writer wanted people to hear. Still an extremely poignant movie today though.

 

This was very much an "essay" scene, but still excellent political commentary:

 

You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.

 

What do you think the Russians talk about in their Councils of State? Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, min-and-max solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do.

 

We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of of business. The world... is a business, Mr Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime.

 

 

 

Looking at the related videos for this clip, I also need to get around to watching Chaplin's "The Great Dictator." I've seen the speech at the end and it was moving both in its inspirational positive message and heartbreaking that so little progress has been made since then. I have a copy of it, I just haven't watched yet.

Edited November 13, 2011 by fuchikoma

[WTF]

The list is definitely going to have a few additions and subtractions even at it's current state considering we do have a fair few decent films on that list since it was last updated in 2007.

 

I suppose it comes as no surprise that I've seen them all. Many while growing up but a few during my university years. Also that list put up was from 1998.

 

The updated list doesn't have birth of a nation or fargo. Pretty sure about 20 or so films have been removed

[Battra92]

Personally I very much prefer the 1998 list over the 2011 list. I think the omission of BoaN is pandering to political correctness but Intolerance does deserve to be on the top 100 films list for its contribution to camera angles and such. BoaN is still striking and engaging even to this day (despite it's rediculous stereotypes and racism.)