Nitsy's Next 10 on the AFI List

This next group of films on the AFI List is pretty epic. I don't mean like an awesome wave, I mean like there are "big and long" ones. (That's what she said.)

The Wild Bunch - 145 minutes

The Deer Hunter - 182 minutes

Dances With Wolves - 236 minutes

Ben-Hur - 212 minutes

Forrest Gump - 141 minutes

I figured going into Wuthering Heights that it would be another 3 hour thing, but in fact it's only 103 minutes. Hoorah. (Thank goodness, because we had to watch it on Youtube. Neither Netflix nor Blockbuster has it, despite it being out on DVD and on AFI's Top 100.)

80. The Wild Bunch - This was a film school favorite. I saw the opening sequence in my first screenwriting class. Then I saw it later for another class. For so many reasons this film is great. (Betsy didn't care so much for it, but that's because she didn't give it a chance. And she hates violence.) From the story to the cinematography to the acting. It plays the "one last big grab" storyline so perfectly. It's hard to tell exactly how much the film has influenced based on that alone, but even films out of the genre benefit from The Wild Bunch having been made. The other great influential piece of the film, that has shown up in cinema ever since, is the vagueness of herocism. These are the protaganists, but are they the good guys? They aren't, but yet we love 'em. Before this film, justice had to be served. Whether it was a noir, gangster pic or western; the bad guys were either killed by the good guys or they get taken away. In The Wild Bunch, the bad guys kill and get killed by the worse bad guys. And in fact, the "good guys" are nothing but thieves and idiots.

Incredible! This film works in the genre so much, but yet turns it on it's head. The film has garnished so much praise that I can't come close to writing a full report on this legendary film.

79. The Deer Hunter - And then there's this. I'm going to rant a little bit, so if you don't like it, go in the other room or skip down to my review of Rocky. What do Broken Embraces, The Deer Hunter and Million Dollar Baby have in common? 1. I hate all of them, 2. Reviewers seem to love them, 3. People find meaning in their absence of substance, 4. they are all, in fact, dumb movies.

Yeah, I'm going to say it...The Deer Hunter is a dumb movie. "Oh but, it's an epic war movie about the realities of war and life and...." Shut up! There is one war scene. 1! So that's one thing. Realities of war? No. There has never been evidence or any factual accounts of the Vietnamese forcing prisoners to play Russian roulette. As well, this film should get the award for worst editing of all time. 182 minutes. That's over 3 hours, and there is 1 battle scene? Why do we have to see 45 minutes of a wedding and only get 3 minutes of war? You want to talk about the realities of war? How about the realities of the boring nature of Pennsylvania? Michael Cimino and whoever edited this picture, we get it. Life is good before war and everyone is happy dancing and drinking....but really, how many shots do we need of the wedding reception? Every movie in the history of cinema it seems has a wedding in it, so yeah, we the viewing public know what a wedding, and the reception that takes place afterward, is like. What we're curious about is how Robert DeNiro fights in Vietnam. (I hate that DeNiro is in this film, because he's actually really good, as usual.) And let me just say one more thing concerning the Hollywood press in the last seventies. You were all tricked. The film proves that you're all idiots on an "epic" scale, because you were fooled into thinking that because this film was sooooo EPIC, it must be sooooo meaningful. I'll give you some meaning from Mr Shakespeare. Brevity is wit. So that means The Deer Hunter is crap.

78. Rocky - Ahhh, I love this film. I almost want to take some time and get away from the Deer Hunter, but no, to whip my mind clear of Deer caca, I will review the greatest boxing movie of all time. But Rocky is more than a boxing movie. It's a movie about America. Rocky is America. This is an American Myth tale.

The seventies were a sucky time. Vietnam, Nixon, bell-bottoms, disco. It took till about 1985 for the 80's to completely shed the 70's off. (Just look at baby photos from the early 80's if you don't believe me.) Amid all this mess was a little lowly boxer. He was doing his best to make it and live up to his dreams, but he was struggling. He did some things he wasn't proud of, but through it, he kept some of his ideals and kept his chin up. Then he gets a shot. A shot to fight the reigning champ. So Rocky pulls all his raw talent together and works harder than he's ever worked before. And he goes the distance with Apollo. Even the name is meaningful. Rocky, a mortal man, is fighting a God. Don't we as Americans think we can do that? If not me or you, then anybody can have that chance. We're all equal. And then, Rocky losses. And of course he would, because he's fighting a seemingly immortal man. But he lasted with him. And after it's all said and done, and Apollo, having come close to dieing(remember, he's immortal), is cheering that he won, all Rocky wants is Adrian. It brings tears to my eyes and a lump to my throat just thinking about it. If you want to find a film that shows what it means to be American, I can think of none better than Rocky.

77. American Graffiti - I hate that this movie is on the AFI Top 100. Not that I hate this film, I like it, but I just don't think it should be on here. I understand that it was different and unique, but does a new flavor of cotton candy make the headlines? No. I'm a Lucas fan, no one defends the prequels like I do, but American Graffiti? Really? It's just a bunch of kids. I'll list 10 movies with kids that are better than this. Stand by Me. Ferris Buehler's Day Off, Breakfast Club, The Goonies, 10 Things I Hate About You, Clueless, Sixteen Candles, The Sandlot, Brick, Mean Girls.

But notice one thing...American Graffitti came first. (Unless I listed Rebel Without a Cause, which I could have listed here.) So perhaps AG was pretty influential. Just about every movie since has used some modern sountrack, from Pulp Fiction to The Hurt Locker. That was rather unique and the closest film I can think of that did that was The Graduate. But in the Graduate the songs are all by one artist and fit into the movie. Whereas in American Graffitti the songs are varied and contemporary to the time period. But all in all, should this be the only reason it's included among America's best films? If the list was just a general outline and consisted of hundreds of films then sure. But to say that this is the 77th greatest American film of all time? No way, Jose.

P.S. The "What Happened to Them" at the end was utterly retarded. Dumber than Jar Jar or the Ewoks.

76. City Lights
Another Chaplin film. And there's still another to come. Charlie Chaplin was a comic genius. Undeniable. But 3 of his films on here? I'm glad they rectified the absence of silent comics with their revised list. (The General and Sunrise make the revised list.) Putting Modern Times on the list to me is a given. I think it's his best one, it goes beyond his usual slapstick, tramp lost in the world type of film to make real social commentary. So, perhaps I could see them voting in a second of his films that would represent all his films. I guess that should be City Lights. It is so run of the mill it fits the role. He's a homeless tramp in the city, he doesn't fit in with the rich and he wins the heart of a flower girl. In a way, that's kind of all his films. There may be a study out there that tracks Chaplin's joke history from film to film, but I don't have the time or inclination to study him. So without that knowledge I'm left to watching the film as is, not knowing what jokes came before or what came after. With that, it seemed liek City Lights was just another Chaplin film. There was nothing special about this. He messes about, somehow becomes friends with a rich guy, almost falls into the sewer backwards...so what. It's been done before...by him! It's not like he's hanging from a clock tower, almost getting crushed by a falling wall, or chasing down moving trains...those gags are too low brow I guess. No, Charlie stuck to what he knew worked...waddling and almost falling backwards into a hole.

75. Dances with Wolves
I'll save the bulk of this film for an Avatar vs Dances with Wolves review. I'll just say one thing. I hadn't seen this film in at least a decade and watching it again was like a breath of fresh air. It was like Waterworld never happened.

74. The Gold Rush
Chaplin again? Oh man. Abbott & Costello, Frankenstein, Earnest, Godzilla. All these characters made multiple movies, some of them pretty good. They also made movies about these characters where they took them out of their element and put them somewhere unique to see what happens, and generate fan interest. Like when the Brady Bunch goes to Hawaii. Does Charlie Chaplin's Tramp ever do that? Yes, he does. But instead of meeting the Mummy or fighting the Wolfman or King Kong, the Tramp leaves the city to go to.....the Yukon! What if the Tramp was a gold miner? Yeah! Basically, The Gold Rush follows the same plot as the other Chaplin films, except he's in a different location. 1. He's down and out 2. he's in conflict with the rich 3. He wins the heart of a boy

ish-type girl.
What can you say about this film that couldn't be said of all his others? It's the same themes over and over again, and since he did that better with City Lights or Modern Times why does this have to be here? "Oh because the set pieces and the yadda yadda..." Really? Because he built the Yukon on his backlot and pretended his cabin was falling off a cliff it deserves a place in America's top 100 films?
Two notable things that were actually unique and funny.....the bread roll dancing scene and the Tramp eating a shoe. Suck it Buster Keaton, you never ate your shoe! See this interesting article talking about Chaplin and Keaton's eating habits.
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-71712168.html

73 Wuthering Heights - So weird that this movie, despite being on DVD, couldn't be found anywhere....except YouTube. Someone painstakingly put this entire film, in 11 parts, onto YouTube. And to that person...thank you.
I don't go much for the Jane Austen/Emily Bronte literature, but this wasn't all that bad. I think because they slimmed it down to under 2 hours. It follows all the themes of those books; class struggles, love affairs, unrequited love, marrying someone you don't love, the poor guy that gets rich. It's all in here. But not in the usual BBC way, where there are grand scenes with tons of dialogue and conversations. Here, less is more, which is great. What's left is the classic lines from the book that are repeated by women to this day. I'm not entirely sure, though, why this film is on AFI's list. Is it because it's so trim and to the point? If so, that makes it unique when compared to other films on the list with epic running times. Besides the brevity, the acting was decent for it's time (a young Laurence Olivier), the cinematography was pretty good (Gregg Toland), and...that's all I have to say about this movie. I probably won't ever see it again.

72. - Ben-Hur - I was so glad to see this again. I've always loved it, but haven't seen it in a few years. I think of all the really epic films ever made, this perhaps is the best.
The chariot race alone should put this on the list. I mean when an urban legend arises that people died on camera, you know it's great.
The film is thoroughly deeper than that, though. It's remarkably religious, besides even the scenes with Christ around somewhere. It's about a Jew stuck in the real world. He has one foot in the world and one foot in his beliefs and he's always fighting to maintain that balance. He never quit goes over to the world side, despite being tempted time and again; first by his best friend the new Tribune, then he's given the inheritance of a rich Roman, later he's offered Roman citizenship. One of the big themes of Christianity is being in the world, but not of the world. Ben-Hur is set right at the dawn of Christianity. But this theme is also found in other religions, of course.
The best thing about the religious themes in Ben-Hur is that it never overdoes it. It's neither shoved down your throat or handed to you on a perfect platter. They're done subtly. (Usually. There is the interactions with Jesus and the water.) The film is more about living in a conquered world and still being free. The Romans have conquered the Jews, who now feel the burden of subjugation, but yet the Jews themselves have slaves.
Throughout the film, motifs are presented that show this idea of being enslaved. Esther wears a ring to show she is a slave, then Judah wears it. Later he wears the ring of Arrius, the rich Roman Consul. Judah later returns the ring to Pontius Pilate when offered citizenship. Again, all this is playing out while Jesus is dieing to free the world from the subjugation of sin. There are many more symbols and themes throughout, but all of it just shows how deep this film is. It gets overlooked because people think it's too on the nose, but those same people fail to see beyond the Christ scenes presented through the film, to the real messages in Ben-Hur's struggles.

71 - Forrest Gump - People either love or hate this film. It's one of those dividing movies where either you can't stand Gump or you accept him and go along for the ride on the feather. I like the film, and by extension I like Forrest. In real life I don't know how I would feel, but Gump is nice, humble, loyal and courageous. Everything you want in a dog.
And I like dogs, so it's okay. A study should be undertaken to see the correlation between people who hate this film and those that hate dogs. My hypothesis is that they are the same people.
This movie takes a huge risk. (But it can't help but take it, since it's based on a novel, so it has to basically follow the novel's plot.) It weaves through history, sometimes affecting their outcome. When movie do this it's usually a disaster. (i.e. Shanghai Noon). But somehow with Gump, they weave it so perfectly and finely that you never get annoyed with it. And that leads into the theme and most profound piece of dialogue in the film. He says it at the end to Jenny's grave, "I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if we're all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze, but I, I think maybe it's both. Maybe both is happening at the same time." The movie opens and closes with a feather floating through the wind. Throughout the film Forrest himself breezes along as if being blown by the wind. But throughout, he also affects the outcomes of things and sometimes even follows his own wishes and desires. The same goes for Jenny, as she stumbles from place to place not ever finding a solid footing, she herself is blown from place to place. But Forrest is always her constant, she finds footing with him. So the movie leaves the question open, how much do we control in our lives and how much is destiny, or if not destiny then just chance. Because through it all there are still constants; disasters happen, people die, and the world keeps moving, whether we're involved or not.