Thursday, March 26, 2009

Yahoo's Top 100 Movies to see before you die

OK - let's get the first question out of the way: I've seen 82. That's being pretty conservative, actually, as there are a bunch of movies like 8 1/2 and Wild Strawberries which I know I saw in high school but I don't remember a thing about them, so I'm not counting them. But let's get to the real point of reading any list at all: bitching. Bitching about what was included. Bitching about what was left off. Is there anything better? You can see the whole list here if you want join in the bitch-fest in the comments section but here are my initial thoughts:


The Movies I Can't Stand: Blade Runner (what a boring, over-praised piece of crap), Princess Mononoke (Not a fan of anime. At all. HATE it), The Searchers (Every time I hear someone praise this movie I try re-watching it to see what I'm missing. I've come to the firm conclusion that they are all crazy and I - as usual - am right: it sucks)





The Movies I Can't Believe Were Included
: Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid (I know I'll catch heat for this one, my husband even owns this, but to me the only joy in this movie comes from Redford & Newman's chemistry. The rest comes off as dated) , Enter the Dragon (Bruce Lee?????) , Terminator 2 (Yes, you may have loved this movie when it came out, but have you seen it recently? It's pretty silly!)



The Movies I Wish Had Been Included: North by Northwest (One of the most perfectly constructed films. Ever.), Metropolis (Gripping. Beautifully shot. Completely ahead of its time), Tootsie (OK, this may be the funniest film ever. How could they forget it?), Amadeus (simply majestic, gorgeous, lavish and filled with amazing performances. Yet they have Titanic which - while lavish - has nothing else to offer), The Princess Bride (Just criminal that it was not mentioned)



The Movies I am So Glad They Remembered: Die Hard (The best action movie ever), Do The Right Thing (finally this film started getting some love after AFI included it on their list), Groundhog Day (No one seemed to like this movie when it came out, but over the years its following has grown considerably), The Lady Eve (One of my very favorite films ever.)

4 comments:

  1. My count 76 out of 100. Like you there were some that I know I had seen once, but couldn't tell you what it was about. For me a glaring omission was Pinocchio, which in my humble opinion, is THE best animated film ever! And quite frankly can we retire certain films from 'best of..' lists? I mean honestly, if you're a film junkie and you haven't seen Citizen Kane, Godfathers, It's A Wonderful Life, Signin' in the Rain at least once in your life that's your misfortune.

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  2. I'm ashamed to say I'm at 30, my most obscure being M

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  3. An even 70 for me, but I swear I've seen two of them but couldn't conjure up anything ... you know, like a scene or a moment or something ...

    What is weird is that I posted all of them on my blog this morning. great minds, you know??

    I am not a movie aficionado, which means if I have seen 70 out of 100, then this list is probably lame. Meaning, if I have seen 70 percent of the "top" 100 of all time, then rreal movie critics mist blanch at this list.

    I spotted three that I would remove:

    Blade Runner, Titanic, Goldfinger. Now I love these movies, but how can you list a James Bond flick when there are so many more that are worthy?

    Where are the Merchant & Ivory films?

    That's my non-aficionado opinion.

    :-)

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