The Clam Rampant

Kasia December 16th, 2007

I’ve actually been tagged for two things, but the hour being what it is, I will have to do one tonight and save one for a little later in the week. I’ll start with the older one…and since part of the fun of memes is that they mutate, I am going to use both lists for my meme. Oh - sorry, dreadful writing here…the meme is a set of questions about the American Film Institute’s Top 100 Movies list, and I can utilize either the 1998 list or the new one. I’m using both, because…well, you’ll see. There’s some commentary I want to add.

My five favorite movies on the list(s): Hard to say, as I do like quite a lot of them. I’ll go with To Kill a Mockingbird; The Godfather; Casablanca; Some Like It Hot; and Dr. Strangelove.

Five movies on the list I didn’t like at all: Forrest Gump (I had the same reaction that Bear described); Citizen Kane (sorry, know it’s supposed to be a great classic, but no); Goodfellas (only saw half of it and couldn’t take the violence and cursing); Lord of the Rings (great cinematography and acting, but it took almost until the end of each movie for me to stop being bored and actually get into it a bit); and Doctor Zhivago (only got through the first tape).

Five movies on the list I haven’t seen but want to: Twelve Angry Men; All About Eve; Mr. Smith Goes to Washington; From Here to Eternity; The French Connection.

Five movies on the list I haven’t seen and have no interest in seeing: Jaws (in its entirety; I’ve probably seen the whole movie in bits and pieces); The Deer Hunter (I’ve heard tell of a wedding scene that wouldn’t die); Rocky; Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (I saw a small portion that featured Burton and Taylor nigh-brawling onscreen, and that was quite enough, thank you); Platoon (not that I object to military movies in general).

My five favorite movies that aren’t on the list: The Incredibles (though that has no business being on the list yet, and IMHO Toy Story had no business being on the list yet either); Full Metal Jacket; The Princess Bride; Miracle on 34th Street (with Natalie Wood, not the new one); and Sleepless in Seattle. Yes, I’m a chick. What’s your point?

Here’s where my additional commentary has to come in. I freely admit I didn’t like, say, Doctor Zhivago. However, when that gets knocked off the list and the freakin’ Lord of the Rings movie goes on, something is seriously wrong! And when Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and The Manchurian Candidate both go the way of the dodo bird, but that testimony to James Cameron’s ego Titanic makes it on…well, it’s a sad day in Mudville, folks. Don’t get me wrong; Titanic wasn’t a bad movie. It was well acted and had great special effects. But when you cut through all that, you’ve got a dubious script that got where it did because of (a) the aforementioned special effects, and (b) the fact that it was designed to play every cheesy heartstring in the audience. It was emotional manipulation, plain and simple. And while sometimes that makes for an enjoyable theater-going experience, I don’t think it should qualify for the Top 100 Movies.

OK. Rant complete. I tag the Canuck, Mrs. Kheldar, The Big Seester, Michelle R, and DigiStephanie.

• Uncategorized