This is what one does when one is stuck for content and generally bored with his own blogging (hopefully a temporary state of affairs). Time Magazine put out a list of its top 100 films of all time. These lists are designed more to generate discussion and to draw attention to the venues that publish them than they are to be definitive lists, much like AFI’s top 100 list or VH1’s 25 crappiest bands specials. So, to follow the meme, these are the films I’ve seen from Time’s list:
- Barry Lyndon
- Blade Runner
- Bonnie and Clyde
- Brazil
- Casablanca
- Citizen Kane
- The Crowd
- Dr. Strangelove: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
- E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
- The Fly (1986)
- The Godfather, Parts I and II
- The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
- Goodfellas
- It’s A Wonderful Life
- The Lord of the Rings
- The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
- Miller’s Crossing
- Notorious
- On the Waterfront
- Once Upon a Time in the West
- Pinocchio
- Pulp Fiction
- Schindler’s List
- Star Wars
- Taxi Driver
- Unforgiven
- Yojimbo
First seen at Dylan’s joint. According to Time, I am more cultured than he is with my 27 films viewed compared to his 24. And that makes it so. Really. I’m not kidding around.
I’ve only seen five of the movies on your list, so you’re highly superior to me.
Five from my list or five from the entire 100?
Damnit… you win this round, Rusty. But I’ll be back with an upgraded Netfilx account. There’ll be no one to stop me this time.
I just noticed Godfather I & II was counted on the list as one film, so you’ve really seen 25 and I’ve really seen 28.
I’ve seen 11 from your list. So I am also superior to Jen.
And I am too lazy to click through to the complete list of 100 and count through all that mess.
Well if we count the Godfathers as one movie I’ve seen 29 of their 100(30 if they’re seperate)…but honestly what is the 1986 version of The Fly doing on there? A good movie sure but one of the top 100 ever???
Good call Patrick. I wasn’t paying close enough attention and forgot about that one. IMDB tells me Hollywood is making yet another version in 2006. Glad to see originality is alive and well.
No, I’ve seen 8 out of the entire list. Notables that I have not seen include: Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Finding Nemo and Casablanca. However, I did see City of God in subtitles, so it should count as at least three.
I’ve seen 43. Seems very biased to older movies.
I’ve seen 46 of the movies on the list, that’s counting the Godfathers as one entry. But many of them I saw a long time ago, back in the days when I rented movies all the time.
I gots me a count of 47.
Re: ANYTOWN, usa
Go See the Georgia Debut of Anytown, USA on Tuesday June 14th at 12 noon at the Rialto Center for the Performing Arts in Atlanta. Here is what a recent review said:
REVIEW OF “ANYTOWN, U.S.A.’’ —3.5 stars
By Joyce J. Persico
Film Critic, The Times of Trenton, N.J.
There are no actors in Kristian Fraga’s mesmerizing “Anytown, U.S.A,’’ but what happens within the 90-minute documentary is as incredible as anything contained in a Hollywood script. It’s an unexpectedly entertaining movie that will make you laugh – a lot – shake your head in bewilderment and even tear up. When you’re not doing one of those things, you’ll be wondering if anyone on screen realized he was being filmed. It’s that candid and eye opening.
Fraga focuses on the 2003 mayoralty campaign in Bogota, N.J., a small North Jersey town where no one seems happy about local services, taxes or proposed school sports cuts. Three men want the position of mayor – incumbent Republican Steven Lonegan, Democratic challenger Fred Pesce and independent write-in candidate Dave Musikant, a former local sports hero. Two of the men – Lonegan and Musikant – are partially blind and only about 2,000 voters will decide their fate. Throw in the last-minute addition of the man who managed former wrestler Jesse Ventura’s successful bid for governor of Minnesota, and you have a cast of characters that brings to life a microcosm of American democracy in action.
Fraga filmed more than 300 hours with the candidates, their families, and voters, breaking down whatever face-saving barriers one would expect from everyday people. Lonegan, comes across as a politician who is satisfied with the status quo, weary of complaining citizens, annoyed by any opposition but not really concerned about a write-in candidate who possesses a great deal of local appeal. Pesce, a former councilman who comes out of retirement to run, seems to have little to say and, when a reporter asks for the most important issue of the campaign, Pesce tells him there are four and then can’t name one.
Compared to his opponents, underdog Musikant is portrayed as something of a savior, a good-natured guy from the streets whose life was changed when he lost sight in one eye following removal of a brain tumor. Unemployed, walking with a cane and not really sure how to run for mayor, he bucks the odds hoping to unite local voters behind him. At the last minute, he calls in Doug Friedline, Ventura’s former campaign manager.
It’s difficult not to root for Musikant, who seems so innocent and hopeful compared to Lonegan and Pesce. He actually believes he can make a difference in Bogota and he’s not above mentioning his sight impairment or his former high school sports hero status to win votes. There’s a sweetness to him and his forlorn nature is haunting, right up to the fateful night of the election.
Lonegan fights back through the Bogotian, a free tabloid he publishes to push his political agenda and level charges against his opponents. Some Bogotians think it’s a bona fide newspaper and the mayor isn’t about to inform them otherwise.~
How Fraga got these people to succumb to his camera should be a required course in film schools because their candor strips away all the artifice of politics. His film creates such a tension as the Bogota election draws to a close it has the impact of a blockbuster drama that keeps you guessing right up to the end. And what happens after the election – revealed in an epilogue – would be almost beyond belief if it weren’t true.
That ending won’t be revealed here except to say that one of the men is now running for governor in New Jersey.
(Screened at the Trenton Film Festival, Trenton, N.J., May 1, 2005.)
Anytown USA
Dir. Kristian Fraga, Documentary, 90 min., video
The Rialto, Tuesday, June 14 @ 12pm
All politics is local in this hilarious burlesque of a documentary following a tightly-run mayoral race in the small town of Bogota, New Jersey. When the much-reviled–and legally blind–Republican incumbent Steven Lonegan boldly announces he will run for re-election, the citizens of Bogota go on the offensive to unseat him. Enter Democrat Fred Pesce, coaxed from retirement to share the ticket. With his health in question, and his politics compared to those of Tony Soprano, the field is wide open for sight-challenged town booster and former local football hero Dave Musikant to step in as a long-shot write-in independent candidate–officially making it the only mayoral race in the nation where two of the three candidates are legally blind! Add to the mix the machinations of Jesse “The Body” Ventura’s campaign manager, and ANYTOWN USA resonates as an all-too-familiar look at the charade of partisan politics in our increasingly polarized nation.