AFI re-100

OK, one more movie thing. Schmidtty pointed me towards the re-evaluated AFI rankings of the top 100 (American) (narrative non-documentary feature) films of all time. Only one movie from the the Aughts is in the new ranking (versus seven from the 90s on the 1997 list). That movie is LOTR: Fellowship of the Rings. A decent choice for the epic Aughts, but I'd think Eternal Sunshine and maybe Million Dollar Baby or possibly even Requiem for a Dream would deserve some mention. I'd put movies like Waking Life, Spider-Man 2 or Memento on my shortlist of consideration too. Let's not forget that they put Dances With Wolves on the list last time (a movie that has not aged well at all).

Right, things about the list I'm happy about: the rises of Raging Bull and American Graffiti as well as the inclusion of Nashville, Shawshank, Do the Right Thing, and Blade Runner. The descent of Forrest Gump (but not far enough!), the near-removal of Ben-Hur, and Gone With the Wind out of the top five.

Removals that blew my mind: All Quiet on the Western Front, The Third Man, (come on, when we talk about "most influential," how can we leave that out?), Jazz Singer, Doctor Zhivago, Manchurian Candidate, and Fantasia. Also, Fargo. Come on.

Additions that blew my mind: Titanic (higher than Pulp Fiction?! higher than Do The Right Thing?!), Intolerance replacing Birth of a Nation (by the AFI's standards, Birth certainly had more influence, historical impact, and long-lasting popularity. I like Intolerance more, but Birth is more justly Griffith's American "classic"), Cabaret (this one doesn't blow my mind so much as I didn't like it), including Toy Story at the expense of Fantasia. (Does a list of great American movies only deserve two animated ones? Not that I don't love Toy Story, but why couldn't they have made room for both?), Sixth Sense (I'd give it another decade), Saving Private Ryan (same).

Undeserved bump-ups: The Searchers (Is this really going to be canonized as the great American western? God, I hope not. It's not bad, but there's plenty better, even on the list.) The Sound of Music. (I love this movie to death, but really, #40?) Rocky. Yeah. No. (Can anyone believe that Stallone was nominated for the screenplay Oscar?

Undeserved knock-downs (there were a lot): On the Waterfront down 11 spots, Clockwork Orange down 24 spots, and French Connection down 23 spots. One trend was that movies which once set the bar for "edgy" (Bonnie and Clyde, Jaws, Midnight Cowboy, The Graduate, Clockwork, Manchurian, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Taxi Driver, etc.) were deemed somehow weaker after the passing of time. (There are exceptions: Deer Hunter comes to mind.) I suppose it's fair that since we see the violence of Bonnie and Clyde, the sex taboos of The Graduate, or the psychosis of Taxi Driver magnified enormously in rather bland contemporary studio movies for the masses, it's hard to find it shocking any more, which admittedly lent much of those films' power.

Also, knocking It's A Wonderful Life down 9 spots? Not cool.

Movies that continue to be excluded for reasons passing understanding: Anatomy of a Murder, Night of the Hunter, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, any Lynch film (Eraserhead? Blue Velvet? Mullholland Drive? Take your pick.), L.A. Confidential, Saturday Night Fever (yeah, you read that right.), Lady from Shanghai, Dog Day Afternoon, Man Who Shot Liberty Valance or Red River.

OK, that's my spiel. Obviously, as Schmelee says, these lists are best for consideration by others and inspiring debate. I definitely give the list props for accepting changes and searching further rather than defining film greatness concretely. Still, many of the weaknesses of the first list remain, just updated for newer films.

P.S. Here's the grand Canonizer Ebert's take on the AFI list.

An update

OK, folks, I'm back, after sloth and vacation. I was just going to wait till I go back to the States to update again, but there's enough that I'm reading that it's worth mentioning.

I wonder whether I should go with smaller items. Oh well.

• First off, another week, another Bush administration resignation. What was that old Freedom Movement poster?

  "There's a street in Itta Bena called Freedom. There's a town in Mississippi called Liberty. There's a department in Washington called Justice."

Justice, it appears, is only the name of the department, not of its profession, which is obfuscation and denial.

• The noise surrounding Guantanamo closure seems genuine this time, despite White House denials. Still, I'm not holding my breath. Let's not forget that over a year ago, Bush said he'd "like to close Guantanamo, but..." Deferring again, this time to the military, Bush eschews responsibility that belongs to him solely. Way to lead.

• Religious students have abducted foreign nationals in Pakistan and are holding them in a mosque for "immoral activities." Say, there seems to be a deafening silence from the Pakistani Parliament on this injustice, right after they condemned England's knighthood of Salman Rushdie. Irshad Manji nails the hypocrisy of demanding "tolerance" towards Islam while its extremists use it to justify the greatest intolerance.

• If you haven't seen the trailer for the Coen Brothers' new movie "No Country for Old Men"... you should. Javier Bardem is a bad-ass. If you love Westerns, blood, or Cormac McCarthy, this is the movie for you.

• (Speaking of which, I'll blog soon about the last two solid films I've seen, Persepolis and Death Proof, which was released in France separately from its Grindhouse partner, Planet Terror.)

• Google's solar panels. Pretty neat business.

• Um, isn't photography legal? I guess not.

• NPR runs down some helpful facts and analysis on health insurance to think about surrounding Sicko, the new Michael Moore feature.

• Good news from Iraq? I hope so. Instapundit notes that this has been weakly covered by MSM, but let's be fair, we've heard this "good news" spiel before. It only goes to further emphasize how September is a meaningless date. When Petraeus and the new commanders testify before Congress in September, the "We're Winning!" spin will just keep on coming, while people continue to die unnecessarily. Anbar has been subdued, but the top al-Qaeda commanders slipped away in Baqubah. We squash one insurgent group and another one rises up. And, surprise, surprise: the political situation is still a mess, with the sectarian tensions not weakening.

• Slate's slideshow of (really) early movies is worth a gander.

• Noel Murray and Scott Tobias do AV Club crosstalk about the efficacy of the MPAA's rating system. Worth the read if you've got time.

• Ridiculous. 78 in a 55 zone in Virginia = 1,250 bucks. It's another perk of being rich... you can afford to speed.

• Must-read: Seymour Hersh's piece on Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba (Ret.), who wrote the report to investigate prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison. Essentially, he was sold out for doing his job and having integrity. As we've learned in this Administration, being a good man and a good foot soldier are incompatible. Taguba has some harsh words at the end:

  “From the moment a soldier enlists, we inculcate loyalty, duty, honor, integrity, and selfless service,” Taguba said. “And yet when we get to the senior-officer level we forget those values. I know that my peers in the Army will be mad at me for speaking out, but the fact is that we violated the laws of land warfare in Abu Ghraib. We violated the tenets of the Geneva Convention. We violated our own principles and we violated the core of our military values. The stress of combat is not an excuse, and I believe, even today, that those civilian and military leaders responsible should be held accountable.”

• For today's video selection, I really wanted to pick the International Players' Anthem with UGK (ft. Outkast), just because it's so nice to hear Andre rapping again with some great beats and a solid video. You can see it here. The winner, though, is the video that has taken the internet by storm, a five second, erroneously named clip that shouldn't (and isn't) funny, which of course didn't stop me from laughing at it. Here's "Dramatic Chipmunk."
  

At least the Bush Administration can say it's best in one respect

...Most Ironic Administration In History

• Adding to his various ironic schticks (the emphatic "I'm the decider/commanderguy" bit, the "We do not torture" while torturing, the "Freedomerica" while breaking down our freedoms... the list goes on), here's Bush in Prague with the Czech President yakking about press freedom (scroll to the last blurb). Seems that the press conference was one of those where the press don't get to ask any questions. Bush at the end thanked the media for a "chance to discuss these issues with the media." Apparently, "discuss with" now a synonym for "force-feed to". On the one hand, I should love it because of the irony... but on the other hand, I'm dying inside because this guy is my President.

• Meanwhile in the race to replace the guy... uh, what the hell planet is NRO on? I'm sorry? There's so many things wrong with this idiocy. First, the "winner" of tonight's debate if there ever was one was McCain. He stood his ground, held unpopular positions, and reminded Republicans why they liked him in the first place. But second, and most importantly, Levin posits that Giuliani, Thompson, and Romney are "Presidential" while the three leading Democrats, Clinton, Obama, and Edwards are not. Really? Where the hell is this guy coming from? This is a perfect demonstration of the Republican conflation of testosterone and leadership. Note that the three Levin picks are the three best conveyors of testosterone... Giuliani the presumed 9/11 hero, Thompson the actual actor, and "Double Guantanamo" Romney the game show host. Never mind that McCain actually fought in a war. These guys have "guts." These are the "dream" candidates?

• While the Republicans distance themselves from Bush precipitously, they are all still descendants of his legacy: on torture, on foreign policy, on big-government "conservatism," etc. Greenwald fairly well dismantles the right's supposedly sudden discovery that Bush is not a "true" conservative just as soon as he's not popular any more. Now, as Atrios suggests, the Republicans can go embrace a new Leader to replace the disgraced one. As soon as he's unpopular, Bush is no longer useful to "the movement." These guys drive me nuts.

• With all the Rome/America comparisons floating about, here's a more in-depth piece in Vanity Fair excerpted from Cullen Murphy's new book on the subject. Murphy identifies the problem of private contractors and government outsourcing as the source of the downfall of the "empire" as it were. I'm not sure if I entirely agree, but no doubt, Murphy succinctly breaks down the problems of the contractor-based system.

• So the Second Circuit ruled that if the words "fuck" and "shit" are used on air in an off-the-cuff comment, the station can't be fined if they reach the audience's ears. A victory for the First Amendment! But wait! FCC Chair Kevin Martin doesn't think so, releasing this press release... which contains the dreaded words "fuck" and "shit" themselves. So... in Martin's world, if CNN broadcasts his press release, can they be fined? Should they? Hey, Kevin Martin. Fuck you.

• The New Republic (free registration) has a series of pieces on Bernard Kouchner, France's new Foreign Minister. It's definitely worth a read, since Kouchner will no doubt be the new global face of France and has almost no previous exposure in America.

• Am I the only one who finds the "PARDON SCOOTER" talk a bit silly? Isn't this the same party that thought that perjury was a high enough crime and/or misdemeanor to impeach Bill Clinton? And, not that it matters when it comes to perjury, but Clinton's was about a blowjob, and Libby's was about the outing of a covert CIA agent. While Libby's defenders may fight to make the public think that Valerie Plame was a desk jockey, make no mistake. She was a covert agent. So covert that the CIA won't let her disclose information already in the public domain in her memoir. This guy broke the law and lied under oath. Where are all the "law and order" guys now?

• In memory of great "Hey! It's That Guy!"s, Cracked has a list of the 20 best "That Guy"s. Amazed that Walsh isn't number one, though. And I don't think Cromwell can count as a "That Guy." He even had a starring role in a short-lived family drama.

• Bye Bob. You made so many summer weekday mornings Righter.

• I bought my ticket to go see the sneak preview of Persepolis Friday night. If you aren't familiar, Persepolis was originally a French language graphic novel in four volumes by Marjane Satrapi, detailing her flight from Iran and consequent interactions with her homeland, her family who was left behind, and various historical events like the Iran/Iraq war. It will be remembered as a monument to the 21st century autobiographical graphic novel, and I love the book and its sequel Persepolis 2. That's why the thought of a movie was so intriguing. I had no idea they were making one until it won the Prize of the Jury at Cannes. Needless to say, I'm pumped. Plus, the filmmakers will be there! And possibly Satrapi, too (although I'm not sure on that one... it may just be the other animation director).

• Gas prices pimpin all over the world.

• Hah. Amp'd Mobile goes under, because almost half its subscribers don't pay their bills. The danger of approaching the youth market rear their head. We are irresponsible fickle bastards.

OK, that's it for now.
Video clip. It's the Human Slinky! Not that difficult to figure out, but hypnotizing to watch.

Lurn to spell edition

• I really like the idea that the guys who bust these kids' balls and brains over the spelling of diverse English arcana can't spell Maryland right. Apparently, they misspelled Virginia as "Virgina," too. I normally have few qualms about spelling errors. Whatever. Even elementary fleas do it. But when you're holding spelling as this idol to be worshiped and slaved over, you'd better spell the names right. Yeesh.

• Speaking of spelling bees, do spelling bees work in other languages? Slate says... sort of. I actually participated in a "word memorization" competition in Chinese school for a few years. You were given a word and then had to give a number of phrases which used the word. This was easy up until they started to get obscure, and in a language with tens of thousands of characters, it's not hard to do.

• On the topic of consistency, we return as always to the Bush Administration and its war-cheerleader base. So, maybe you've heard about the al-Qaeda torture training manual (warning: NSFW, graphic, cartoonish depictions of violence)? Well, maybe you haven't. Probably because it hasn't been heavily reported by mainstream media... because the fact that al-Qaeda tortures people is not news. We know they do. They're a fanatical, amoral, nihilist group of killers bent on destroying Western civilization and employing any means to do it. That's why they are bad guys. The right-wingers, however, are riled up. How dare the mainstream media report every piece of news where Americans are accused of torture, but sweep under the carpet this (in their deluded eyes) equally important story? Let's note that the manual is a little shady on its own... if you're al-Qaeda do you really need Tarantino-esque bloodspurting? But let's suppose it is authentic and surprise! al-Qaeda tortures people. Do these guys listen to themselves when they talk? This is their basic question: why is it news when we torture and not news when al-Qaeda tortures? And the simple response is... because we're not supposed to. They want to accuse the media of "boycotting" the al-Qaeda torture story? Fine. But torture is now the policy of my government, and it undermines the ideals of our nation. The only reason our global dalliances were justified was our moral standing as an extraordinary nation, that never tortured, that valued human rights, that invoked the "Four Freedoms." Now, we're trying to be the moral equivalents of al-Qaeda. What a long way we've come. (I was thinking this yesterday and mentioned it to someone, then came home and read Greenwald. And what do you know? Greenwald basically says the same thing I do, but, you know, better. Man, that guy's a hoss. Also, you should read Andrew Sullivan's piece on "enhanced interrogation." It's among his finest work.)

• A side note: the right-wing is always accusing us lefty academics of being wishy-washy "moral equivalence" relativists who don't mind women being subjugated so long as it's done by another culture. Because we have to "respect cultures" and whatnot. But the greatest "moral" leader of their side (who they now run away from as if he was carrying antibiotic-resistant TB) has led America into the worst depths of morally ambivalent behavior. Never mind natural laws, or the rights of man. We can hit them because "they" hit us, and sometimes even before "they" hit us. We can torture because "they" torture. We feign outrage at China blowing a satellite out of the sky even though we're trying to do the same thing. We feign outrage at Abu Ghraib prison photos while the horrors depicted within become our policy. We feign outrage at clamp-downs on the press in the Sudan, while Cheney kicks the reporters out of the room. I think we're still suffering whiplash from the last 7 years, and everything that we have lost. When all the Republican candidates for President stand up to out-Rambo each other on how much they'd like to torture people, and the crowd cheers, you know you must be in America... or Pakistan.

• ARGH FIRE HIM FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!

• Onto lighter things, here's a website at which I wasted about ten minutes. It's called Celebritymustache.com and it's exactly what you think it is. Celebrity faces + drag-n-drop mustaches. Awesome.

• Surprise. David Hyde Pierce is gay. You don't say.

• I really want to see this movie. Why, oh, why does France have to release it three months from now? The New York Times Magazine feature last week on Judd Apatow is enlightening, too.

• Finally, here's an intriguing and disturbing paper I read from Bryan Caplan at the Cato Institute. It's an excerpt/adaptation of his new book about why democracies choose bad policies. The intriguing stuff: voters often pick dumb policies and misunderstand basic economics with systematic errors and biases. The disturbing stuff: the only way to eliminate such problems is to leave things up entirely to markets (what a surprise coming from Caplan). But I've been chewing on this for a while. After all, democracy shouldn't be the be-all-and-end-all of governments, right? We should always keep improving, and what comes next? Also, I found his thoughts about anti-market bias as rather thought-provoking... are we who don't understand economics worse for our country? Maybe we should be teaching economics in high school, eh?

And today's video selection has a special place in my heart... from the dear old Chicago Cubs clubhouse. Looks like business as usual. GO CUBS!!!!!1111one1won11!two