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100 Great Movies... added 01/10/02 So Roger Ebert came up with his list of the 100 greatest movies of all time. I read it, nodding along much more than I should have considering Ebert is a terrible, terrible critic. I guessed that 100 movies gives you enough room to please a lot of people. Unlike most of my crackpot theories, this one I thought I could test. I came up with my own list in the spirit that 100 was a freaking lot of movies, so as soon as I thought of a movie I liked, I wrote it down, hardly even slowing down until I got to around 60. Then I started thinking, what did I miss? and what should I have? and pushed to around 115. I did it without looking at anybody else's list, except for my initial cursury glance at Ebert's. Then I started cutting as fast as possible. In the end, I realized I didn't really make a best ever list. A hundred is a whole lot of movies, but I realized I haven't been alive long enough to name the best, so I'm not pretending these are the best movies of all time. There are a lot of movies that I'm sure are the best of all time and I still haven't seen them. But this isn't an entirely subjective list either. I'm not listing my favorite movie-going experiences here. Like the time Chris Haley had me laughing so hard I was this close to pissing my pants at Jaws 3-D. Or Operation Condor on my birthday with a buzz on. Or any movie that reminds me of some make out experience. (No Karate Kid you'll notice.) These are each objectively speaking great movies. Tapeheads, for example, was kicking around for a while, but then I decided that one might just be me.
2001: a space odyssey This can't be a best ever, there's no Citizen Kane. Well, I got to around 85 before I noticed I'd missed it. Maybe I thought I'd already written it down. I'm not really suggesting that Airplane! is a better movie than Citizen Kane. On the other hand, if I were on the couch, Citizen Kane would probably lose a remote control battle with every movie on my list. For me, it's like the Beatles. I respect the Beatles, I understand how important they are, I would never suggest they were anything short of monumental, but do I ever listen to them on purpose? Um, er ... So this is somewhere between a favorites and a best ever list. I can see now that some of the battle for the remote mentality shaped the list. There's way more comedies than I would have guessed. Disturbing, unpleasant movies didn't leap to mind when I was thinking in terms of positive and favorite. Where, looking over my list now, is Last Exit to Brooklyn, Dead Man Walking or The River's Edge? Of course, opinions change all the time and I won't be happy with this list in a week. (Or even in fifteen minutes when I go checking out other people's lists.) I highly recommend the list experience to everyone though. You'll probably surprise yourself. Holy Saints, I have four Kevin Costner movies on my list! Four! Despite the fact that he's something of an ass and responsible for The Postman. Still, you can't keep Bull Durham off. JFK and The Untouchables aren't really Kevin Costner movies, but there he is. I think there's some unfair backlash against Dances with Wolves. Too 'politically correct' or something. I mean, it's compelling, well-acted, exciting, beautiful and about a neglected American topic to boot. That's top 100 material. (Holy Christmas, I had Field of Dreams kicking around for a while. Five!!!) Another surprise: not as many sci-fi movies as I'd have guessed, but they just don't make many that good. And no James Bond! There was a decade one third of my life where I would have loved a new Bond movie to come out every year. But they don't age well and no one movie stands out. As C-Dog says about Ebert's choice of Goldfinger, "Spare me." I like old movies and I like foreign films, but I tried not to put things on because I felt I was supposed to. Sure, I love the Marx brothers, but I honestly laughed harder during Austin Powers than A Night At the Opera, and it isn't on the list either. It kills me not to have a Walter Matthau movie on the list, but I can't really come up with one that gets on the list for a reason other than I really want a Walter Matthau movie up there. I tried to cut off any thinking along the lines of I need more art house (or whatever) movies. Some movies didn't make it onto the list simply because I haven't seen them in twelve years and I don't trust my judgement. Hell, I used to think London Fog jackets were cool too. Ebert did a smart thing in watching all his movies again, but he gets paid to do that kind of thing. Some movies I just stuck with, despite my hesitations. Making the list was harder than I thought. My top 80 were solid and easy, but the last 20 kept swirling around. I had to weigh the relative greatness of unrelated movies I never imagined putting on a "greatest" list in the first place. Is Fletch better than John Dumbass Carpenter's The Thing? Depends on the week, I guess. This is what I've come up with.
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