On AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies

Ahh, 1998. While I was wrapping up seventh grade, AFI was putting the finishing touches on the list of movies that haunts me to this day: the 100 greatest movies. I'll admit it, I want to watch all the movies on this list. For the same reason that I want to visit all 50 states - it's a reasonable challenge.

Thanks to my Mom's interest in the list, I got a jump start on things right after the TV special announcing the picks first aired. I was able to get some of the long ones -- Gone with the Wind, The Godfather, Doctor Zhivago -- out of the way before I had things like a driver's license or the Internet (OK, we had AOL then, but at this point, does that even count as the Internet?) to distract me.

In college, things got serious: I printed out the list on a piece of paper and started crossing things off. It was on. And then AFI had to go and shake things up and release a new 10th anniversary list, rendering my watching of (the terribleness that is) A Place in the Sun pointless.

What a waste.

Come on, AFI. Anyway, because I'm a traditionalist, my progress on the original list is presented below. As you'll see, I have some things to look forward to. And then I also need to find time to watch Birth of a Nation. Not really rushing into that one.

X 1. Citizen Kane

X 2. Casablanca

X 3. The Godfather

X 4. Gone With the Wind

X 5. Lawrence of Arabia

X 6. The Wizard of Oz

X 7. The Graduate

8. On the Waterfront

X 9. Schindler's List

X 10. Singin' in the Rain

X 11. It's a Wonderful Life

X 12. Sunset Boulevard

13. The Bridge on the River Kwai

X 14. Some Like It Hot

X 15. Star Wars

X 16. All About Eve

17. The African Queen

X 18. Psycho

X 19. Chinatown

X 20. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

X 21. The Grapes of Wrath

X 22. 2001: A Space Odyssey

X 23. The Maltese Falcon

X 24. Raging Bull

X 25. ET

X 26. Dr. Strangelove

X 27. Bonnie & Clyde

28. Apocalypse Now

29. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

X 30. Treasure of the Sierra Madre

X 31. Annie Hall

32. The Godfather Part II

X 33. High Noon

X 34. To Kill a Mockingbird

X 35. It Happened One Night - movie I watched most recently

X 36. Midnight Cowboy

X 37. The Best Years of Our Lives

38. Double Indemnity

X 39. Doctor Zhivago

X 40. North By Northwest

41. West Side Story

X 42. Rear Window

43. King Kong

44. Birth of a Nation

45. A Streetcar Named Desire

X 46. A Clockwork Orange

X 47. Taxi Driver

X 48. Jaws

X 49. Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs

X 50. Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid

X 51. The Philadelphia Story

X 52. From Here to Eternity

X 53. Amadeus

54. All Quiet on the Western Front

X 55. The Sound of Music

X 56. M*A*S*H

X 57. The Third Man

X 58. Fantasia

X 59. Rebel Without A Cause

X 60. Raiders of the Lost Ark

X 61. Vertigo

X 62. Tootsie

X 63. Stagecoach

64. Close Encounters of the Third Kind

65. Silence of the Lambs

X 66. Network

67. The Manchurian Candidate

68. An American in Paris

X 69. Shane

X 70. The French Connection

X 71. Forrest Gump

X 72. Ben Hur

73. Wuthering Heights

74. The Gold Rush

X 75. Dances with Wolves

76. City Lights

X 77. American Graffiti

X 78. Rocky

79. The Deer Hunter

80. The Wild Bunch

81. Modern Times

82. Giant

X 83. Platoon

X 84. Fargo

85. Duck Soup

86. Mutiny on the Bounty

87. Frankenstein

X 88. Easy Rider

89. Patton

90. The Jazz Singer

91. My Fair Lady

X 92. A Place in the Sun

X 93. The Apartment

94. Goodfellas

95. Pulp Fiction

X 96. The Searchers

X 97. Bringing Up Baby

X 98. Unforgiven

X 99. Guess Who's Coming for Dinner

100. Yankee Doodle Dandy

My Top Five:

Annie Hall (#31)

Doctor Zhivago (#39)

Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid (#50)

Raiders of the Lost Ark (#60)

Forrest Gump (#71)

Good Westerns:

High Noon (#33) and Unforgiven (#98)

John Wayne Westerns:

Stagecoach (#63) and The Searchers (#96)

Westerns That Are Annoying As Hell Because of a Little Boy Who Yells "Shane" A Lot:

Shane (#69)

Not Actually a Western:

Midnight Cowboy (#36)

Leftover Movies I Actually Want to Watch:

The Godfather Part II (#32) and Raging Bull (#24)

Movies I've Watched the Most:

Singin' in the Rain (#10), It's a Wonderful Life (#11) and Star Wars (#15)

The Mr. Jensen Double Feature:

The Grapes of Wrath (#21) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (#22)

So only 36 35 34 33 32 to go.

On My #5 Favorite Christmas Song

"Do They Know it's Christmas?" - Band Aid

I thought I liked this song. And then moments ago I found the video for this song on YouTube. Now I love this song. Here's what you can expect: Phil Collins. Boy George. Bono with a mullet. Other people arriving in limos. More hair. One month later (Jan. 1985), I was born into this craziness. But I digress.

The song is pretty silly, and kind of offensive. But it was for a good cause!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5cX_ncZLls

On The West Wing

I wasn't sure what it would take to get me to start blogging - world travels, election season, one of those major turning points like a wedding or child birth? No, it turns out it just took the right TV show. Yes, I am talking about The West Wing.

Due to draconian no-TV-after-six-p.m.-on-a-school-night rules back at the parents' house, I missed most decent shows pre-2003. Therefore, in my adult years, I've become familiar with a bittersweet phenomenon I call: Discovering Really Good Shows on DVD that Have Already Gone Off the Air, Therefore You Must Ration Watching the Episodes Available, Because That's All You Get. It's over.

I first experienced this painful joy while watching the four seasons of Felicity, arguably the greatest show of all time. This was a little different because when I caught on to the show, only the first season was available on DVD, making it impossible for me to overdose. The people at Buena Vista Home Entertainment had my back, and about every nine months they released the next set of episodes until they reached senior year, when Felicity graduated, and then the producers found out the network ordered four more episodes, and they had that awkward time travel plot. JJ Abrams: all about the time travel.


Spoiler alert: Noel (guy in bottom left corner, duh) never has a chance.


Anyway, back to West Wing. This is different because when I started watching it this summer (after catching a couple morning reruns on Bravo), all seven seasons were available on DVD. I could have spent $149.99 to order the whole she-bang from Amazon, and commenced with the nonstop viewing. But I didn't want to breeze through a good thing, because then what would be left for me on the good, unwatched TV frontier? OK, Battlestar Galactica. But after that?! Probably The Wire. OK, but after that, I'm really screwed. Hence, the need for moderation.

That's where the Seattle Public Library comes in. Not only does it allow me to rent shows for free, but because the rest of Seattle is also trying to watch these shows, it takes about three months to get through the holds list. The only problem is that once I get the discs, I only have two weeks to watch the whole season before it's due back, thus causing a mini-overdose. So it's an imperfect system.

On a side note, you may be wondering what makes The West Wing so great. I don't have much to add beyond what you can read reviews posted on Netflix and places like that. The real-life dilemmas, the banter between characters, the Christmas episode where Toby helps a homeless vet and I, someone who rarely cries, just about lost it. All good stuff. However, I will add that CJ Cregg, the press secretary, is one of the coolest female characters in the history of TV. She is smart, witty, assertive, and has a cute thing with Danny the reporter. In short she represents how women have made great strides in the newsroom, once an all-male domain, not only in movies and TV, but also blah blah blah. For background, consult your copy of my college history senior thesis, "Equality in Journalism on Different Deadlines: A Comparison of Women's Place in the Historical and Popular Culture Newsroom." Really. I'll wait.

The only issue I take with the show, and this is probably common, is that Rob Lowe, try as he might, does not come off as sharp as his character is supposed to be. He's just too pretty. It makes for easy viewing though.


Dreamy


So that's about all I have to say about that. Back to Season 2! With any luck I will hold off at least a few weeks before starting Season 3.

This is just...

One of my top-3 comics of all time.

Just in case

I figured I'd reserve kirterry.blogspot.com now. Watch out in the future. Maybe I'll start blogging?