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.
