AFI's Top 100 Films

[innerSpaceman]

Um, Toy Story is better than Ben-Hur.


Watched Ben-Hur lately? It hasn't aged well. Bloated, soap-opera, cheesy melodrama. Shouldn't even be on the list.



Toy Story is likely the best buddy movie ever made, or up there with the best of that venerable genre. It's got brilliant story construction (which its sequel lacks completely), great characters, wonderful art direction, and a clever comedic script brought to life by great performances throughout.


It's not the best Pixar ... but as the first, and certainly one of the best, it tips the Cultural Impact meter in favor of being on the list.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

I have a soft spot for epics of all eras. Ben Hur, Spartacus, Towering Inferno, Poseidon Adventure - these were fed to me with a bottle (along with 1/4 mile drag racing and National Geographic specials).

Which is why I liked Titanic, though I completely understand why others didn't.

[innerSpaceman]

Oh, I like 'em, too. I just don't consider any of them "best" material.



(Unlikely as it might seem ... I gave the original Poseidon Adventure a recentish viewing - after its retarded remake came out - - and it's actually a very good movie, easily the best of the bloated epics and far and away the best "disaster" movie.)

[AllyOops!]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

(Unlikely as it might seem ... I gave the original Poseidon Adventure a recentish viewing - after its retarded remake came out - - and it's actually a very good movie, easily the best of the bloated epics and far and away the best "disaster" movie.)

Amen! I love Irwin Allen disaster flicks (although I loathe any other disaster flick- they wig me out)!

I love the Poseidon Adventure & have seen it many a time. Great movie! The sequel? My boyfriend loved it (he's never seen the original). I wanted to puke. It literally made my stomach turn. Zero storyline, but lots of gruesome special effects sequences. It just sucked harder then, well, me on my boyfriend & I's anniversary night.

The Towering Inferno was also awesome. I have both that & Poseidon on DVD. Inferno scared me, though (I've always feared fire since I was a little girl). The one low point? It stars O.J. as the loveable security guard who, in the end, rescues a baby kitten. Yay for rescuing the kitten, nay for being a cold-blooded murderer, you a*hole. Notice all angry roads lead to O.J. for me?

In the end, it's all nothing more then opinion. Have I seen most of the movies on that list? Nope. But then, I'm a TV freak who also loves to read. I'm not too big on goin' to the movies.

[blueerica]

I need to take some time later and go through the list. Maybe.

[Alex]

I don't consider The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure to be "epics." At least not in the same way that Ben-Hur, Spartacus, Lawrence of Arabia are.

In fact, I'd view them as the opposite of epic. One narrow event in one narrow slice of time involving one small group of people. However, as early disaster movies, they are way better than most that followed.

[Strangler Lewis]

I have a soft spot in my heart for "The Poseidon Adventure" because it was one of the two movies that when it came out, my parents refused to let me even though most of my friends were going. "The Getaway" was the other.

I rank The Poseidon Adventure highly in the genre of 70s movies where men shout at each other a lot.

[Boss Radio]

I disagree with these omissions:

Stagecoach (1939)
The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
Frankenstein (1931)
My Fair Lady (1964)

And where, I ask you, is The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, one of John Ford's greatest films? Where is Harold and Maude? The Day the Earth Stood Still? The Lost Weekend?

AFI should break the list into pre-1950 and post-1950. Then they get two specials and everyone is happy.

[blueerica]

While I still haven't thoroughly scanned the list, one must consider ground-breaking films, even if they don't hold up as well today. Then again, they missed such ground-breaking robot films as The Day the Earth Stood Still in favor of other movies.

The Searchers really stands as one of my least favorite movies of all time, but mostly due to my beliefs. Though it was a departure for Ford with the blurred lines, and especially for John Wayne (that is, I think, his first "bad-guy" role, except, he can't just be a bad guy, he's still glorified and not in a way that's meaningful, it's like they try to make him out like he's a good guy, which I think is pretty crappy). I still don't know why it's so high on the list. I just have to think it's even on there because it was such a departure for Wayne, in particular. (Crappy movie - makes me want to read Cormac McCarthy for that super gritty bloody stuff in which the bad are bad, even when they're good, and there isn't any fluff over it.)

Ugh, OK, I really do need to go through the list more.

[Alex]

I agree on The Searchers and wonder what changed in the last decade that it moved from 96 on the list to 12. Is it just the recent publicity of the big DVD release that got so much press?