It...it could be all right
Two events occurred in the past week that led to this article. The first was receiving Salt in the mail from Netflix. Everyone who has Netflix has had a similar experience – opening up the little red sleeve excitedly and saying with disappointment, “When the hell did I add (Teen Wolf 2, Eating, Salt, etc) to my queue?” Lately though this’d been happening more often then I’d care to admit. When Salt came in I decided it was time for a radical spring queue cleaning.
A day or so later, I was watching one of my favorite podcasts, ‘The Totally Rad Show.” Periodically the trio does an episode where they use the website flickchart.com to rate one movie against another. By making a decision about one movie versus another, and then again, and then again you start to establish a top ten list that is more concrete than giving a movie an arbitrary numerical value. Occasionally though you’ll stumble on a movie you haven’t seen and that creates what the guys on TRS call their movie List of Shame.
I’ve always wanted to create my List of Shame and then systematically check movies off of it. As an over-opinionated geek, I understand how much it hurts my credibility to admit that I’ve never seen Apocalypse Now (“You’ve NEVER seen Apocalypse NOW?!?”) as well as a few others. After suffering through several duds I’ve finally decided to assemble my list of shame and deal with it once and for all.
How To Go About It? – The Rules
While flickchart is fun and addictive there were a couple of issues with using it to create the list. Flickchart does keep track of the movies you haven’t seen, however, not having seen Jurassic Park 3 doesn’t qualify as something I’m ashamed of. It tries to organize them based on the overall site ratings but the overall site top ten is very slanted towards contemporary movies. I decided instead to use IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, and the AFI’s top 100.
IMDB’s lists are based on user ratings. The site gives you an average for each movie and the total number of reviews. Rotten Tomatoes seemed a good counterbalance to that as it’s scores are based on critical reviews rather than user reviews, again with total votes. AFI’s top 100 is in here because it’s probably the most commonly listed top one-hundred movie list. After much deliberation, research, and analysis I decided on the following rules arbitrarily. To make the list:
- The movie must have been in a top ten within a specific genre.
- The movie must have at least 10,000 votes and a rating of 8 (IMDB) or 50 critic reviews (Rotten Tomatoes)
- The movie has to either has to be one I haven’t seen or one that I haven’t seen in over half the number of years I am old. The reason for this last rule is I saw Dr. Strangelove and A Clockwork Orange when I was 12 and haven’t since. I have a feeling my appreciation for them will have changed.
Why Review Them?
Someone who hasn’t seen a movie like Citizen Kane might think of watching it in the same way they might think of reading War & Peace or a Tale of Two Cities. They get a little bleary eyed and drowsy at the very prospect, as though someone just asked them to mow the lawn on a hundred degree day. Sure there’s the possibility of getting something out of the experience but that doesn’t change the fact that it sounds like a big chore.
There isn’t anything new I’m going to bring to a discussion of Citizen Kane’s aesthetics or it’s it’s value in the history of cinema. I’m not that smart. But what I can says is, did I enjoy it? Are these movies fun? Are they accessible? Do I think that someone else can? Do I think that you should down and watch it? Is it worth it if I’m not applying to NYU Filmschool next year?
My own list is included below but I invite you to take the time to make your own. Check back soon for the first review and discussion of the movie.
Consolidated List
12 Angry Men
2001: A Space Odyssey*
A Clockwork Orange
A Fistful of Dollars
A Hard Day’s Night
A Night At The Opera
Afghan Star
The African Queen
All About Eve
All Quiet on the Western Front
All The President’s Men
American Graffiti
Andrei Rublev
The Apartment
Apocalypse Now
Aruitemo Aruitemo (Still Walking)
The Battle of Algiers
Ben-Hur
The Best Years of Our Lives
The Big Sleep
Black Cat, White Cat
Bonnie and Clyde
Bride of Frankenstein
The Bridge On The River Kwai
Bringing Up Baby
Bus 174
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Cabaret
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Casablanca
Castle in the Sky
Chinatown
Cinderella Man
Cinema Paradiso
Citizen Kane
City Lights
City of God
The Cove
Das Boot
Dawn of the Dead (78)
The Deer Hunter
Deliver Us From Evil
Diabolique (55)
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Do The Right Thing
Double Indemnity
Downfall
Dr. Strangelove
Duck Soup
Easy Rider
The Elephant Man
Fanny and Alexander
Fitzcarraldo
For a Few Dollars More
Frankenstein
The French Connection
Gandhi
The General
The Gold Rush
Gone With The Wind
The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
The Grapes of Wrath
The Great Dictator
The Great Escape
High Noon
Howl’s Moving Castle
Hud
The Hustler
In The Heat of the Night
Into the Wild
Intolerance
Ip Man
It Happened One Night
Judgment at Nuremberg
The Kid
The Killing
King Kong
Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India
The Last Picture Show
Laura*
Lawrence of Arabia
Le Gout Des Autres (The Tase of Others) (It Takes All Kinds)
Life is Beautiful
M
Mary and Max
The Maltese Falcon
Man on Wire
The Man Who Shot LIberty Valance
M*A*S*H
Metropolis
Midnight Cowboy
Modern Times
Mr. Smith Goes To Washington
My Neighbor Totoro
Nashville
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
Network
The Night of the Hunter
Nosferatu
Notorious
On The Waterfront
Once
Once Upon a Time in the West
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest
Out of the Past
The Passion of Joan of Arc
Paths of Glory
Persona
The Philadelphia Story
Platoon
Princess Mononoke
Raging Bull
Ran
Rashomon
Requiem for a Dream
Rio Bravo
Rosemary’s Baby
The Sea Inside
The Searchers
Seven Samurai
The Seventh Seal
Shadow of a Doubt
Shane
Shaun of the Dead
Singin’ In The Rain
Some Like It Hot
Sophie’s Choice
Spartacus
Spirited Away
The Sting
Strangers on a Train
Sullivan’s Travels
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
Sunset Blvd.
The Sweet Hereafter
Swing Time
Taxi to the Dark Side
There Will Be Blood
The Thing (82)
The Third Man
To Have and Have Not
Touch of Evil
The Treasure of Sierra Madre
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (62)
White Heat
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
The Wild Bunch
The Wrestler
Yankee Doodle Dandy
Yojimbo
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