AFI 100 Films

Last night I watched the very enjoyable Annie Hall, a film that rivals Duck Soup for the sheer rapidity of laughs from the central character.  Everytime I find a film particularly interesting, it is always fun to look at it’s IMDB and Wikipedia entries.  In doing so today, I noticed Annie Hall appears high on the America Film Institute’s Top 100 polls for overall best (#31), laughs (#4), passions (#11), songs (#90), and quotes (#55). [Did no one else find the frequent sight of Woody Allen in bed scary, I wonder?]

These AFI polls were conducted last year (2005) and, while I agree with the appearance of Annie Hall in those top 100s, some of the other listings are simply weird and a lot about the viewing public can be read into the entries…

1. Take the ‘100 Cheers‘, i.e., the most inspiring movies.  A lot of movies appearing on the list, I admit, are quite inspiring, but what makes them good films are their cautionary tales that often end in disaster:
   • Bridge on the River Kwai (#14)?
   • The Right Stuff (#19)?  Grissom’s vessel “failing” on re-entry, most of the surviving original test-pilots being sidelined, and then Grissom being burned to death because the removal of explosive latches that failed for him at the end of M4.  Cheery stuff indeed.
   • Lawrence of Arabia (#30)?  The disasterous occupation of Damascus after the ‘traumatised’ Lawrence orders the Tafas massacre and his subsequent removal by the Army.
   • 2001?  A Beautiful Mind? Chariots of Fire? [I just noticed that all but one of these is based on a real story; what does that tell you about the world?]
2. And then there’s the 100 Quotes!
   • Why have “Plastics” (#42) above “Are you trying to seduce me, Mrs. Robinson?” (#63)
   • Why no Duck Soup? [it was nominated three times in the 400 nominations]
   • Why a silly Keaton quote from Annie Hall (#55)? [there were two Alvy quotes nominated]
   • Interestly, “Excellent”, “We’re not worthy!”, and “One Million Dollars!” didn’t make the Top 100, which shows you how high-brow the vote was.