AFI 10 Top 10: A Rant.

So the American Film Institute (AFI) are a bunch of idiots. I thought the Academy Awards was political, but the AFI’s latest List is down right retarded. They did 10 categories and showed the top 10 movies in each category, that they felt were the 10 best for that category. Sports movies made sense; Gangster movies made sense; Sci-Fi movies mostly made sense… except for A Clockwork Orange. That movie was never on my books as Sci-Fi. And Westerns even made sense. Anyway… Fantasy made no sense at all. There was only one movie in the list that if you looked in the Fantasy section of a bookstore, would you find the novel of. That being Fellowship of the Ring. Umm… the only Fantasy movie to win a Best Picture Oscar was Return of the King… would *that* not qualify? Other “fantasy” movies in the list were Big, Groundhog Day, Field of Dreams, and Harvey. Those aren’t Fantasy… not really. I mean, yeah, they can’t happen in real life, but if that’s the only factor, where was Raiders of the Lost Ark? Actually I guess Harvey *can* happen in real life… it’s just a guy with an imaginary friend. I think I saw that in “A Beautiful Mind”. Fantasy should be about dragons or skeletons or magic. Where was the 7th Voyage of Sinbad? Where was Legend? Anyone ever hear of a movie called “The Dark Crystal”? The “#1” movie was The Wizard of Oz, which I would call fantasy, but was it better than Lord of the Rings? No… don’t be silly. 2001 A Space Odyssey was the number 1 Sci-Fi, with Star Wars (A New Hope) being #2. I guess you could say that 2001 was pure Sci-Fi, in that it is somewhat realistic and could even be achievable. It was an excellent book, but was it a good movie? I haven’t seen it, but others have called it boring, confusing, and artsie-fartsie. Now compare that to A New Hope. This movie changed the way Sci-Fi movies were made. It is a story of good vs. evil with good triumphing at the end. It’s a great movie that stands the test of time… at least it did until George went and made Han shoot second. 2001 obviously did not, because it’s 2008 and there’s still no moon base, space station with artificial gravity, or manned interplanetary space travel. It was rather funny that all but one of the Animated top ten were Disney or Disney-Pixar cartoons. The non-Disney cartoon was Shrek and it was number 8. Perhaps they don’t feel that Anime counts, because Akira was a dang fine movie. I hear that Princess Mononoke was also really good. What about Chicken Run or Curse of the Ware-rabbit? Both were really excellent animated movies. Oh yes… the #1 Romantic Comedy was a Charlie Chaplin silent picture called “City Lights”. Why? Quoting the AFI president: “When 'City Lights' is honored as the number 1 romantic comedy, millions of people will go back and watch it again." So basically they aren’t honoring any films, they are just using it as a 3 hour TV commercial for a bunch of movies that people don’t care about any more, and they throw some in that people do care about to keep them interested. Annie Freaking Hall. Anyway… I had to rant about that.