HTF AFI 100 Challenge Revote Discussion Thread (1 Viewer)

[Robert Crawford]

I haven't decided whether I'm going to participate or not but this is my preliminary list. My list includes some films that have never been release on video and/or had little exposure on television over the years. My list might be slanted towards older films but it's just to give some of you some choices you might not have considered.
Crawdaddy's Top 100 Films

• The Adventures of Robin Hood
  All About Eve
  All Quiet on the Western Front
  American Graffitti
  Beauty and the Beast (1991)
  Ben-Hur
  The Best Years of Our Lives
  The Big Sleep
  Bonnie and Clyde
  The Bridge on the River Kwai
  Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
  Cabaret
  Casablanca
  Citizen Kane
  Cool Hand Luke
  The Deer Hunter
  Do The Right Thing
  Dr. Strangelove
  Double Indemnity
  E.T.
  Easy Rider
  The Exorcist
  Fantasia
  Forrest Gump
  Frankenstein
  The French Connection
  From Here to Eternity
  The General
  Giant
  The Godfather
  The Godfather Part II
  The Gold Rush
  Gone With the Wind
  Goodfellas
  The Graduate
  The Grapes of Wrath
  Gunga Din
  High and the Mighty
  High Noon
  His Girl Friday
  Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)
  The Hustler
  Inherit the Wind
  In the Heat of the Night
  Intolerance
  It Happened One Night
  It’s A Wonderful Life
  Jaws
  The Killers
  King Kong
  Laura
  Lawrence of Arabia
  The Lost Weekend
  MASH
  The Maltese Falcon
  Mr. Smith Goes To Washington
  My Man Godfrey
  A Night at the Opera
  The Night of the Hunter
  North by Northwest
  On the Waterfront
  One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
  The Ox-Bow Incident
  Out of the Past
  Paths of Glory
  Patton
  The Philadelphia Story
  Platoon
  Psycho
  The Public Enemy
  Raging Bull
  Raiders of the Lost Ark
  Rear Window
  Rosemary’s Baby
  Saving Private Ryan
  Schindler’s List
  The Searchers
  Shane
  The Silence of the Lambs
  Singin in the Rain
  Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
  Spartacus
  Stagecoach
  Star Wars
  A Streetcar Named Desire
  Sunrise
  Sunset Blvd.
  Taxi Driver
  The Thing From Another World
  The Thin Man
  The Third Man
  To Kill a Mockingbird
  Top Hat
  The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
  2001
  Vertigo
  West Side Story
  The Wild Bunch
  The Wizard of Oz
  Yankee Doodle Dandy

AFI's Top 100 Films

• Citizen Kane
  2. Casablanca
  3. The Godfather
  4. Gone With the Wind
  5. Lawrence of Arabia
  6. The Wizard of Oz
  7. The Graduate
  8. On the Waterfront
  9. Schindler's List
  10. Singin' in the Rain
  11. It's a Wonderful Life
  12. Sunset Boulevard
  13. The Bridge on the River Kwai
  14. Some Like it Hot
  15. Star Wars
  16. All About Eve
  17. The African Queen
  18. Psycho
  19. Chinatown
  20. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
  21. The Grapes of Wrath
  22. 2001: A Space Odyssey
  23. The Maltese Falcon
  24. Raging Bull
  25. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
  26. Dr. Strangelove
  27. Bonnie & Clyde
  28. Apocalypse Now
  29. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
  30. Treasure of the Sierra Madre
  31. Annie Hall
  32. The Godfather, Part II
  33. High Noon
  34. To Kill a Mockingbird
  35. It Happened One Night
  36. Midnight Cowboy
  37. The Best Years of Our Lives
  38. Double Indemnity
  39. Doctor Zhivago
  40. North by Northwest
  41. West Side Story
  42. Rear Window
  43. King Kong
  44. The Birth of a Nation
  45. A Streetcar Named Desire
  46. A Clockwork Orange
  47. Taxi Driver
  48. Jaws
  49. Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs
  50. Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid
  51. The Philadelphia Story
  52. From Here to Eternity
  53. Amadeus
  54. All Quiet on the Western Front
  55. The Sound of Music
  56. M*A*S*H
  57. The Third Man
  58. Fantasia
  59. Rebel Without a Cause
  60. Raiders of the Lost Ark
  61. Vertigo
  62. Tootsie
  63. Stagecoach
  64. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
  65. The Silence of the Lambs
  66. Network
  67. The Manchurian Candidate
  68. An American in Paris
  69. Shane
  70. The French Connection
  71. Forrest Gump
  72. Ben-Hur
  73. Wuthering Heights
  74. The Gold Rush
  75. Dances with Wolves
  76. City Lights
  77. American Graffiti
  78. Rocky
  79. The Deer Hunter
  80. The Wild Bunch
  81. Modern Times
  82. Giant
  83. Platoon
  84. Fargo
  85. Duck Soup
  86. Mutiny on the Bounty
  87. Frankenstein
  88. Easy Rider
  89. Patton
  90. The Jazz Singer (1927)
  91. My Fair Lady
  92. A Place in the Sun
  93. The Apartment
  94. Goodfellas
  95. Pulp Fiction
  96. The Searchers
  97. Bringing Up Baby
  98. Unforgiven
  99. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
  100. Yankee Doodle Dandy

Edit:
I must say if I might be so bold that my listing is superior to AFI's. I have films that are better and more entertaining but just as groundbreaking socially and film-wise.
Crawdaddy

 

[george kaplan]

What do we do about Chaplin?

I would be very opposed to any kind of special dispensation for Chaplin or anyone else. Depending on your point of view, lots of people are over or underrepresented on this list. Frankly, I think the year 1939 is overrepresented (5% of the list). I think all films need to be treated the same, and every one have an equal chance of being kept or deleted. If Chaplin goes from 3 to 0 or 3 to 5, so be it.

 

[Walter Kittel]

I'm trying to decide whether my list should contain a broader spectrum of films at the expense of directors or stars who already have multiple films on the list. In other words, adding breadth to the list by removing the weakest multiple place holders on the list.
Another strategy I'm weighing is whether or not to do one for one swaps on the list. Particularly with regards to replacing earlier films that establish or have importance in a genre with later efforts that take advantage of the ground broken by the earlier film. One example would be replacing Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs with Pinocchio which I consider to be superior.
Robert, That's a great list of titles, but I must ask - No Preston Sturges? Personally, I was shocked when the original AFI 100 list didn't have at least one Sturges film, something I plan to address in my replacement list.
On the other hand, I'm glad to see a few more noirs in your list, which was easily the most neglected genre on the original AFI 100 list.
My potential replacement list, as it stands currently ( unweighted order ) is:
The Big Sleep
Cool Hand Luke
Do The Right Thing
The General
Goldfinger
In Cold Blood
Intolerance
The Last Picture Show
Miller's Crossing
Miracle of Morgan's Creek
Music Man
My Man Godfrey
Nashville
A Night at the Opera
Night of the Hunter
Out of the Past
Paths of Glory
Pinocchio
Rebecca
Red River
The Right Stuff
Sullivan's Travels
Sunrise
The Thin Man
Touch of Evil
- Walter.
Edited for spelling.

 

[george kaplan]

I was shocked when the original AFI 100 list didn't have at least one Sturges film, something I plan to address in my replacement list.

Sullivan's Travels is in my replacement list.
I also included some others of Walter's:
The Big Sleep
The Thin Man
and would have included Goldfinger except it's British. As a matter of fact I had to leave the following off because of that:
Monty Python & the Holy Grail
A Hard Day's Night
From Russia With Love
Goldfinger
The Lady Vanishes
The 39 Steps
Others I had considered, but just didn't make it to my top 25 replacements are:
Cool Hand Luke
My Man Godfrey
Out of the Past
Pinocchio
Rebecca
I tried to see how my list compare's to Crawdaddy's, but his is a mixture of new & old, so it was just too hard.

 

[Walter Kittel]

George - In the link to the Link Removed I posted above, Goldfinger and From Russia With Love are included in the AFI 400 List. I don't know what the justification for those titles ( or Lawrence of Arabia for that matter ) might be; nevertheless by my reckoning if they are in the 400, they are fair game. ( However, I'm not limiting myself to the 400 List. )
Goldfinger is IMHO the best Bond film, and I felt like 1 Bond film should be on the list.
- Walter

 

[Robert Crawford]

Robert, That's a great list of titles, but I must ask - No Preston Sturges?

Walter,
Sacrifices had to be made! When I selected My Man Godfrey, His Girl Friday and The Thin Man I knew then that I wasn't going to be able to squeeze The Lady Eve or Sullivans Travels onto the list.
Crawdaddy

 

[george kaplan]

George - In the link to the AFI List Site I posted above, Goldfinger and From Russia With Love are included in the AFI 400 List.

Well damn. I may have to redo my list (if I can, I've already emailed it). I guess I'm going to ask the judges (by which I mean Seth and Edwin) about these others:

Monty Python & the Holy Grail

A Hard Day's Night

From Russia with Love

Goldfinger

The Good, the Bad & the Ugly

The Lady Vanishes

The 39 Steps

 

[Brian E]

Well damn. I may have to redo my list (if I can, I've already emailed it). I guess I'm going to ask the judges (by which I mean Seth and Edwin) about these others:

Monty Python & the Holy Grail

A Hard Day's Night

From Russia with Love

Goldfinger

The Good, the Bad & the Ugly

The Lady Vanishes

The 39 Steps

Please post here what they say. The AFI list does have British films on it already.

The Third Man

Lawrence of Arabia

The Bridge on the River Kwai

A Clockwork Orange

Dr. Strangelove

(as well as 2001 and Dr. Zhivago which some say are British and some say are American)

Making these lists is a lot harder than I thought it would be at first. Are our number of replacements supposed to equal are number of deletions?

 

[Brian E]

For instance, the AFI did not Include The Bride of Frankenstein as a choice and while it might not make our final 100, it definitely deserves a shot.

I definately agree. IMO Bride of Frankenstein should be there before Frankenstein.

BTW, did we decide on a cut off? Is it '96, '98 or something else? IMO somewhere around 5 years would give good prospective.

 

[DonMac]

In regards to selecting films for the HTF 100 list, I think a film should be a good movie first and foremost. Therefore, a film's influence and historical significance should be secondary considerations at best.
So, for example, the films The Jazz Singer and Birth of a Nation, while very influential and historically important, both would be omitted due to the fact that they simply just aren't good movies.

 

[Seth Paxton]

George, you are the only person so far.
I'm not looking at your list till I finish mine as well. But they are safely stored at my end. Thanks.

 

[Allen Hirsch]

I'm not clear on how the process will work.

If we vote for FEWER than 25 movies for the "bubble", does that change their weighting in any way?

Or, must we pick our "weakest 25" of the AFI 100?

 

[Seth Paxton]

Regarding weighting I would do this unless another way is preferred by several voters:
I would use a standard weight 25-1, so your top recommends would get more points. We could use no points, just total votes, or I could weight it differently like 10 for a top 5, 5 for a 5-15, 1 for a 16-25, or other scales.
Not trying to get confusing, just trying to keep it FAIR. That's the key. Each way has it's merits. The thing with ranking them now (replacements) is that this allows any of these methods for selection to be applied, even a "1 point each" method.
Regarding Goldfinger and others. If the AFI considered it, we should too. Unless we decide that the AFI was too loose with what it allowed we pretty much have too. And if Goldfinger isn't "American", then how the hell are Kwai and Arabia (of course, that question WAS asked many times by many people when the AFI 100 came out ). We've discussed this already during the challenge and I just suspect that in the end there is a feeling that the AFI is close enough on this matter.
HORROR FILMS I agree with Night of the Living Dead. Certainly is a very memorable and copied film that brought us a whole new genre really.
What other horror is there? I need to look. But I certainly think it would be wrong to neglect the entertainment aspect. In fact I think that should still be the #1 criteria, where does the film stand in the aspect of actually entertaining people. Of course artistic merit should be balanced as well, but we can find plenty of films that do both NO MATTER WHAT GENRE.
Goldfinger and Touch of Evil are definately 2 films I would consider putting on there.
Having only seen some of Keaton's The General I would already consider it to replace one of the Chaplin's (The Gold Rush, IMO).
Let's keep kicking around those 25 replacement films and if any of you want your 25 posted to be official make sure to tell me. Keep in mind that you can still email them to me when you have them finalized.
Crawdaddy, I really hope you join in. While the final list will require each of us to conform to the group rather than have our own individual list, I think it's that group interaction that makes it so interesting to do in the first place.
In fact I hope everyone in HTF Movies that has seen all these films would take the time to join us. It's a good exercise in coming to a common understanding of film. If nothing else it helps us sympathise with groups like the AFI or the Academy. I would rather see an HTF list that truly represents the tastes of HTF members who love film enough to see all of these films, rather than just Edwin, George and I putting together a list to show to Walter.
We already have our own INDIVIDUAL lists. I think creating a group list would show that some of the complaints about the AFI list are a little unfounded, and it might relieve some of the tension over the "faults" the current list has.

 

[Seth Paxton]

Sorry Allen, just reread your post and I answered the wrong aspect.
Since we each can rank the AFI 100 how we see it, we certainly have a "bottom 25", so I don't see why that list would be shorter than 25.
Again, the bubble films are NOT necessarily films you would vote off the list. They are simply the 25 films CLOSEST to being removed.
While number 25 just barely becomes a bubble film and 26 stays safe, that is only on YOUR list. Since it's a group dynamic only the overall least liked films will make this bubble group, and even then some of them are likely to go right back on.
I find it VERY doubtful that we will be able to agree on 25 films that should replace the 25 on the list. Individually I'm certain we could replace 25, heck 50 or more, but as a group with the varied tastes I think we will find it much tougher agreeing on 25 films that should be on above the bottom 25 already there.
For example some of us may push for Goldfinger over The Graduate, but others may push for The General instead, and yet others may vote to keep The Graduate on the list over the split vote on the other 2 films and it ends up staying.
That's what is so important regarding a list like this, it's the tastes of a well-thought group rather than the very personal tastes of one person, even someone as smart as Robert.
BTW, at this point I would also weight these bubble lists so that if 10 people put film A at the top of the bubble list and 10 people put film B in the middle, film A would be "ahead" of film B to be ON THE BUBBLE LIST even though both got picked by 10 people. The weight being the amount of dislike (or the lack of like ).
You don't have to HATE film #84. It just means you do think there are 83 better films on the list. For all we know it might not make the bubble list, and if it does it may still get voted to stay on the list at #84 or even higher.

 

[Seth Paxton]

Did the AFI pick this list in 1999 with a '96 cutoff? If so then I guess we go with the 3 year plan and include films through '98 (hello SPR, Titanic, LA Confidential).

But if you guys feel that 3 years is not enough we could bump it back to 97 or even stick with 96.

 

[Terrell]

I find it VERY doubtful that we will be able to agree on 25 films that should replace the 25 on the list.

What? People here not be able to agree. Nah! I salute the people that are able to compile a Top 100 list. I don't think there's anyway possible I can accurately compile my Top 100 films, even based on the AFI 100.

 

[Brian E]

Did the AFI pick this list in 1999 with a '96 cutoff? If so then I guess we go with the 3 year plan and include films through '98 (hello SPR, Titanic, LA Confidential).

I think '98 would be fine or '96, whatever folks want. My vote would probably be for '98 the more I think about it. It kind of keeps the process similar to the criteria the original list had. If we go that route I'll probably be voting for The Thin Red Line and maybe LA Confidential. The important thing is to decide so we can work on our lists. Maybe we could try and have the basic criteria in place by the 11th?

 

[Brian E]

Regarding Goldfinger and others. If the AFI considered it, we should too. Unless we decide that the AFI was too loose with what it allowed we pretty much have too. And if Goldfinger isn't "American", then how the hell are Kwai and Arabia (of course, that question WAS asked many times by many people when the AFI 100 came out ). We've discussed this already during the challenge and I just suspect that in the end there is a feeling that the AFI is close enough on this matter.

So it just needs to be an English language film, or???

 

[Patrick_S]

So it just needs to be an English language film, or???

Why don't we just follow the original guidelines that the AFI used? I couldn't find them on their wed page but I'm certain some one here has the guidelines.

As far as the cut off date, it is suppose to represent the first hundred years of US cinema, (1886-1996) so I would suggest that we stick with that time frame.

 

[Brian E]

Here are the AFI critria I could find.

Feature-Length Fiction Film - narrative format typically over 60 minutes in length

American Film - English language film with significant creative and/or financial production elements from the United States

Critical Recognition - formal commendation in print

Popularity Over Time - including figures for box office adjusted for inflation, television broadcasts and syndication, and home video sales and rentals.

Historical Significance - a film's mark on the history of the moving image through technical innovation, visionary narrative devices or other groundbreaking achievements.

Cultural Impact - a film's mark on American society in matters of style and substance

Major Award Winner - recognition from competitive events including awards from organizations in the film community and major film festivals.