[Note: If you are looking for my review of RotS, which apparently people are, it's here]
So TIME Magazine, not to be outdone by every other list making magazine, came out with its own list of ALL-TIME 100 MOVIES as chosen by critics Richard Corliss and Richard Schickel. I'm thinking the list was originally just called Time's Greatest Movies, but they added on the author credit blurb after they saw the final list, so no one would think that this list somehow belonged to TIME as a whole. They were distancing themselves from the two Dicks.
First of all, any time you have the word "critics" in a list title, you know it's going to be pretentious. "Reader's list" or "listener's list," while they may include such titles as Debbie Does Dallas or Freebird, respectively, at least will have a certain feel to them, like the compilation of titles could be kindred spirits with your very own list. But when you add movie critics to the mix - not critics in the sense that you and I (or even the people at Rotten Tomatoes) are, but critics in the sense of sense of this is my nose and I'm looking down it at you - you end up with a list that rivals ROLLING STONE's Albums of the Year list for sheer pretensiousness, snobbery and, in some cases, utter head scratching. It's as if some of these titles were thrown onto the list in an effort to keep people like me from calling the critics unrepentant twits. Let's have a look, shall we?
Complete list
First of all, I never heard of some of these movies. That doesn't, in and of itself, make the list good or bad. It just means that a) I don't get out enough or b) the critics thought the inclusion of obscure foreign films would make the list highbrow.
The usual suspects are present and accounted for: Godfather, Casablanca, Singing in the Rain, Some Like it Hot, E.T., Goodfellas...you know the drill.
No Seven Samurai. Star Wars, but not Empire Strikes Back. No Shawshank Redemption or even Fantasia.
Oh, I know. You make a list of 100 movies and see how hard it is to include all the great ones. That's what you're thinking. But let's see what IS included.
Drunken Master. The Fly (1986). Finding Nemo. FINDING NEMO? Yea, it was a good movie, but one of the best ever made? If they wanted to throw in some animation to appease the lovers of that genre, Toy Story, Spirited Away, The Incredibles...all better than Finding Nemo. And they count The Lord of the Rings (2001-03) as ONE movie! That's cheating.
I'm not saying these movies are bad. But how can you take seriously any list that has DRUNKEN MASTER as one of the 100 best films ever made? And am I the only person alive who hated Raging Bull? (OH, and remind me to tell you of the nightmare I had about a remake of Taxi Driver, starring Adam Sandler)
Ok, you know what this means. What happened when Rolling Stone came out with their list of 500 greatest songs ever and I took issue with the whole damn thing? That's right, I made my own.
Get ready for the ASV 100 Greatest Movies of All Time, coming soon to a blog post near you.
Meanwhile, I fully expect you to start picking apart TIME's list. Bonus: How many of the 100 movies on this list have you actually seen?
