Hey! AFI!

The American Film Institute recently sent out new ballots to 1,500 film critics (and others--I think Bill Clinton got to vote the last time), for “AFI’s 100 Years ... 100 Movies — 10th Anniversary Edition,” but I still haven't gotten my ballot! What gives?

Someone has to make sure that crap like Forrest Gump doesn't make the cut this time, as it did in your ill-conceived, flawed, and lame effort produced in 1997 ('Best Years of our Lives' #37? 'Tootsie' 'Dances with Wolves' and 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?' on the list at all?). For an excellent skewering of the original list, as well as an interesting alternate list, read Jonathan Rosenbaum.

If I did have a ballot in front of me, which ten would I chose? [Apparently, AFI compiles the list from everyone's Top Ten.] Well, I certainly wouldn't waste my votes on the ten 'automatics' that should and will appear on any list of this kind: Casablanca, Citizen Kane, Gone With the Wind, for starters; a representative example from directors such as A. Hitchcock, John Ford ("Grapes of Wrath"), Frank Capra, Billy Wilder ("Sunset Boulevard"), Scorsese ("Raging Bull" or "Taxi Driver"), Kubrick ("2001:A Space Odyssey" or "Dr. Strangelove"). And I would definitely make room for The Godfather and Chinatown, the two masterpieces of the Seventies. Those are all safe, as are other certifiable classics like The African Queen, Singin' in the Rain, and The Wizard of Oz. [I deliberately excluded Lawrence of Arabia, which was #5 for AFI: a great classic, but no one will convince me that it is in any way 'American.']

No, I would think more broadly, to save from obscurity some soon-to-be forgotten masterpieces -- forgotten by these young critics who are too lazy to look past their own navels to seek out (with "NetFlix" they don't even have to look past their navels, or get off their couches!) How else did "Star Wars" crack the Top 15 and "E.T". make it to #25? Tellingly, Spielberg must have more films on the list than any other director. Raiders of the Lost Ark came in one spot ahead of Vertigo for crying out loud!

My picks fall into three categories:

Black and white classics:
Notorious
Hud
The Last Picture Show
A Streetcar Named Desire
(I also have a soft spot for Bogart classics like "The Big Sleep" and "To Have and Have Not")

More 'recent' films
(everything is relative when you are in your forties)
The Conversation (Coppola)
Nashville (Altman)
Blue Velvet (Lynch)

Silents ... which were shamefully neglected the first time (except for 'Birth of a Nation' and two Chaplin classics):
Broken Blossoms (D.W. Griffith)
The General (Buster Keaton)
Sunrise (F.W. Murnau)

Of all these movies, only one even made AFI's original list in 1997! ("Streetcar" at a too low #45). The foregoing discussion is moot, of course -- not because I don't have a ballot -- but because AFI 'self-selected' a list of 400 movies for critics to choose from! I don't need no stinkin' list, AFI! I can choose my OWN top 100 without your "suggestions"!

I'm sure half of my list didn't even make AFI's cut of 400. Take a look at some of the 'new classics' they have added (they are so desperate for attention they go to these lengths to skew the vote to attract current moviegoers and to court controversy -- which corresponds to more 'ink' -- the real reason behind this exercise in stupidity):
A Beautiful Mind
American Beauty
Crash
Million Dollar Baby
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Spiderman 2

I'll say this right now: if TWO Paul Haggis films crack the Top 100 (he wrote the screenplay to Million Dollar Baby), I am burning my AFI card, and sending them back the ashes!! (it expired in 2005, but they won't know that).

The new list will be announced in June (no doubt with a CBS Special). The way I see it, AFI has already blown their second chance to fix their mistakes.