And now, part two of my examination of the AFI Greatest 100 Films Of All Time list…although I don’t know if it’s an examination so much as a display of my ignorance of classic film. I mean, clearly I have to run out and rent a bunch of these films as soon as possible, if only to head off yet another flood of emails like the one from last week chastising me for not having seen All About Eve. I know, I know. I’ve got to see it. I’ll see it. It’s on the list. Okay? Okay.

Let’s move on. I’d like to preface the column by saying that I had an excoriation of Spartacus all planned, complete with “Homoeroticism, Yay!” allusions and a comment I lifted from The Low Plains Drifter to the effect that it’s the worst good movie ever made. I sat in cabs and on subways all weekend, honing the paragraph, perfecting the creaking-of-sandal-leather/bondage joke. And Spartacus isn’t even on the list. I mean, that’s good, because it doesn’t deserve to make the list, but…damn. Thanks for trampling my angle, AFI.

51. The Philadelphia Story. It’s on the list, but like so many oldies, I keep avoiding it, mostly because Katharine Hepburn bugged the crap out of me in the first film I saw her in, On Golden Pond. Yeah, it’s not a fair basis to judge her on, but still. I hated that movie, I hated her in it, and I rarely like her in anything else.

52. From Here To Eternity. I don’t know. I loved the book, but I get the feeling that the movie won’t have any of the elements that made the book so brilliant. Still, it’s a great cast, and I get a kick out of watching Sinatra “acting.” I haven’t seen it, and don’t know if I ever will, but I might.

53. Amadeus. I saw it a long time ago, so maybe I don’t remember it as well as I should, but — fifty-three? Okay, Forman directed, but…come on. Fifty-three? Really? Well, it did win Best Picture and Best Director and a bunch of other Oscars. Maybe I have to watch it again. Still, fifty-three seems awfully high.

54. All Quiet On The Western Front. I just rented it recently, and it’s surprisingly good. The American actors go a little overboard with the dorky yee-haw characterizations of “German” soldiers, but once you get used to it, it’s quite affecting. I think it’s best when viewed in context — of the Great War ten years past (the movie came out in 1930), of the Holocaust still to come, and of all the war movies we’ve seen since. If you had trouble sitting through Full Metal Jacket, imagine how audiences must have received All Quiet On The Western Front; you expect it to gloss some things because of its era, but it doesn’t. And Hamburger Hill is a good movie, but it’s just an imitation of All Quiet On The Western Front in many ways. Anyway, as a movie I don’t know that it’s fifty-fourth material, but it’s so important in terms of the war-movie genre that I don’t have a problem with the ranking.

55. The Sound Of Music. No argument here. Of course, now I’ll have damn “Edelweiss” stuck in my head for the next three damn days, but the ranking is fine.

56. M*A*S*H. I love this movie. Love it. I didn’t want to watch it because I’ve never really liked the series — two words: Alan Alda — but it rocked my world. And I never thought I’d say this, believe me, but — Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould? So sexy in this movie! No, really. No, I know. No, seriously. No, seriously! It’s a great movie. Go rent it if you’ve never seen it. The gee-war-really-is-hell stuff feels sort of tacked-on, but that’s a pretty small part of the film, and Rene Auberjonois is hilarious. With all that said…fifty-six is too high. It belongs in the seventies somewhere.

57. The Third Man. It’s on the list, but I haven’t seen it yet. I did edit a German art CD-ROM once called “The Fourth Man,” which attempted to parody The Third Man using line drawings, and as I sat at my desk, trying mightily to write a press release about the damn thing that didn’t reek of sarcasm and irritation, I could feel the faint breeze generated by Orson Welles twirling in his grave like a dreidl. I know you’ll all sleep easier at night, knowing that. Anyway, on behalf of the now-defunct Holtzbrinck Electronic Publishing…Mr. Welles, my heartfelt apologies. Take the fifty-seven; it’s probably fine.

“Edelweiiiiss, Edelweiiiiss, eeeevery morning you greeeet meeee…” Dammit.

58. Fantasia. It’s insanely good animation and the music is wonderful, although I have to say, The Conductor freaks me right out. Not that I’ve ever watched Fantasia stoned or anything. Because I would never do that. No, sir. I’d like to see it ranked higher than fifty-eight, but I can live with it.

59. Rebel Without A Cause. I don’t think James Dean is attractive. I just don’t. I can see why other people do, but he just doesn’t do it for me. And this movie is boring. It isn’t a good movie. Giant is a good movie. This is not. This is an overused catchphrase, a dated fifties set piece, and a meditation on Dean’s cheekbones, and that’s all. Even the homoerotic overtones, or undertones, or whatever the hell tones you want to call them, seem flat and mannered. I know why it’s considered a classic, and don’t think I believe for a minute that it would have achieved classic status if Dean hadn’t bought the farm coming out of that turn, but…please. Fifty-nine? Sorry, no.

60. Raiders Of The Lost Ark. Huh? Sixty? It’s a good film. It’s got lots of great lines. It gave Harrison Ford the bump into mega-star territory. It’s a great action picture, and it’s got decent special effects. But sixty seems too high. I don’t think the list can support more than two or three films that define the action genre, because, while the action genre is a valuable one and gets butts in the seats, the average action picture buries the other arts involved in film like writing and acting. I can see including a few films that changed the way we consume movies, but I think there’s already enough Spielberg here that we get the point. This doesn’t really belong on the list at all, much less at sixty.

61. Vertigo. This is a remarkable film, probably Hitchcock’s best, and it’s way too far down on the list. Butch Cassidy is ahead of this? Amadeus is ahead of this? It doesn’t make sense. Vertigo set the bar for psychological thrillers; it should rank higher. I would knock Psycho down from eighteenth to this slot and boost Vertigo up ahead to the forties somewhere.

62. Tootsie. You know, I thought I’d have a problem with this ranking, but I don’t. Everyone in the cast is at the top of his or her game, the writing is tight, and yeah, there’s a montage, but it’s earned. Every time I surf past it on cable — and it’s on all the time — I stop to watch it. Great movie.

63. Stagecoach. Uh, okay. Haven’t seen it, won’t see it. No comment.

64. Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. Enough with the Spielberg. First of all, while it’s true that my parents made the mistake of renting it when our family first got a VCR and I, like every other child my age, proceeded to bug the living hell out of them by playing the five-note theme every time I passed the piano, fond memories of a prime pestering opportunity do not a classic film make. Second of all, you can’t have both Close Encounters and Raiders of the Lost Ark on the list, especially when you shouldn’t have both Raiders and Jaws on the list either. Third of all — not at sixty-four, no way, no how. It’s a cool movie, but come on. Nineties, tops, and only if Jaws gets the heave.

65. The Silence Of The Lambs. No problems with this one. Wouldn’t mind seeing it a little lower, but sixty-five is livable.

66. Network. I hated Network. I understand what it’s trying to do, but it tries much too hard, and between the scenery-guzzling by Faye Dunaway and Peter Finch, the lazy editing of Finch’s speeches, and William Holden busting out the exposition ukulele every five minutes, it’s like spending two hours under an anvil. Plus, when you put Chayefsky and Lumet together, it’s like a supernova of self-satisfaction. Yuck. I don’t mind that it’s on the list; it has something important to say. But it’s so very very annoying in how it says it. Bust it down to eighty-five.

67. The Manchurian Candidate. It’s on my list. Apparently, Sinatra is only visibly drunk in a few scenes of the film, as opposed to during the whole thing (Ocean’s Eleven), but I don’t know that that’s a good thing.

68. An American In Paris. Yeah, right. Have not seen it. Will not see it. Will not entertain notion of seeing it, even in jest. Cannot judge musicals with any sort of objectivity due to deep-seated, long-lasting hatred of them. Refuse to “give them a chance” or believe that “this one’s different.” Suspect that grown-ups who provide exposition via song or dance need immediate psychiatric treatment; do not want to hear from grown-ups who enjoy other grown-ups providing exposition via song and dance. Nearly killed self at performance of Showboat by ripping off own arm and beating self with it during fourth reprise of “Old Man River”; threatened, in all seriousness, to kill Wing Chun when she jokingly offered to purchase tickets to Jekyll & Hyde as birthday gift. Do not think Paris is all that, either. Will not respond to emails attempting to change mind.

“Soft and whiiiite, clear and –” Oh, man. I hate it when “Edelweiss” happens.

69. Shane. It’s on my list. Yum — young Jack Palance.

70. The French Connection. It’s tempting to call this movie overrated, but it really isn’t — it’s a bit heavy-handed, true, and Hackman doesn’t have the greatest range, but the film does what it sets out to do, and with maximum flair. The chase scene kicks so much ass that it needs special boots. Seventy is fine.

71. Forrest Gump. I don’t hate Gump as much as a lot of people do — I even sniffled a little at the end — but under no circumstances should Tom Hanks have beaten out Morgan Freeman for Best Actor that year. Hanks did a good job with the treacle in the script, but there’s not much to the role, and any other actor with a reasonable facility for open-mouthed gawping could have done just as well. And — god, the treacle. The movie is one long CGI gimmick-cum-soundtrack shill. Furthermore, Robin Wright Penn? Not a good actress. Not even a competent actress. She should have quit after The Princess Bride, because, in a movie filled with clunkingly false moments, she’s the clunkiest, falsest thing in sight. Forrest Gump is pure packaging, and doesn’t belong on a list purporting to rank works of art.

72. Ben-Hur. I suppose I should see it, but I find Charlton Heston revolting, as an actor and as a human being. With that said, seventy-two does seem low for this one.

73. Wuthering Heights. It’s on the to-rent list. I don’t love the book, but I need to give Olivier a chance to redeem himself after I rented Marathon Man. Seventy-three seems a bit high.

74. The Gold Rush. Never heard of it.

75. Dances With Wolves. A visually stunning picture that should have had a strop taken to it in the editing room, not least to tone down Costner’s glowing portrayal of himself. It’s not a bad picture — although I really, really wish they hadn’t given Costner an Oscar for it, because now he’ll never go away — but it’s a lazily written fluke and it doesn’t belong on the list. High nineties, maybe, if you insist. Seventy-five, no.

76. City Lights. I’ve never seen a Charlie Chaplin movie (well, not counting Chaplin, which I don’t). I don’t think I want to, but I probably should. I have no comment on the ranking.

77. American Graffiti. I just crossed it off of the to-see list recently, and I have to say, I don’t see what’s the big whoop. It’s mildly diverting, but primarily because not one of the lead actors had seen the business end of a high school in ten years. Even Ron Howard looks thirty-five, and Cindy Williams — wow. It’s called Oil of Olay, honey. Look into it. Maybe I expected too much from the movie; after all, every time my family went on a car trip, we listened to the soundtrack, which I’ve now got written on my DNA as a result. But the movie just…isn’t much. It’s trite. It drags in the middle (and by “middle” I mean “for an hour and a half”). Mackenzie Phillips is unbelievably annoying. Paul Le Mat has the range of a lug wrench, which would explain his early-eighties jump to Lifetime Channel woman-in-jeopardy flicks, usually playing “Lieutenant Someone-Or-Other.” I know why it’s on the list — George Lucas — but it’s just not very good. Bump it way down.

78. Rocky. I can’t really speak to the ranking here, because out of the Rocky movies, I still like the fourth one the best. Yes, I know that it sucked, but that’s the thing — the original kind of sucked too. Not a lot, mind you; it sucked gently and softly, like a newborn. But it still kind of sucked. Stallone writes passably well, but in such broad strokes that there’s no sense of a unique story underneath the various archetypes. And I just don’t like Talia Shire. I don’t like her voice, I don’t like her face — she just gets on my nerves. Anyway. Seventy-eight is a little too high for Rocky, in my opinion.

79. The Deer Hunter. Whaaaaat? Seventy-nine? That’s ludicrous. It’s not so much the number itself as the inferior movies that get ranked ahead of DH on the list. American Graffiti? Please. Doesn’t touch DH. Forrest fucking Gump? It’s just not right. Let me tell you a story. I rented DH for the first time a few years ago; it’s a long movie, so it comes on two tapes. The video-store jabroni had put the first tape in the second tape’s box, so I watched the second tape first by mistake, and you know what? The movie still works. Christopher Walken rocks the whole movie; so does DeNiro. Even George Dzundza is good in it — George Dzundza, people! That’s seventy-ninth? No. Bump it up to at least sixty-five.

80. The Wild Bunch. Great movie. It’s weird that it’s not higher up, but I don’t mind eighty.

81. Modern Times. This is on my list. My grandmother used to love this movie.

82. Giant. What a stylish movie — not as great as it’s made out to be, I don’t think, but it has so much élan. I’d like to see Rebel Without A Cause switched out and Giant moved up a few places; it’s the better film.

83. Platoon. Oh, please. Don’t encourage Oliver Stone, people. It’s too long, it’s too preachy, Willem Dafoe is flailing (as anyone would with dialogue that…well, you know, Oliver Stone-y), Tom Berenger…whatever, and the last slo-mo sequence clearly telegraphs Stone’s belief that he’s the smartest guy in the room, any room, which he isn’t, because, um, Nixon, and also because we get it, because we’ve seen a movie before. Gee, is war hell, Ollie? Because it’s not clear. Oh, it is hell. Okay, thanks. Not. It’s a workaday war movie, no more. Take it off the list.

84. Fargo. What a wonderful movie. It saddens me that the Coens don’t crack the list until eighty-four, because I love their work, but I can live with this. I’d boost it up a few spots, though.

85. Duck Soup. This is really a very funny movie. I thought I’d hate it, but it’s really good, and there’s a lot of Simpsons-style throwaway stuff that makes me long for the days when Hollywood gave the movie-going public’s intelligence an ounce of credit.

86. Mutiny On The Bounty. Clark Gable. Puffy shirt. I don’t know. I haven’t seen it, and I don’t think I will.

87. Frankenstein. Haven’t seen it. Probably won’t.

“Blossom of snow may you bloom and grooooow, blooooom and groooow foreeeeveeeer.” Please kill me.

88. Easy Rider. Oh, god. Well, okay, it’s not terrible. Dennis Hopper sets my teeth on edge, as I’ve said, but the ranting-hippie routine at least has a point here. I can think of worse things to look at for an hour than Peter Fonda with big bushy sideburns, and Nicholson is fine. It’s the ending that makes it a great film. I’m a little uncomfortable with eighty-eight, but I’ll allow it.

89. Patton. I haven’t seen it. I hear it’s great, though (hi, Dad!).

90. The Jazz Singer. Great story, so-so execution. It’s better than the Neil Diamond version, granted, but…eh. Don’t know if it belongs on the list, really.

91. My Fair Lady. “The rain in Spain falls gently on the OH MY GOD SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUUUUUT UUUUUUP!” I’ve seen it. I loathed it. I’ve never “gotten” Audrey Hepburn anyway (and you know what? I know, so save it), and My Fair Lady doesn’t help.

92. A Place In The Sun. “Tell Mama,” indeed. I think it’s a bit too pulpy for the list, and Montgomery Clift isn’t terribly convincing to me as a straight guy, but it’s fine, I guess.

93. The Apartment. It’s on my to-see list.

94. Goodfellas. I love, love, love this movie. I love Ray Liotta. I love Frank Sivero, the guy with the weird Brillo poof. I love to scream “I’m SAH-REEEEEE, ah ha ha HAAA,” and to tell Wing Chun that “she lives her life in a nightgown!” Love it. Great acting, great cinematography, great writing. Ninety-four is too low; I’d put it in around the low seventies.

95. Pulp Fiction. I sincerely hope that, when the list gets redone in a few years, PF gets the boot. It’s one long tic, and it’s not even Tarantino’s best work.

96. The Searchers. It’s great, but John Wayne is overmatched by the material. I wouldn’t have thought to include it here, but now that I think of it, I don’t mind. If it’s on the list, ninety-six is about right.

97. Bringing Up Baby. Um, no. The film is utterly insipid. Bad movie! No list for you!

98. Unforgiven. Okay, now here’s where we run into a problem with The Searchers, because Unforgiven is a better picture in a lot of ways, and if one movie makes the list, both should — but I don’t know if either should, necessarily, except that one of them seems like it should. If I had to pick, I’d drop Unforgiven and revisit it in five years even though I prefer it to The Searchers. Ninety-eight isn’t wrong, just a bit problematic.

99. Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner. It’s dated, but Poitier is so good, and I even like Hepburn in it, which I ordinarily don’t.

100. Yankee Doodle Dandy. Riiiipp. AUGH! Whap whap whap whap whap whap whap. AUUUGGGH! Whap whap whap whap. Flump.

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