Summer Projects--Movies

I've always been a fan of lists. They keep things orderly and you earn a sense of accomplishment when you can cross things off. A little over a year ago, I began embarking on a journey to complete a big, time-consuming beast of a list. I decided to tackle the American Film Institute's 1998 list of the top 100 movies of all time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFI%27s_100_Years..._100_Movies#1998_List It began when a friend of mine told me she had seen more than 80 of the films. I realized I had only seen about 20 and felt compelled to do some catching up.

I've spent some late nights and lazy afternoons educating myself on these good movies. I started off buying the films on DVD, but that became a slow, expensive proposition. Thank God for Netflix. Working on the top 100 (while also watching some crazy ones that didn't make the cut), I've almost passed the big 5-0 halfway point. With plenty of down time during the late hours before I leave for work at midnight, I try and watch each Netflix movie as soon as I get it. Later today I'm expecting #84-Fargo.

As with most lists, there's always controversy surrounding the order and everyone has their own opinion. After looking at the list and seeing some movies I was previously unfamiliar with, I've developed some opinions of my own:

• Raging Bull has no business being 24th on the 1998 list and even less business being 4th on the 2007 list.
• Chinatown and Apocalypse Now all deserve higher spots.
• To Kill A Mockingbird deserves a higher spot. If AFI thought Atticus Finch was good enough to be the top hero of all time, the movie he was in should be higher than 34th/25th
• Probably one of the best updates from '97 to '08 was Vertigo, which jumped 52 spots from 61st to a much more appropriate 9th.
• As crazy as I may sound and despite the criticism I know I'm asking for, The Godfather wasn't that great a movie. Should it make the list? Sure. Should it be 3rd/2nd? No way.