AFI's 10 Top 10

The American Film Institute (AFI) recently did a special on "America's 10 Greatest Films in 10 Classic Genre's." I always enjoying their top-100 lists, so it was interesting to see this different type of "top 100" list from them.

I've seen the majority, though far from all, of these 100 films. And some that I have seen I have only a vague memory of. Here are my personal thoughts on some of the categories and selections:

• In the Fantasy category, Wizard of Oz is a no-brainer. I was glad to see LOTR:FOTR as #2. I was also very pleased to see Field of Dreams make it sixth, though I consider that a Sports movie and only secondarily a Fantasy movie. And I was also pleased to see Harvey make it -- one of my all-time top-10 movies! Again, I see how they can call it Fantasy, though I tend to think of it as an odd type of comedy.
• Obviously I'm happy that Star Wars makes it, and at a high ranking (2nd only to 2001: A Space Odyssey). I'm happy that Terminator 2 made list at 8th -- a rare sequel that was arguably better than the original. And good for AFI for recognizing Back to the Future with the 10th spot here: unlike some 1980s movies, this one has aged well and is still a lot of fun.
• For Sports, since Field of Dreams made it in the Fantasy category, I think they did a good job of picking these. Personally I'd rank The Natural, though I know most critics consider it good, but not great. But at least Hoosiers rec'd a high ranking (4th).
• For Courtroom Drama, the top two are obvious: To Kill a Mockingbird and 12 Angry Men. I was glad to see A Few Good Men come in fifth place.
• And all 10 chosen in the Epic category are big time movies, though I need to re-watch Reds as I don't remember it very well.

Best Sidekicks

The March issue of Wired had a brief writeup of the Best Sidekicks of all time. Pretty good list!

Indiana Jones Trailer

The trailer for the next Indiana Jones movie was recently released. You can see it at the official site here. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing this one!

Peter Jackson is doing The Hobbit

Wow... what a wonderful Christmas present for me... the news that Peter Jackson and New Line have reconciled, and he will therefore be producing The Hobbit. Awesome.

From MST3K to RiffTrax

I was pleased to learn (thanks Stu Bushman) that many of the people behind MST3K have returned to what made they successful in the 1990s: making funny comments during movies. I assume most readers of this blog will remember the wonderful TV series Mystery Science Theatre 3000 (see wikipedia entry), which ran for many years on Comedy Central and then the Sci-Fi network, where a human and two robots appeared as wise-cracking sillohuettes overlayed on really bad movies mostly from the 1950s-1970s. It was one of my favorite shows during my college years in the early 90s, and I continued to enjoy it until it was finally cancelled in 1999.

Well, Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbet and several others involved in the MST3K are now doing much the same thing with their RiffTrax service. Gone are the sillohuettes and robots, but the basic idea remains: funny commentary while you watch a movie, or now also some popular TV episodes too. One big difference is that rather than picking on easy targets like Ed Wood movies and other cinematic bombs, they are taking on some of the most popular films of all time. Take a look at their site for a sample of what they are riffing on these days.

Their work isn't free -- seems like it $3.99 per movie. I haven't bought any yet, as I'm too busy and have too much of a backlog of other entertainment to watch right now. But I liked the couple of samples I saw on their homepage (refresh the page to see a few of them)... so I'll probably buy a few rifftrax at some point, to see their comedic take on some of my favorite movies.

Movies by the Numbers

Here is an interesting YouTube video (nearly 10 minutes) that has movie quotes from classic movies "by the numbers". You'll see what I mean...

Latest on Atlas Shrugged Movie Project

I was pleased to read this latest update on the Atlas Shrugged movie project. It sounds like the prior screenplay work that was done is not being wasted, and that Jolie is still on board -- I'm not a big fan of hers, but having a big name actress like that will surely help its box-office potential. I also must say that I didn't like the movie House and of Sand and Fog much at all, but hopefully that wasn't the fault of Perelman.

AFI Updates Top 100 Movies List

This past week CBS ran a 10th Anniversary version of the American Film Institute Top 100 Movies special. Here is a news item from Yahoo! that summarizes the updates results. There were 4 new movies on the list from the past 10 years: 2001's "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" (No. 50), 1998's "Saving Private Ryan" (No. 71), 1997's "Titanic" (No. 83) and 1999's "The Sixth Sense" (No. 89). There were various other films that cracked the top-100 that didn't ten years ago, and of course many other films moved spots up or down.

One that rose significantly was Raging Bull from 24th to 4th, something I don't agree with at all. That places it higher than The Wizard of Oz, Lawrence of Arabia, The Graduate, Star Wars, and many others that I find more deserving. Another top climber was Vertigo, going from 61st to 9th. I think 9th is too high for it, but perhaps 61st was too low. Personally, as far as Hitchcock classics go, I prefer The Man Who Knew Too Much, but it didn't even make the top-100 at all.

These top-100 shows from AFI are always a joy to watch, and certainly good argument-starters. I look forward to the next one (or next 10-year anniversary show).

Baseball Movies

The USA Weekend insert for the weekend of March 23-25 had a one-page piece "Best Baseball Movies Ever: Our Exclusive Panel Takes Its Turn At Bat". With the baseball season underway this past week, I thought I'd chime in on this fun topic as well.

The usual suspects are rated highly by this panel of course: Bull Durham, Major League, The Natural, Field of Dreams, Bad News Bears, and Pride of the Yankees amongst others. I definitely liked all of those, to be sure. But a few others that are rarely mentioned in such discussions deserve attention.

I have always liked Angels in the Outfield, not the 1994 or 2000 remakes mind you, but the original 1951 film that starred Paul Douglas and Janet Leigh. If you've never seen this one, then add it to your Netflix or Blockbuster queue and enjoy its charming story!

Another less-well known baseball movie is A Winner Never Quits (1986). This is a fact-based story of a young boy who lost his right arm in a childhood accident, but went on to fulfill his dreams of playing major-league baseball.

Although it often gets included in lists of great baseball movies, sometimes Eight Men Out is forgotten. This is easily one of my favorites, and is one of those movies that I have a hard time turning off the TV if I happen upon it (like another baseball film, The Natural, or a few films in other genres, such as The Princess Bride).

And I recently watched The Sandlot (1993) for the first time, and enjoyed it. This one is good for both kids and adults.

In Googling "best baseball movies", I discovered this great site: www.baseballmovies.com. Great info there, including the creator's own list of the top-25 baseball movies ever -- and I was delighted to see The Natural top the list. Another list is this one from epinions, posted in 2004. Also see this list of top 20 from ESPN's Page 2. To dig even deeper, I was amazed at this list of 20+ older films (1930-1969). And then there is also this annotated list of 100 baseball and baseball-related movies!

I plan to start a project to watch all the baseball movies I can over time... should be fun. If you know of any other good lists of them, please let me know.

As of now, my ranking of favorite baseball films (not including documentaries, like the Burns Baseball series), would be:

1. The Natural
2. Field of Dreams
3. Eight Men Out
4. Angels in the Outfield (1951 version)
5. A League of their Own
6. Pride of the Yankees
7. Bull Durham
8. Major League
9. The Sandlot
10. 61

The last few spots are tough ones, so I could easily change my mind in the future. There is the Babe Ruth Story, Cobb, Bad News Bears, A Winner Never Quits, and many others that are in contention for this top-10 listing.

Best Movie Weapons

The November issue of Wired Magazine had a brief article Supercool Weapons from Movies. Here they give their top-1o list, and some of my favorites from their list include:

• (1) the double-bladed lightsaber from Star Wars 1: The Phantom Menace
• (3) the glaive from Krull
• (4) Inigo Montoya's father's sword from The Princess Bride
• (5) Proton Pack from Ghostbusters
• (10) M41A pulse rifle taped to a flamethrower from Aliens

Another good listing I found was a blog entry at the RocketBoy Chronicles, almost a year ago. This writer starts off with the glaive from Krull, but then also includes other favorites of mine like Wolverine's claws, Dirty Harry's .44 Magnum, the Hattori Hanzo sword from the Kill Bill movies, The One Ring from the LOTR movies, and then of course concludes with the light sabers from the six Star Wars movies.

For me, when I think great movie weapons, the SW light saber is the first that comes to mind. Surely that has to be on everyone's top-10 list somewhere. It was just so innovative, and well-executed, even back in 1977.

For me, the Krull glaive would definitely also have come to mind, as would Ripley's taped together arsenal from Aliens. But if you'd asked me this question two days ago, I don't think I'd have immediately thought of Inigo's sword, the One Ring, or the Proton Pack -- but I definitely like those selections.

Angelina Jolie To Star In Atlas Shrugged Movie

According to Variety magazine, Angelina Jolie will play Dagny Taggart in the upcoming production of Ayn Rand's epic Atlas Shrugged. If true, this is not a big surprise, as she is a Rand fan and there have been rumors of her interest in this role -- and the producers' desire to have her play it -- since the spring when word that the movie was in the works first leaked out.

See my July 15 posting for much more on the movie project, and my thoughts on a "dream cast" for it.

Update of the Movie of Atlas Shrugged

As I discussed here in April, it is looking more and more likely that we will finally see a movie produced of Ayn Rand's classic novel Atlas Shrugged -- a favorite of mine. It even has a page at IMDB now.

The co-executive producers, Howard and Karen Baldwin (of Baldwin Entertainment group, which produced the Oscar-winning hit film "Ray", amongst other major movies), held a Q&A session on the project during a session of the summer seminar conference of The Atlas Society and its Objectivist Center. It was a very informative session, and Robert Bidinotto has summarized the details at his blog here. This is a great write-up, and Karen Baldwin has said his summary is "perfect". It is well worth reading, as are the numerous comments to his post. But here are a few highlights:

• The book will be created as a movie trilogy, not as a single movie. That is great news, because the novel is over 1,000 pages (with small font!).
• The first of the trilogy has an initial budget of about $40 million.
• The first draft of the script has been completed, by James V. Hart, whose major screenwriting credits include "Contact", "Hook", and "Tuck Everlasting".
• Philosopher David Kelley worked closely with Hart to ensure the screenplay's fidelity to the novel.
• The Baldwins have been deluged with major stars who want a part in the film. Atlas Shrugged is a very popular and influential novel (particularly in the USA), so this is no surprise to me. I've read countless articles over the years where major stars expressed such an interest, but the various attempts at doing the novel as a movie never materialized.
• In particular, Angelina Jolie has expressed a strong interest in playing the lead role of Dagny Taggart, something the Baldwins were clearly excited about.
• The next, and critical, step in the project is to hire a good director. Once that is done, then casting will occur, and production can really begin.

For fans of Rand's novel a popular pastime has long been to come up with a dream movie cast for all the major (and minor) characters. Obviously with a limited budget, such an all-star cast would be difficult to achieve. However, such a project could benefit from strong interest by big-name actors who want to be in the film because of their love of the book. If some were willing to lower their asking prices, then the cast could have greater star power than one would otherwise reasonably assume -- though far from the complete all-star listings that fans fantasize about of course.

For some good examples, see Robert Bidinotto's and Vodka Pundit Stephen Green's. Off the top of my head, I don't have any strong opinions for who should play the key roles of John Galt, Francisco D'Anconia, or Dagny Taggart (if Angelina doesn't already have that wrapped up, then maybe Jill Hennessy or Ashley Judd?). But drawing partially on Robert's and Stephen's discussions, I like the following ideas for other characters:

• Liam Neeson as Hank Rearden
• Sharon Stone, Carrie-Ann Moss, or Annette Benning as Lillian Reardon
• Val Kilmer or Viggo Mortenson as Ragnar Danneskjold
• John Cusack as Eddie Willers
• Kevin Spacey as James Taggart (or any number of other roles)
• Morgan Freeman, Patrick Stewart, Sean Connery, or Anthony Hopkins as Hugh Akston
• James Cromwell, John Malkovich, or Ian McKellan as Dr. Robert Stadler
• Fred Ward as Ken Danagger
• Gene Hackman, James Garner, or Brian Dennehy as Midas Mulligan
• Johny Depp or Nathan Fillion as Quentin Daniels
• James Gandolfini as Orren Boyle
• John Malkovich or Jeremy Irons as Dr. Floyd Ferris
• Alan Rickman as Dr. Simon Pritchett
• David Hyde Pierce as Phillip Rearden (or any number of other roles)
• William Atherton or William Macy as Wesley Mouch (or any number of other roles)
• Steven Seagal as Cuffy Meigs
• Jon Lovitz or Danny DeVito as Bertram Scudder
• Gene Hackman, Fred Thompson, Kevin Spacey, or William Hurt as Mr. Thompson

The ideas I like the most are Stone as Lillian, Ward as Danagger, and Kevin Spacey and David Hyde Pierce as any of a variety of roles.

Assuming the movie is true to the novel in important respects, I'll be happy with just a few stars and mostly unknown (but good) actors otherwise -- I just want to see the movie get made!

AFI's 100 Years, 100 Cheers

The folks at the American Film Institute ran another of the "Top 100" shows last week. This time, the theme was top "Cheers", meaning films that inspire us. You can visit the site here, and get the PDF with the top 100, as well as one with all 300 nominees (plus there various other lists).

As always, the show was entertaining and well-done, and kept me guessing. A few thoughts:

• I would have preferred to see Braveheart a bit higher than 62 (it was below Dances with Wolves, for instance)
• I think Star Wars could have been higher than 39
• I'm glad Field of Dreams made the list (28), and Pride of the Yankees too (22), but I'd have had The Natural on my list as well.
• I think High Noon should have been higher than it was (27)
• Hoosiers at 13 is good
• I think Apollo 13, which came in 12, should be way higher (top five?), certainly higher than Breaking Away (8)
• It's a Wonderful Life as #1? No way. In my view it should have been To Kill a Mockingbird (2), Schindler's List (3), Rocky (4), or Apollo 13 (12).

I'll probably get around to commenting on some of the AFI's many other lists someday. I love such lists!

Another Attempt at Atlas as a Movie?

Several days ago Daily Variety reported that Lionsgate had picked up the worldwide distribution rights for a movie version of Ayn Rand's massive novel "Atlas Shrugged". As my About Me page indicates, Rand's novels (AS plus The Fountainhead) are my all-time favorites, alongside JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy. With great movies recently made for the latter, I can only hope that a good movie for Atlas will be produced as well. Many have attempted the project over the years (the novel was first published in 1957), but it has always died off pretty early in the process. It is difficult to come up with a good script for a 1,000+ page philosophical novel, one that is true to the author's message and the basic plot, while updating it (perhaps) for a contemporary audience and technology scene. (A movie version of The Fountainhead was made in 1949, with Rand herself as the screenplay author. It starred Gary Cooper, Patricia Neal, and Raymond Massey. Although it is generally not regarded as a particularly good film, I liked it.)

This most recent Atlas movie news quickly spread around this week: the hollywood news world, the blogosphere, and the Internet in general. This was in part because of two major celeb names attached to the announcement. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are apparently fans of Rand's novels. Pitt has expressed an interest in playing the lead role (Howard Roark) in a movie of The Fountainhead. But now they seem to be interested in possibly getting the leads in Atlas Shrugged, playing John Galt and Dagny Taggart. I can think of far worse to play those roles, and they would certainly draw a lot of attention to the film.

Besides the Daily Variety article, see also Robert Bidinotto's blog entry on this which provides several other good links to articles from the past week on this story (though really a Google News search will bring up dozens!). Particularly fun reading is power-blogger and Rand-fan VodkaPundit's wishlist for an Atlas movie cast. Trying to cast Rand's novels has long been a fun pastime for Rand fans... and I like many of his picks. The comments at his blog on this are interesting too.