Sunday Showdown: AFI vs. IMDb (#74 & #73)

#74: Silence of the Lambs vs. Pan’s Labyrinth

#73: Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid vs. The Prestige

Okay, if I have to watch it...

Let’s start with Butch vs. Prestige.  I do not feel like either of these films should be on the top 100 – The Prestige especially. Prestige is an example of the sort of thing I feared would happen often in a list based on the voting of the “masses” like the IMDb list is. That it would just become a popularity contest, whichever en vogue director/actor/movie could get the most votes.  So far that hasn’t happened much, so I’m not going to sweat it. 

But I definitely give my vote to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid over The Prestige.  Butch is charming in that pure entertainment sort of way. An early buddy-cop… er, buddy outlaw… movie.  And Paul Newman and Robert Redford are definitely easy on the eyes.  The Prestige (Hugh Jackman also no hardship on the eyes) was a good movie and I liked it, but a Top 100 movie? No. Sorry Nolan fans.

Let’s get to the real showdown: Silence of the Lambs vs. Pan’s Labyrinth

I was excited about this pairing because for the first time in a while it felt like I was comparing apples to apples. Both movies are definitely creepy in the very best sense of the word.

 I had never seen Pan’s Labyrinth. Loved it.  Biggest difficultly was deciding who was scarier: the evil fanciful characters or the evil realistic ones. Set in Francoist Spain (so yes, another sub-captioned movie) it’s about a little girl and her search for escape.  Complex and captivating.  A fairy tale, but definitely not for kids.

But… against Silence of the Lambs?

I hadn’t seen Lambs in a while, although I cut my teeth on it in the early 90s and watched it regularly while in college. It had been at least 10 years. I was concerned it wouldn’t hold up as well in a world that had changed so much and gotten pretty scary on its own since 1991. But I’m happy to report that Sir Hopkin’s Hannibal Lecter is still as bone-chilling 20 years later.  Scary to the point that when I visited Madame Tussaud’s on Hollywood Blvd a couple of months ago, I could not stand directly in front of the wax portrayal of Lecter – lest he, in all his wax glory, decide I be his dinner guest. 

Who would you rather have show up at your house?

So it was a tough call. I enjoyed Pan’s creativity, but I just have to give it to Lambs. Talk about an anti-hero  -- perhaps the most brilliant one in the history of cinema.

	AFI’s Top 100	IMDB’s Top 100 (as of 1/1/12)
#58	The Gold Rush (1925)	Memento (2000)
#73	Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid (1969)	The Prestige (2006)
#74	Silence of the Lambs (1991)	Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
#75	In the Heat of the Night (1967)	Raging Bull (1980)
#76	Forrest Gump (1994)	Cinema Paradiso (1988)
#77	All the President’s Men  (1976)	Singing In the Rain (1952)
#78	Modern Times (1936)	Some Like it Hot (1959)
#79	The Wild Bunch (1969)	The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
#80	The Apartment (1960)	Rashomon (1950)
#81	Spartacus (1960)	All About Eve (1950)
#82	Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)	Amadeus (1984)
#83	Titanic (1997)	Once Upon A Time in America (1984)
#84	Easy Rider (1969)	The Green Mile (1999)
#85	A Night at the Opera (1935)	Full Metal Jacket (1987)
#86	Platoon (1986)	2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
#87	12 Angry Men (1957)	Inglorious Basterds (2009)
#88	Bringing Up Baby (1938)	The Great Dictator (1940)
#89	Sixth Sense (1999)	Braveheart (1995)
#90	Swing Time (1936)	The Bicycle Thief (1948)
#91	Sophie’s Choice (1982)	The Apartment (1960)
#92	Up (2009)	Goodfellas (1990)
#93	The French Connection (1971)	Downfall (2004)
#94	Pulp Fiction (1994)	Gran Torino (2008)
#95	The Last Picture Show (1971)	Metropolis (1927)
#96	Do The Right Thing (1989)	The Sting (1973)
#97	Blade Runner (1982)	Gladiator (2000)
#98	Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)	The Maltese Falcon (1941)
#99	Toy Story (1995)	Unforgiven (1992)
#100	Ben Hur (1959)	The Elephant Man (1980)

Next week: Back to the Future vs. Shawshank Redemption. Back to the Future has been called by some of my (moronic) cinema guru friends as a “perfect” film. Cue my rolling of eyes and snickering.