As always, I'm comparing the American Film Institute’s (“TheScholar’s”) Top 100 films against the Internet Movie Database’s (“The Masses’”)Top 100 films
#62: American Graffiti (1973) vs. Requiem For a Dream (2000)
I’ve been on a sort of anti-George Lucas kick for the past
few months. Well, to be honest, it’s been a bit longer than that…since around May
23, 1999, you know, give or take. But I
tried not to let my ever consuming hatred – er, disappointment
in – George color my viewing of American
Graffiti.
Graffiti is sweet
and optimistic, showing a world utterly different than the one we live in now.
Nostalgia at its fullest. It’s a good story; good acting. The type of movie I
like to recommend to my parents or anyone who doesn’t want to feel like they’ve
been through an emotional wringer after watching a film. It’s a feel-good film
of a by-gone era; sort of the coin’s flipside of The Last Picture Show (AFI’s #95).
Requiem For A Dream
is the polar opposite of sweet and optimistic. It’s a film about addiction.
Addiction to drugs. Addiction to food. Addiction to fame. Addiction to
addiction. And how those addictions
drive us to our knees – literally, figuratively, emotionally, spiritually,
utterly.
The movie is not subtle in any way. But then again,
addiction is rarely subtle.
Written and directed by Darren Aronofsky,
who has since brought us fabulous films like The Wrestler and mind-benders like Black Swan, I supposed I shouldn’t be surprised that Dream is both compelling and troubling. I wish it concentrated a little more on the
less-obvious addictions portrayed in the film (like our overwhelming need for attention
and love) and less on the drug addiction. But if it did Aronofsky wouldn’t have
been able sledgehammer the audience at the end with the scenes he no doubt took
perverse pleasure in subjecting the audience to.
Am I glad I watched Requiem
for a Dream? No. Will I ever
watch it again? No. But Dreams wins over Graffiti. Sorry George.
So the score is now AFI -21, IMDb - 19
AFI’s Top 100
|
IMDb’s Top 100 (as of 1/1/12)
|
|
#58
|
The
Gold Rush (1925)
|
Memento (2000)
|
#62
|
American Graffiti
(1973)
|
Requiem
for a Dream (2000)
|
#63
|
Cabaret (1972)
|
Das
Boot (1981)
|
#64
|
Network (1976)
|
The Third Man (1949)
|
#65
|
The
African Queen (1951)
|
L.A. Confidential (1997)
|
#66
|
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
|
Reservoir Dogs (1992)
|
#67
|
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
|
Chinatown
(1974)
|
#68
|
Unforgiven (1992)
|
The
Treasure of Sierra Madre (1948)
|
#69
|
Tootsie (1982)
|
Modern
Times (1936)
|
#70
|
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
|
Life
is Beautiful (1997)
|
#71
|
Saving
Private Ryan (1998)
|
Monty Python & the Holy Grail
(1975)
|
#72
|
The
Shawshank Redemption (1994)
|
Back to the Future (1985)
|
#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)
|
Another toughie next week: the screwball-comedy-with-a-twist
Sullivan’s Travels vs. the quirky Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind.
I always felt that AG was over rated. It's fine, but in the Top 100 of all time? Even when I wasn't anti-Lucas it never did anything for me.
ReplyDeleteAs for these... Requiem is my least favorite Aronofsky movie (in any use of the word "favorite").
For next week... eek, I've never seen Sullivan's Travels. I might need to rectify that.
I had never seen Sullivan's Travels either, nor heard of it, honestly. But I enjoyed it a great deal. And it proved to me that Veronica Lake was a real person. I thought she was just a character they made up in L.A. Confidential.
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