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'Remember when I killed your brother? I talked JUST LIKE THIIIIIIIIS!'

Another update on my AFI Top 100 progress...

#71: The Manchurian Candidate - I figured it would be another one I'd have to suffer through, but... war, romance, Solitaire, politics, brain-washing... this movie has a little something for everyone! It's a must-see, especially for my sister!

#72: A Streetcar Named Desire - O, Streetcar! Um, it was pretty good I guess. It was nice to see all the clichés ("I have always depended on the kindness of strangers", "STELLAAAAAAA!") in context. It had interesting, complicated characters, which I usually like, but I just couldn't get into it. Maybe it's the Louisiana thing. I like Karl Malden. He was in this, Patton, On the Waterfront and Pollyanna. One of these things is not like the others.

#73: Chinatown - Dammit. I thought this was going to be one of those sleepers (like The Manchurian Candidate) where it didn't look like something I'd like but then it would end up being good. I found it hard to follow and therefore hard to maintain interest in. She's my sister! She's my daughter!

#74: On the Waterfront - STELLAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Oh wait, wrong movie. So much Marlon Brando and Karl Malden, one's likely to get confused. For years I thought this was a movie about boxing. Turns out it's a movie about mobsters and labor and stuff. I'm not sure if I'm relieved or not. Sometimes I wonder if I would actually be able to think of Marlon Brando as sexy if I had never seen Old Jabba The Hutt Marlon Brando. There are a lot of people out there who think he's attractive, but I look at him and see him with his jowls full of cotton and his mouth full of oranges. Eva Marie Saint looked like a skeletal old lady. Not flattering. Anyway, this was not a particularly entertaining movie. I'm sure it was very Important and junk but not my cup of meat.

#75: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - To give you an idea of how much my ambition to watch all 100 AFI movies has petered out as we approach the finish line, let me tell you that I watched The Manchurian Candidate on April 2nd. It's taken me 3.5 months to watch 5 AFI movies. I am never going to make it to 100, especially if I keep doing damned stupid things like watching movies I turn out to actually like. How am I going to make it through all the boxing and motorcycle-riding and god knows what else if that is all I have left? Ugh.

Anyway, I liked OFOTCN. It was quite enjoyable and interesting and I was especially fond of the one asylum patient who thought he was a Congressional custodian and a very young Christopher Lloyd as Taber. I always think of Christopher Lloyd as shrieking about "1.21 gigawatts!!" or putting the moves on Miss Scarlet, but he was great in a non-comedic role, too. He didn't have many lines, but his face was very expressive and mesmerizing. Who knew?

See also: #48-54, #55-58, #59-61, #64-66, #67-70

srah - Tuesday, 18 July 2006 - 7:09 PM
Tags: afi, movies

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