Monday, July 02, 2007

Baby Boomers Can Bite Me

Everyone hold your breath, the American Film Institute just revised its Top 100 Movies list. You can access it here. According to the AFI, Citizen Kane is the best movie ever made for all eternity or whatever the official title is. I fell asleep during that movie, but I have been known to do that. What is more appalling is the remaining 99 movies on this list, and the glaring omissions. As Patrick aptly put it, this list should be called Top 100 Most Conventional, Nostalgia-Driven Choices by Baby Boomers for Greatest Films Ever, Plus a Few New Films Also Directed by Baby Boomers to Suit Baby Boomer Sensibilities . . . Bonus Material: Do the Right Thing.

Jesus fucking christ, people. There are way too many Jimmy Stewart (read: parent of Baby Boomers), Frank Capra, Buster Keaton, and Charlie Chaplin movies on this list. Also, Jack Nicholson, Robert Redford, Richard Gere, and Warren Beatty (read: Baby Boomer idols and contemporaries). Having a DW Griffith or Charlie Chaplin movie on this list is like comparing cave drawings to the fucking Mona Lisa.

Other abominations: Grapes of Wrath, Singin' in the Rain, The General, The Shawshank Redemption, West Side Story, The Best Years of Our Lives, Network, American Graffiti, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sixth Sense, Forrest Gump, Easy Rider, MASH, and you already know of my hatred for Annie Hall, which is also Baby Boomer bullshit.

These movies, though they may be good films, simply trigger some kind of Baby Boomer nostalgia or sensibilities based on what they valued when they were young. They are classics, not great films. Glaringly missing from this list:

A single David Lynch movie, Brazil, American Beauty, the third Lord of the Rings movie. Bladerunner, Pulp Fiction and the first Lord of the Rings should be far higher on this list, and I can't fucking believe Forrest Gump and Annie Hall beat Goodfellas and Bladerunner. Also The Shining should be on here even though it deals with magical children and stars Jack Nicholson, who is a huge Baby Boomer hero. And, though Russell Crowe bugs me, Gladiator and perhaps even Capote, O Brother Where Art Thou, When Harry Met Sally, or The Princess Bride. But I guess they are too new and don't deal with the Vietnam War, the Holocaust, Watergate, aging gracefully, drugs, or confused, middle-aged affairs.

Fucking baby boomers can bite me.

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