#Watch 3 Movies from the AFI Top 100 List

One day I was walking with a student who told me about this killer podcast where founders of major organizations tell their stories of how they built and created amazing places, spaces, and things. He described it with such excitement that I had to add it to my podcast queue. But when I finally remembered to give it a try, I couldn't remember the name, so I did a little searching, and found it. It was a podcast called How Did This Get Made.

As I listened to my first episode, I thought it was strange that the student hadn't mentioned that it was hosted by three comedians: Paul Sheer, Jason Manzoukus, and June Diane Raphael, all of whom I'd seen in various films and TV shows but had never paid much attention to them as individuals outside of their characters. I continued listening, and they started talking about a horrible, horrible movie they had all watched. And that's all they talked about. Because, guys, I had the wrong podcast.

I was looking for How I Built This from NPR (duh), but thanks to the Universe, I found myself accidentally in the world of HDTGM and loving every second of it. On each episode, they watch a different terrible movie and then talk about it. Even when I haven't watched the actual film, I nearly cry laughing, especially when June has a theory. After a year of listening, I even managed to get Zann to go to a double live taping with me, where we watched and then listened to the three talk about watching The Adventures of Pinnochio (truly disturbing) and Space Jam, which didn't go over well in Chicago, where, apparently, every child watched and worshiped this film.

Bringing it back to this list item, Paul started a new podcast called Unspooled with not Jason or June, where they watch films from the American Film Institute's Top 100 list and then discuss them. So he gets to watch good movies for that podcast and then rub those good movies in the faces of Jason and June when the HDTGM movies are especially bad.

I didn't plan to listen to Unspooled, but Paul smartly snuck in an episode of Unspooled about ET on the HDTGM feed. I thought about asking Alexa to skip to the next episode, back to the movie garbage, but I have a soft spot for ET because it was (apparently) my first movie in a theater.

The podcast was great. I haven't been listening to it as I have too many other favorites, but I have it in my queue to eventually catch up, and when I do, I hope to have seen a few more of the films from the list.

#1 - The Gold Rush (1925)
1/5/19

I had never watched a Charlie Chaplin film. Never even had interest in Chaplin or silent or black and white films. But, hey, it was the first one on the list that (a) I hadn't seen before and (b) was free online (Youtube).

After watching several garbage Academy Award winning films from the 60s, 70s, and 80s, my hopes were low for a film from 1925.

I was pleasantly surprised. It was funny. It was sweet. I didn't hate the storyline. Like, yeah, there was some toxic masculinity, but then, unlike many Academic Award winning films I'd watched last year, that toxicity was not rewarded, and the sweet little weirdo wins in the end. Chaplin was legitimately funny, even in silence, and I am amazed at how good the physical humor was, like, it was funny but then also impressively executed.

The thing I found most interesting is that because the film is silent, I had to actually pay attention. I couldn't flip through instagram while watching, thinking I'm multitasking but really just not giving my attention to either thing, because I'd miss the action and the occasional words on screen.

So, thank you, AFI, for giving me hope that there are good, old films out there! I needed that hope to keep going with my exploration of film before my time!

#2 - MASH (1970)
3/1/20

I am so thankful I was not yet born in the 70s and forced to watch the garbage that was produced at that time. I do not understand why this movie is on this list.

Was it well acted? Yes, I absolutely believed that Donald Sutherland and the others were selfish, drunk, sexist assholes who spent their time either casually doing their jobs as military surgeons, hitting on women who were there to seriously do their jobs, or planning/actually shaming or assaulting women who were not interested in them. And then, the film makes the woman who is the target of most of their shaming and assault seem like a fucking dumbass because she supposedly doesn't understand football even though she's for some inexplicable reason super into the one game there is. Like, yeah, now I see exactly where long-held stereotypes about nurses came from and exactly why people to this day still dismiss their brilliance and importance in our medical system.

I did not enjoy a single minute of this film.

#3 - Taxi Driver (1976)
4/17/20

Well, quarantine allowed me to wrap up this list item with a film I found fascinating. I have really hated a lot of films made in the 70s that have gotten a lot of acclaim. One consistent exception to this experience seems to be films starring Robert DeNiro. As a young actor, he made some really excellent choices in roles and films.

Around 20 minutes into the film, I thought, oh no, another film where I'm supposed to feel bad for the guy because some woman he thinks is pretty doesn't want to date him. But then, no, not at all. The devolution of DeNiro's character is beautifully done without falling into the trap of honoring toxic masculinity. This film reminded me of Raging Bull because again, I didn't "like" the main character (because you're not really supposed to), but I found myself fascinated by the story and the way the setting was sufficiently complex. I had no idea where things were going to go, and DeNiro, with a lot of solo scenes, changes enough with each one that I couldn't stop wondering what was going to happen next.

Two thumbs up for this oldie.