Notes on the Empire Magazine Top 300 Poll

In 2014, Empire Magazine compiled a reader poll of the 301 greatest films of all time  (you can play it in quiz form here, the list is unavailable but the final composited total is here).

 Here are some notes on the list:

1.   The Empire subscriber base is likely dominated by film aficionados who came of age in the 1990s. This can be seen in the high rankings of the films of Quentin Tarantino’s and Frank Darabont’s films, the ranking of Scorsese’s 1990 film “Goodfellas” over his earlier masterpieces, the high rankings of “Fight Cub,” “The Matrix” and the fact that Kevin Smith is even mentioned at all, shows that this is likely a group of voters that primarily came of age during the 1990s. Tarantino’s debut “Reservoir Dogs” (which didn’t really bring anything to the table that “Pulp Fiction” would do two years later) clocks in at #75. Additionally, David Fincher’s hits “Se7en” and “Fight Club” and the David Fincheresque “Usual Suspects” all place extremely high.
2.   It’s also worth noting that after the big triumvate of “Raging Bull” “Taxi Driver” and “Goodfellas”, the only other pre-2000 Scorsese work listed here is “Casino” which isn’t particularly memorable unless you were forming your filmic vocabulary in that decade. A more preferable choice for a film that defined Scorsese pre-2000 is “Mean Streets.”
3.  This is clearly a male voting body that grew up in the 1990’s. Tarantino and Fincher’s 90’s work are both hyper-masculine celebrations of violence whereas heady science fiction stuff like “Contact” gets ignored in favor of something like “The Matrix” which revels in bullets and special effects. Romantic comedies and musicals are both given much less weight than they would ordinarily. Among the older Westerns, the 1969 film “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” makes the cuts which is a celebration of masculine strength. Another 1969 film which won the best picture that year and generally does about as well on these kinds of lists, “Midnight Cowboy” gets omitted entirely and that’s a film that celebrates masculine weakness. Well-regarded films such as “Ghost” or “In the Name of the Father” from the time period where many of the films are skewed towards stand no chance of making it. "English Patient" is another outliar. I might say the same about the 2012 version of "Les Mis" but as Key and Peele reminded us, it's got Wolverine in it.
4.  Then again, Tim Burton who was one of the most successful film directors of the decade in terms of box office pull, innovation, and cultural clout seems to have retreated from memory. Edward Scissorhands clocks in at 170 while his masterpiece “Ed Wood” isn’t even mentioned at all. Batman is 288 and that’s more likely due to the presence of superhero tastes than Burton’s touch. Perhaps, his gothic flights of imagination are easier to get invested in as kids and  they detached from him as an adult despite the fact that “Big Fish” (which ranks on IMDB’s Top 250) and “Ed Wood” are both considered great films that aren’t particularly relevant to a children’s audience.
5. One would think that a year later in the post-truth era, movies that either champion political truth like “The Candidate,” “All the President’s Men” or “Spotlight” or that satirize news absurdity like Elia Kazan’s “A Face in the Crowd” or “Network” might rise a bit in the rankings. “All the President’s Men” and “Network” are both on AFI’s Top 100. “All the President’s Men” doesn’t even make the list!
6. It’s also clear that this voting body has been selectively exposed to the past. “Scarface” makes the list because the poster is on everyone’s dorm room. “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Wizard of Oz” our TV staples around Christmastime whereas Frank Capra’s other masterpieces don’t make the cut. Similarly, “Cool Hand Luke” has become a very quotable film and as such beat out 1967 films such as “Bonnie and Clyde” and “In the Heat of the Night” that had previously ranked higher on many lists. And don’t forget the cannon of John Hughes whose films are popular at summer parties and clubs.
7.  It seems the artsier the group of film experts, the more dismissive they are of Spielberg. However, if you’re pragmatic enough to realize that Spielberg’s films are as essential as Sergio Leone, David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, and Quentin Tarantino. Whereas “Schindler’s List” ordinarily tops these types of lists, these voters selected “Jaws” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark” 8^th and 9^th. “Schindler’s List” represents Spielberg’s high-brow ambitions, whereas “Jaws” and “Raiders” represent Spielberg sticking to his forte.
8.  For a voting body that rewards the hyper-violent and special-effects laden, it is refreshing to see a couple of Terrence Malick’s films make the list in “Tree of Life” and “New World.” His films stand entirely against any cinematic trends to make narratives faster and tighter.
9. Old-school blockbusters like "Superman" "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn" and particuarly "Die Hard" finally get their due as smartly made blockbusters unashamed to dig into their deep mythologies. I know this is hard to believe but some 15 years ago, there was virtually nothing indicating "Die Hard" was a classic among any serious segment of the population. This also could explain Tim Burton's "Batman" making the list.

If the film community selected a top 200 English language films in 2016 (scribble edition)

While working a call center job, I decided to use my free time to make a list of what I would predict would be the top 200 English-language films if a number of expert film critics and consumer revoted in the year 2016. Yes, I'm sure if you were working in a call center you would do a crossword puzzle/word search or your nails but when you're a certified film obsessive this is what you do.

Rather than retype the results, I will repost it in its original chicken scratch form. The cutoff year is 2010.

Some of my points of reference, recent EW polls, Empire Magazine's latest polls and IMDB have placed more of a premium on sci-fi films and downplayed the pervasiveness of musicals. The resurgence of the cerebral sci-fi film w the successes of "Martian" "Gravity" and "Arrival" certainly have helped this trend as well as the receiving of "Star Wars" as not a complete disaster. 

Only the most recognizable musicals like "Sound of Music" "West Side Story" and "Singing in the Rain" make my top 100 with "Meet me in St Louis" clocking in at 102 and that could be wishful thinking on my part. It's a very significant film historically and even "La La Land" takes some cues from it, but for some audiences, it still might be overly quaint. Astaire and Rogers are still relevant but I would imagine significant vote splitting among their eight collaborations together. Similarly, vote splitting would dilute the consistently even filmographies of Preston Surges and Douglas Dirk so that there would be no clear winners. 

Similarly, a new class of Western is more en vogue these days that would align more with Peckinpah, the Coens and Tarantino than the classic Ford prototype. Namely, more violence which is why "Magnificent Seven" "Once Upon a Time in the West" and "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (particularly for the buddy humor angle) would all move up while "Shane" and "Stagecoach" fall out of the top 100.

It's also worth noting that films that champion political truth of satirize the falsity of our medical government landscape such as "All the President's Men", "Network", "Reds" (commonly regarded as the directorial masterwork of the overtly political Warren Beatty) and "The Conversation."

Feel free to comment on my list if you can make out the handwriting.

Guest Post - Ellen Wernecke - Book Adaptations from AFI's top 100

Today, I'm pleased to welcome a guest post from pen pal and valuable member of my writing support circle Ellen Wernecke. Wernecke, a New York-based writer, is a book critic who writes for Soda Pop Journal, Publisher's Weekly and the AV Club. The AV Club is the Onion's sister publication which means she has the awesome perk of having her name appear in every single hard copy of the Onion (in fine print) in the credits. In fact, Ellen has been known to tear the newspapers out of New Yorkers hands when they're reading the Onion to show them that she's in the credits (oh wait, that would be me if I ever got into the Onion or AV Club)

In the interim, you should check out Ellen's blog next week where I will be writing a guest post later this week in which I will opine about film adaptations from the Modern Library list of the 100 greatest books ever written. You should also check out Ellen's blog if you are into books or if you were curious to know what would happen to a white girl from Wisconsin if she suddenly started thinking she was a rapper.


Ellen is going to opine on five films from AFI's list of top 100 films from which she already read the book:


"Criteria: Each movie had to be based on a book (eliminated: "Citizen Kane") which I had to have read (eliminated: "The Godfather," "The Grapes of Wrath," etc.) as well as seen the movie (eliminated: "Apocalypse Now") and are ranked in descending order of where they appear on the AFI List:

"Gone With The Wind" (1939) -- Margaret Mitchell's Depression-era bestseller, considered by some to be far too sympathetic to the antebellum South (and point taken), became a bloated, splashy old-Hollywood movie that is yet impossible to forget. Vivien Leigh's splashy outfits (the curtains!) and Clark Gable's parlor sneer bring to life the book that a 2008 poll found was America's second-favorite book, after the Bible. You might lose feeling in your extremities after its nearly four hours are up, but frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.

"The Wizard Of Oz" (1939) -- Because even in this era of big-budget special effects, I bet you can all remember the first time you caught your first glimpse of Oz in Technicolor. One of the few books where it's okay for me that book and movie are inextricably linked and I can't imagine one without the other. Ebook supremacists be damned, I can still remember the gilt lines on my hardcover copy of THE WIZARD OF OZ, wide-eyed in wonder at this crazy world L. Frank Baum conjured up out of flat Kansas, and I felt the rush of early book lust upon learning about the many sequels he wrote to his most famous work.

Schindler's List" (1993) -- If "Gone With The Wind" represents old-Hollywood excess, "Schindler's List" represents its reincarnation as the late '80s/ early '90s Oscar prestige pic. While Keneally's novel-based-on-true-events is a clear and suspenseful narrative of Holocaust heroism, it feels impossibly dry and disconnected from real life compared to the movie Stephen Spielberg famously turned in to finish his film degree. And yet, I won't say it's too much. The mismatch of print and text reflect differing approaches to the material, neither of them wrong.

"To Kill A Mockingbird" (1962) -- I arrived late to this Gregory Peck-starring domestic and courtroom drama, but for all that what I like about the movie is the same as what I like about the book: Both capture the texture and the darkness created when things happen around children that they don't understand, but want to, and the struggle for adults near them between protecting and teaching them. The flight of Scout is so funny and terrifying at the same time. (Credit where credit's due, Mary Badham also gives one of the least muggy, most natural kid performances of that era.)

"All The President's Men" (1976) -- This is a complete nostalgia pick for me because of fond memories watching it with my dad when I was 10 or 11. No matter how many times I watch this movie my stomach knots up in tension during the second half, and I already know how it ends. I knew how it ended before we even sat down to watch! It gets me every time. This is probably the closest adaptation on this list because the journalists profiled more or less wrote themselves (and, hopefully, were thrilled to be played by the dream team of Hoffman and Redford)."

Lay off Bob Woodward, everyone

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