The American Film Institute has updated their contentious list of the 100 best movies ever. Edward Copeland compares the new list with the original 1998 version.

Writers list their favorite film adaptations of novels.

102 Movies for Film Literacy

Film critic Jim Emerson recently listed 102 movies to see before you are movie "literate." He explains the list this way:

... [They are] the movies you just kind of figure everybody ought to have seen in order to have any sort of informed discussion about movies. They're the common cultural currency of our time..."

I've reproduced Emerson's list here and bolded those that I've seen.

2001: A Space Odyssey
The 400 Blows
8 1/2
Aguirre, the Wrath of God
Alien
All About Eve
Annie Hall
Apocalypse Now
Bambi
The Battleship Potemkin
The Best Years of Our Lives
The Big Red One
The Bicycle Thief
The Big Sleep
Blade Runner
Blowup
Blue Velvet
Bonnie and Clyde
Breathless
Bringing Up Baby
Carrie
Casablanca
Un Chien Andalou
Children of Paradise / Les Enfants du Paradis
Chinatown
Citizen Kane
A Clockwork Orange
The Crying Game
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Days of Heaven
Dirty Harry
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
Do the Right Thing
La Dolce Vita
Double Indemnity
Dr. Strangelove
Duck Soup
E.T. -- The Extra-Terrestrial
Easy Rider
The Empire Strikes Back
The Exorcist
Fargo
Fight Club
Frankenstein
The General
The Godfather, The Godfather, Part II
Gone With the Wind
GoodFellas
The Graduate
Halloween
A Hard Day's Night
Intolerance
It's a Gift
It's a Wonderful Life
Jaws
The Lady Eve
Lawrence of Arabia
M
Mad Max 2 / The Road Warrior
The Maltese Falcon
The Manchurian Candidate
Metropolis
Modern Times
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Nashville
The Night of the Hunter
Night of the Living Dead
North by Northwest
Nosferatu
On the Waterfront
Once Upon a Time in the West
Out of the Past
Persona
Pink Flamingos
Psycho
Pulp Fiction
Rashomon
Rear Window
Rebel Without a Cause
Red River
Repulsion
The Rules of the Game
Scarface (I assume this means Cagney's but I've seen both)
The Scarlet Empress
Schindler's List
The Searchers
The Seven Samurai
Singin' in the Rain
Some Like It Hot
A Star Is Born
A Streetcar Named Desire
Sunset Boulevard
Taxi Driver
The Third Man
Tokyo Story
Touch of Evil
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Trouble in Paradise
Vertigo
West Side Story
The Wild Bunch
The Wizard of Oz

67 out of 102. I could be much better, especially on the earlier movies (though I steadfastly refuse to willingly watch a musical). How do you rate? I'm guessing Krista and Senior both outrank that. And which of the ones that I haven't seen are must sees? Aguirre the Wrath of God is already on my Netflix queue. (via kottke)

NP: "Blue for You" - The Charlatans U.K.

Whatever Happened to Whit Stillman

The man behind three films of the 90s that I enjoyed very much, Metropolitan, Barcelona, and The Last Days of Disco seemingly disappeared from the face of the earth after that last film. Well, not exactly. He's now living in Paris, and Josh Horowitz of Better Than Fudge caught up with him recently.

Barcelona is probably my favorite of the three. It made literally fall on the floor laughing:

Q: "What about all the shootings in New York?"
A: "That doesn't make Americans more violent, we're just better shots."
[Ed. Note: Obviously a paraphrase]

NP: "Sister Jack (Piano Demo)" - Spoon

Top 50 Independent Films

Yet another list to debate. Empire Online has compiled a list of the top 50 independent films. Some of these seem a bit odd to me, since calling a film indie to me says almost as much about its subject matter as it does about how it was made. I realize this is misguided, but it is based on the independent films that I have seen (probably about two thirds of the list actually).

I'm sure there won't be much argument about their number 1 film (go ahead, you can guess without me even telling you). But, strangely, it has lost a bit of its bloom for me over the years. Two trick pony? Perhaps.

NP: "I'll Believe in Anything" - Wolf Parade

Bad Movies

Roger Ebert checks in with his list of most hated films. It's pretty much the list you would expect. The only item that surprised me was his inclusion of The Usual Suspects:

Once again, my comprehension began to slip, and finally I wrote down: "To the degree that I do understand, I don't care." It was, however, somewhat reassuring at the end of the movie to discover that I had, after all, understood everything I was intended to understand. It was just that there was less to understand than the movie at first suggests.

This isn't the funniest of the glimpses, and there's a fair amount of acidic humor here. For example his take on Joe Dirt:

We professional movie critics count it a banner week when only one movie involves eating, falling into or being covered by excrement (or a cameo appearance by Carson Daly). We are not prudes. We are prepared to laugh. But what these movies, including "Joe Dirt," often do not understand is that the act of being buried in crap is not in and of itself funny.

I can't comment on most of these since I've only seen a couple of them (and none of them make my guilty pleasure list). I can tell you my most hated movie, and there's really no rhyme nor reason to it. My all time most hated movie is Never Been Kissed. Like I said, I can't logically explain it, but just seeing it on the cable listings is enough to make me run screaming from the living room straight to the nearest bar.

UPDATE: Of course! How could I not add Dirty Dancing to my list. Guess what, Baby, I just put you in the corner.

NP: "The Land Beyond" - British Sea Power