Editorials > Have We Outgrown AFI?

Another year, another American Film Institute list. Tonight, the good people at AFI will be counting down the "10 Top 10," referring to the ten best films in ten genres of their choosing. But as far as I can tell, no one cares in the slightest. The other film blogs haven't made much if any mention of it. Even the IMDb homepage ignores everything except for its local listing, courtesy of their IMDb TV function. Could it be that we've finally outgrown meaningless lists of old movies?

Absolutely not. Lists are the backbone of any movie news/criticism site.The public rarely demands it, but we feel compelled to bring them rankings like "The Top Five Inanimate Objects that Push Characters to the Brink of Sanity" (Rosebud, the Ark of the Covenant, The Maltese Falcon, Wilson the Volley Ball, and Frodo's Ring). We do this because lists are easy to write, they're often easy to defend as taste-based, and they're eye-grabbing to the casual observer who suddenly needs to know the "Four Best Clint Eastwood Stare-Downs in Movies He Didn't Direct."

AFI was once the head honcho when it came to empty lists. After their "100 Movies" program aired in June of 1998, noted critic Jonathan Rosenbaum was so incensed by their promotion of "dumbed-down film culture" that he wrote his own counter-list along with a lengthy complaint essay. But at the same time, the "100 Movies" list was one that people heard about, remembered, and argued over. Surely there's value in beginning a discussion! Unfortunately, ten years later, in a day and age in which every genre has its own blog and requisite list of "great movies," we're still saying the same things, but not much more smartly than AFI was back in 1998. AFI has become just another voice in the vast crowd of dubious pundits, no better or worse, just televised.

-DM