I Am A Mediocre Movie Watcher

2008 December 18
tags: ,
by CajoleJuice

I like to think of myself as an emerging film lover. It’s fairly difficult to keep up with recent releases while at the same time attempting to watch the classics, though. I wasn’t really exposed to any of them growing up. I found out that Darth Vader was Luke’s father from The Simpsons. I didn’t see an Indiana Jones film until I was in my teens. Perhaps these aren’t quite the classics I was referring to, but these are movies you would think parents would share with their kids. Maybe they were satisfied with me watching and loving every Jim Carrey movie. Oh well. I did see Die Hard and Terminator 2 in my formative years, so it wasn’t a total wash.

So we all know IMDB, right? It’s pretty much THE site for movie information, arguably superior to even Wikipedia. You may have known that the site maintains a Top 250 list, compiled from user votes. The Dark Knight sitting at #4 is all you need to know when it comes to the people who are voting. The Shawshank Redemption at the top of the list is just as ridiculous, but it’s not a comic book movie that nerds eat up, so I can’t make condensing implications. I guess TNT and TBS showing it so many times as a NEW CLASSIC has convinced people of its transcendence. Rankings (and a few insane choices scattered around) aside, the list is a great starting point for anyone looking to truly delve into the history of popular films.

Here’s a little quiz to see how much delving you need to do:

It will automatically compare your results to mine.

So, did you beat my 38.8%?

The top ten movies I need to see according to the list are:

1. 12 Angry Men
2. Casablanca
3. Seven Samurai
4. City of God
5. Once Upon a Time in the West
6. Psycho
7. Sunset Blvd.
8. North by Northwest
9. It’s a Wonderful Life
10. Lawrence of Arabia

Not surprising to see 9/10 are pre-1970. To the Netflix queue they go. Except for It’s a Wonderful Life, as I’m sure I will stumble across it in the next couple of weeks, like I always do. I’ll try to stop myself from reverting to my usual ritual of watching Die Hard instead.

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  • stacybuckeye

    I got 55% Fun list. My husband and I worked though AFI’s top 100 list (most of which are on this list too) and it took us 9 years :)