What are we doing?

I'm always looking for a new activity, something with a clear beginning and end, and I've come up with a new one. Yesterday I was looking at AFI's "100 Years...100 Movies" list, which is the American Film Institute's list of the 100 greatest American films of all time. They made the list in 1998 and then updated it in 2007, adding, subtracting, and rearranging. I realized that out of the 123 total films listed, I have seen, from beginning to end, a pathetic 22 . I've seen parts of some others, but that doesn't count. There must be a reason these movies made this list, and I intend to find out for myself. Since M is a movie lover, I thought this was something fun we could do. We're going to watch them all, from 100 to 1.

Since we couldn't pick a list (the 1998 list is the OG, but the 2007 list has Toy Story!), we are combining them and will watch the entire 123*. I don't know how many M has seen, but my guess is more than half, including pretty much all of the ones made in the 1970s and after. Of my embarrassing 22, there is only one that I know for sure he hasn't seen. And he is not going to enjoy it.

Here's how it will work: after we watch each movie, we're going to do write-ups talking about how much we enjoyed it (or didn't!) and give it a rating. I think we'll rate them based on how much we liked or enjoyed them as opposed to their quality as films. For example, ET is on the list and of course it's a well-made film (Spielberg!), but both M and I hate that movie, so it will probably be low-rated.

As soon as I finish season 4, disc 3 of Weeds, I'm sending it back to Netflix and getting Yankee Doodle Dandy, #100 on the list.

*For the record, even though it's on the list, we will not be re-watching Birth of a Nation. One viewing of a 1915 three-plus hour silent film about the KKK "coming to the rescue" is more than enough for a lifetime.