#98: Unforgiven

M: This movie did not disappoint when it comes to Eastwood and Westerns. It was gritty, an homage to such greats as High Plains Drifter. This also had a nice little ensemble of actors, with Gene Hackman as the man you love to hate, with such a love for peace that he doles out a great deal of violence to keep it. Morgan Freeman was ever-likable, even when he was trying to be bad. If you liked the Eastwood spaghetti westerns, this one shouldn't disappoint.

M's rating:






J: SNOOZE. Westerns aren't my thing so I didn't think I'd like this one. I was right. It wasn't a bad movie, but I spent a lot of time looking at the clock. It dragged. And the kid was crazy annoying. My favorite line: "Nobody's gonna pay good money for a cut-up whore". I want that on my tombstone.

Note from the future: This entry is posting in September 2010, even though it's under the date that the draft was written, December 2009. Re-reading this short review 9 months later, I realize that I hardly remember anything about this movie. I think maybe Morgan Freeman was in it, but he's in lots of Eastwood movies, so I could just be assuming. He plays Nelson Mandela in this one, right? Also, I'm pretty sure that in my head I'm getting this movie confused with the parts of The Outlaw Josie Wales that I've seen. That movie is super long and luckily not on The List.

J's rating:





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#99 (2007): Toy Story

M: What's not to love about this movie? Aside from the all-star cast projecting their voices through Pixar creations, the film itself was clever and entertaining. This is one of those you could watch a dozen times.

M's rating:






J: Dude! It's Toy Story!

J's rating:






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#99 (1998): Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

M: Edgy, I'm sure, for it's time. I was enthralled to see how, back then, interracial coupling was such a sensitive topic--in the days when one was either "colored" or a "negro" rather than "black" or "African-American". It was great to see such powerhouses of acting together in a film, that being Hepburn, Tracy, and of course Poitier. A must-see movie.

M's rating:






J: I don't know much about older actors, but I know enough to understand that Spencer Tracy + Katharine Hepburn + Sidney Poitier is going to equal gold on film. I loved this movie, enough that I would watch it again and highly recommend it. It was interesting that these parents raised their daughter to be colorblind. That's not a side of things you often see in movies from the 60s and before.

J's rating:






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#100: Yankee Doodle Dandy

M: This was a good film. I fond the songs and storyline entertaining, though the choppy segues of back-stories failed to explain some things. When I learned the movie was based on an actual person, I thought it even better. And, with most films of old, the acting was unwavering.

M's rating:






J: I had pretty low expectations for this movie because it is super old and black and white. And I made the mistake of looking at the running time: over two hours! But it didn't feel like it was that long. Could have done without the blackface, but other than that, it was very entertaining, the music was great, and hey! did you know it was based on a real guy?

J's rating:






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Rating System

Okay, it took me forever to start posting, but we have been watching movies. Here is how we're going to post about them: each of us will write a brief review followed by one of two grades:

If we like it:






If we don't like it:






We will also link to each movie's Wikipedia and IMDB pages at the bottom of each post.

Also, we haven't yet decided if we're going to watch #49, Intolerance!. I think we should because otherwise we won't have seen all the movies. M thinks we shouldn't because it's another 3-hour DW Griffith epic and Birth of a Nation was already torturous. He makes a good point.

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.