American Film Institute's Best of '06 (TV and movies)

[Charge!]

TV: Battlestar Galactica, Dexter, Elizabeth I, Friday Night Lights, Heroes, The Office, South Park, 24, West Wing, The Wire.

Movies: Babel, Borat, Devil Wears Prada, Dreamgirls, Half-Nelson, Happy Feet, Inside Man, Letters from Iwo Jima, Little Miss Sunshine, United 93.

Your .02 welcomed. :)

[Via_Chicago]

Your .02 welcomed. :)

AFI is irrelevant. Don't listen to anything they say.

[sch2383]

The TV list is a good one, though House and Rescue Me should be on there too.

[DoctorJones24]

AFI is irrelevant. Don't listen to anything they say.

Is there an awards show or "Best of" list that you can't say this about?

[TheSlipperyOne]

TV: Battlestar Galactica, Dexter, Elizabeth I, Friday Night Lights, Heroes, The Office, South Park, 24, West Wing, The Wire.


Take off Dexter and The West Wing because the first isn't that good and the second hasn't been good in a while. Then take off Elizabeth I because it's not a TV show.

Replace those with Deadwood, Weeds and Rescue Me and it would be a real list.

And no, House does not deserve to be anywhere near a top 10 list.


Movies: Babel, Borat, Devil Wears Prada, Dreamgirls, Half-Nelson, Happy Feet, Inside Man, Letters from Iwo Jima, Little Miss Sunshine, United 93.


Remove 8 from this list then pick and choose from a dozen better movies and you'll have a decent top 10. The 2 I would leave?

United 93
Half-Nelson

I haven't seen Dreamgirls but modern day musicals will never make a list of mine.

[TheSlipperyOne]

Is there an awards show or "Best of" list that you can't say this about?

This Best Films lists in this thread:

http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=431925

:D

[Via_Chicago]

Is there an awards show or "Best of" list that you can't say this about?

Yeah, any "best of" list that isn't made for purely commercial/financial gains, as are all of AFI's.

[Ghost]

Yeah, any "best of" list that isn't made for purely commercial/financial gains, as are all of AFI's.

My best of will be the ten films from this year that I think are best.

Babel - a big disappointment, and seemingly a fading film Oscar-wise

Borat - as we went around about in the Borat thread, enjoyable, but I don't get the fuss.

Devil Wears Prada - a really solid piece of entertainment, but I'm surprised to have seen it here and with the National Board of Review. Although to be fair, I suspect this movie might have more legs than people think down the road, simply because it's a female-oriented movie in a period where that isn't done as much, but may be on the rise.

Dreamgirls - have seen, can't say much.

Half-Nelson - exceptional performances by Ryan Gosling and the youngster Shareeka Epps in a drug-addicted teacher drama. The film's direction left me dry, though.

Happy Feet - haven't seen, don't plan to.

Inside Man - This was on my top ten list around Thanksgiving. Then a funny thing happened. This year's December crop turned out to be pretty good, unlike last year.

Letters from Iwo Jima - Haven't seen.

Little Miss Sunshine - funniest film I've seen, other than Borat.

United 93 - best film of the year.

The absence of The Queen, though a decent film, doesn't pain me. The absence of The Departed is unpardonable.

[Ghost]

The film critic association polls are starting to arrive in the past day or so ....

Here's the most prestigious, The New York Film Critics Circle:

http://www.nyfcc.com/awards.php

Best Picture: United 93
Best Director: Martin Scorsese
Best Actor: Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland (a bit overrated in my view)
Best Actress: Helen Mirren, The Queen (no disagreement)
Best Supp. Actor: Jackie Earle Haley, Little Children (not that he's bad, but probably the worst selection of the group)
Best Supp. Actress: Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls (a whale of a musical-style performance, but it's clearly a lead performance)
Best Cinematography: Pan's Labyrinth

[DoctorJones24]

Yeah, any "best of" list that isn't made for purely commercial/financial gains, as are all of AFI's.

Every published list is trying to sell magazines (or rather, ad space in magazines), just like every awards show or festival is a marketing gimmick.

I like em, mind you. I just don't see how AFI's obvious gimmickry is more insidious/irrelevant than others'. Granted, some of their "100 Best Kisses in Movie History" type lists could add the disclaimer "of movies in our catalogue," but complaining about that seems a little pedantic.

[Via_Chicago]

Every published list is trying to sell magazines (or rather, ad space in magazines), just like every awards show or festival is a marketing gimmick.

I like em, mind you. I just don't see how AFI's obvious gimmickry is more insidious/irrelevant than others'. Granted, some of their "100 Best Kisses in Movie History" type lists could add the disclaimer "of movies in our catalogue," but complaining about that seems a little pedantic.

Every published list? Are you really that cynical? Is Jonathan Rosenbaum's Essential Cinema really a ploy to sell [fill in the blank]?

No, I tease. I understand your point, but I find AFI's lists (and accompanying TV specials) particularly jarring. They have no intention of actually picking 100 great films, but 100 films that they can sell to the public. As everyone ought to know, the AFI (unlike its cross-Atlantic counterpart, the British Film Institute) not only refuses to acknowledge the existence of cinema outside of the United States, but it also receives no funding from the government, and hence it uses its 100 lists and honorary events (and the TV specials that accompany them) to sell DVDs for the major studios and hence make money for themselves. Compare that with Entertainment Weekly's or the Village Voice's lists. While they are created to sell magazines, at least there was thought put into their creation, however much you may disagree with the list.

AFI is just a joke. Turner Classic Movies does a better job of raising public awareness of forgotten screen classics and foreign cinema than does AFI, and at least TCM is upfront about their capitalistic aims.