More Reasons to Hate the American Film Institute (AFI's Ten Best of 2006)

The American Film Institute aggravates me more and more every year. Their "100 Years..." series names the same movies over and over and the accompanying TV specials are painful to watch. I used to give them (both the AFI and their lists/specials) credit for encouraging people to talk about movies. Their first list, in 1998, which trumpeted the 100 Greatest American Movies of All Time, provided me with a handy starter course in US film history. I know that the only reason I ever saw Yankee Doodle Dandy was because of its inclusion on the list and I loved it. But the more I learned about film, the more I came to disrespect the AFI

For starters, they rank the movies. How is Citizen Kane (#1 on the 100 Greatest Films list, which I'll continue to use for consistency's sake) better or worse than Annie Hall (#31)? How can the two even be compared? Why not just list the films alphabetically? And what the hell is GoodFellas doing at #94? And where is Sullivan's Travels? And what is Forest Gump (#71) doing on the list? And how exactly are The Third Man (#57) and A Clockwork Orange (#46) American films?

I could go on and on. In fact, I just deleted three more paragraphs on the subject. But that list is eight years old. I finally had it with the AFI earlier this year with the release of their 25 Greatest Movie Musicals. No Gigi. No Love Me Tonight. But Grease is there. At #20. Just ahead of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

The AFI has just announced its 2006 "Movies of the Year: Offical Selections."
Babel (Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu)
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (Larry Charles)
The Devil Wears Prada (David Frankel)
Dreamgirls (Bill Condon)
Half Nelson (Ryan Fleck)
Happy Feet (George Miller)
Inside Man (Spike Lee)
Letters from Iwo Jima (Clint Eastwood)
Little Miss Sunshine (Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris)
United 93 (Paul Greengrass)

I can't comment on the quality of the individual films, as I've only seen four of them. What I can say is that both The Departed (Martin Scorsese) and Little Children (Todd Field) are better than Babel, which is ambitious, but ultimately unfulfilling.