e.t.a. 11pm or so: The final AFI Top Ten Lists are here, and for every "Wow! They finally remembered that Blue Velvet was awesome!", there's a whole lot of "how exactly does this category cohere?" ("fantasy"), and with only sixteen films not having been listed in a previous AFI canonization, you'll be forgiven if you feel like you've seen these lists before, just in some different order.
Biggest omissions, top of my head?
- Animation: Toy Story 2
- Fantasy: Well, if they're going to list The Purple Rose of Cairo here, so can I. Take a look at the ten they chose and you tell me if it's a coherent category.
- Gangster: The Departed, Out of Sight, Reservoir Dogs and Touch of Evil ahead of the Cagney/Robinson films. It's one genre in which the modern films really surpass their predecessors.
- SciFi: Aliens over Alien, and if this is where they're listing Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (it's not a romcom?), this is where I'll take it.
- Western: No quarrel with the given list. Lone Star deserves to be remembered, though.
- Sports: "It's just occurred to me what they've been chanting for the last few minutes. It's the name 'Rudy'!"
- Mystery: Voters were invited to vote for The Big Lebowski here. Other worthy nominees included House of Games, LA Confidential and The Fugitive; this is a deep category.
- RomCom: We say it every time they do a list: His Girl Friday. (Also: The Lady Eve, 40YOV?)
- Courtroom Drama: I'm quite fond of Reversal of Fortune and The Insider, but it's hard to find something to cut from this top ten.
- Epic: A weird, unfocused category, but I'll vote for Apocalypse Now wherever it's eligible.
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