Working the Lists

I am methodically working my way through AFI's list of Top 100 movies. It's actually two lists, one compiled in 1998 and another in 2007. When I started five months ago, I had seen fifty-five of the top 100. Now I've seen seventy-six from the 1998 list and seventy-three from the 2007 list.

I'm watching two to four classic movies per week (from AFI's list or from a list of Academy Award winning films). I've skimped on watching the news and watch these films an hour at a time late at night and on my days off. I've even convinced Shannon to watch some of these old movies. At my current pace I believe I'll take the AFI list as far as I can by February or March – there are three or four films I don't intend to watch because of their reputation.

Some of the films on my to-watch list are Raging Bull (1980), Chinatown (1974), To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), and Some Like It Hot (1959). All four of these films are in the top-35 on both AFI lists.

Since last summer I've seen my first films with Charlie Chaplin, Groucho Marx, and Buster Keaton. I've nearly completed the filmographies of Alfred Hitchcock and Steven Spielberg and I've caught almost every major role James Stewart and Humphrey Bogart ever had. My list of Best Picture Oscar-winners is north of fifty (though this is part of that list I don't intend to finish – the Oscar has been awarded to some real trash over the decades).

The wikipedia article for Academy Award winning films has been helpful but I noticed that there were several gaps and mistakes. So, being the nerd that I am, I've done some research in my spare time (while watching the movies, no less) and contributed to the article. I've reached a new level of nerdiness! I've edited and contributed to a wikipedia article!