Sunday
14Dec2008
AFI Top Ten List Blows It
Sunday, December 14, 2008 at 4:58PM
You might notice a glaring omission from the
AFI's list
of the top ten films of the year: Where is
Slumdog Millionaire?
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Frost/Nixon
Frozen River
Gran Torino
Iron Man
Milk
WALL-E
Wendy and Lucy
The Wrestler 
And I don't know how Slumdog doesn't qualify under those rules since Danny Boyle and I talked specifically about the funding for the film and he said that 40% of it came from Warner Independent, a studio that has since shut its doors. Maybe you have to have at least half your funding come from an American company.
You also can't argue about rewarding American-only crews, because those things don't exist anymore. And if you did, you'd have to disqualify The Dark Knight, which has several Brits in the cast as well as an English director, and Benjamin Button would have to be out of the running because its leading lady is Australian and its composer is French.
Still, it's a sad oversight, because it renders this list more or less useless. Who really gives a shit where the money came from? Is Slumdog a better movie than Gran Torino? Yes, yes it is. So, by keeping out arguably the consensus best film of the year, the AFI looks a bit out of touch. The only thing worse is if it were eligible and they didn't bother to recognize how good it is.
Here they are, however, presented in alphabetical order:
The Dark Knight
Frost/Nixon
Frozen River
Gran Torino
Iron Man
Milk
WALL-E
Wendy and Lucy
The Wrestler
You might have also noticed that Doubt, which cleaned up in the Golden Globes was shut out, as were Revolutionary Road and Rachel Getting Married.
Reader Comments (8)
Another interesting item to the list is Wendy and Lucy. I believe this is the first list to include that movie. Now granted, I have not seen it, but I thought it odd that this is the only list, that I can remember, to include it.
Did anyones list have Chronicles of Narnia on it? That was my favorite!
Ummm...was this article supposed to be humorous or do you simply don't understand what the AFI means? It's the AMERICAN Film Institute. Their Top 10 lists only recognize American productions. Since, you know, it's the AMERICAN Film Institute...you know, from AMERICA!
I don't think focusing on American productions intimates a lack of influence from anywhere else. It's just that the AFI is going to have a top 10 American films list. Or, put another way, notice that the British Film Institute's top 100 list is Brit-centric!
The British Film Institute list is about "culturally British" films, although many were financed by big American studios, like Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. Zhivago, Gandhi, Dr. No, Shakespeare in Love, and on and on.
As for Red, do you think the BAFTAs only honor British films? Nope. Not at all. Last year, there was only one British film nominated for its Best Picture.
What the AFI does with their lists, which are televised as a splashy two- or three-hour event every summer on CBS, is completely ignore the contributions of the rest of the world's cinema. Of course, they never explain that. They don't say, "We'd love to put at least one Monty Python movie in the best comedies of all time, but you see, it doesn't count." It's asinine. As if moviegoers care where it's from. Pointless.
Instead, they rattle off about their list representing the best of that genre that we've ever seen, when it clearly leaves off some great films. Every year.
In the case of Slumdog Millionaire, it had a significant amount of American funding, but somehow not enough.
Really, not trying to be argumentative here. I just think the implied "and everything else that's not American sucks" is not there. I know the BFIs do "culturally British" films, but the point stands -- that is, they're also not saying "and non-culturally British films" suck. It's just not their thing.
So then a movie that is 40% produced with American money, directed by a member of the Director's Guild of America and has been the property of not one but two American studios in a matter of four months is...what then?
Slumdog is easily better than Gran Torino, The Dark Knight, Iron Man, and WALL-E.
My top 10 list:
10. The Dark Knight
9. Body of Lies
8. Synecdoche, New York
7. The Wrestler
6. Milk
5. In Bruges
4. Miracle at St. Anna
3. Frost/Nixon
2. Doubt
1. Slumdog Millionaire