The AFI Makes Its Oscar & Emmy Predictions
Monday, December 10, 2012 at 7:07PM
NATHANIEL R in AFI, List-Mania

The annual unveiling of the AFI Top Ten List, which began in 2000 or 2001 as I recall, was originally an interesting effort to have a diverse prestigious panel select the ten key American films of the year. It, like most other year end lists, quickly morphed into something like a gratuitious press release celebrating everyone's favorite awards-buzzing titles (+ 1 requisite blockbuster). Now, they'll even cheat and include British movies. Les Miz is a British musical about France and was directed by a Brit and stars mostly British and Australian actors. I'm pretty sure that if someone lied to the panel and told them Michael Haneke was secretly born in Hawaii before being whisked off to Wiener Neustadt, Austria they would have found a way to include Amour too!

AFI MOVIES OF THE YEAR
ARGO, BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD, THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, DJANGO UNCHAINED, LES MISÉRABLES
LIFE OF PI, LINCOLN, MOONRISE KINGDOM, SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK and ZERO DARK THIRTY

AFI TV PROGRAMS OF THE YEAR
AMERICAN HORROR STORY, BREAKING BAD, GAME CHANGE, GAME OF THRONES, GIRLS, HOMELAND, LOUIE, MAD MEN, MODERN FAMILY, and THE WALKING DEAD

Again this is what I mean about too many groups. If you don't bring any individualism to the table just merge with other groups who already do this sort of thing and become a bigger supergroup, you're already part of the hive mind! (Note that the always enraging snub of Parks and Recreation by the Emmys continues here with the AFI as well.)

Having typed all that I must quickly admit that A) the easiest solution for those who are easily bored at all the repetition is to tune it out and B) my top ten list will have four or five of those titles on it. 

Article originally appeared on The Film Experience (http://thefilmexperience.net/).
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