On the Problematic AFI List
Thursday, December 17, 2015 at 7:28PM I realize I'm quite late in sharing the AFI's annual top ten list but it was only because it felt redundant. The American Film Institute starting making top ten lists of the year's most "significant" American films in 2000. For the first ten years or so their lists did have some interesting pockets, detours from Oscar buzz if you will. They were willing to include fan favorites and comedies (High Fidelity, Best in Show, The 40 Year Old Virgin) that weren't "prestige" enough for Oscar, surprise hits that weren't in any "best picture" game (Friday Night Lights, Devil Wears Prada) superhero blockbusters (Iron Man, Spider-Man 2, The Dark Knight) and low budget indies (Wendy & Lucy, Half Nelson). This year, it's like the jury just looked at Best Picture prediction charts and copied down the titles.
Those plus Star Wars: The Force Awakens which they pushed back their announcement to consider and/or to include depending on how cynical you're feeling. More...
But this complaint is nothing new. The AFI has been that way for awhile. Round about 2010 when their list was identical to Oscar's but for one film (AFI chose The Town which only had a spot because The King's Speech was ineligible being British), it just started being Oscar cheat sheets.
What changed about their process or has the need to predict Oscars affected literally every awards-giving body?
Part of the problem might be that their list purports to honor films which
- Best advance the art of the moving image
- Enhance the rich cultural heritage of America's art form
- Inspire audiences and artists alike
- And/or make a mark on American society
But in order to know what films inspire audiences and artists alike and make a mark on society you really can't be choosing films which haven't yet opened or are just in their first weekend at theaters as the group does each and every year with lists that favor late breaking films... just like Oscar.
Even more confusing is that AFI means to honor specificially American films and yet their rules are so loose about that that something like Mad Max Fury Road with some of the money from the US but all of the creative team from oversees somehow qualifies. Brooklyn, which many people assumed was ineligible being British/Irish also actually qualified so its absence is their only major deviation from Oscar buzz.
can someone explain The Big Short's appeal to me?THE LISTS:
[MOVIES] THE BIG SHORT, BRIDGE OF SPIES, CAROL, INSIDE OUT, MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, THE MARTIAN, ROOM, SPOTLIGHT, STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS, and STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON.
[TV] THE AMERICANS, BETTER CALL SAUL, BLACK-ISH, EMPIRE, FARGO, GAME OF THRONES, HOMELAND, MASTER OF NONE, MR ROBOT, UNREAL
...and a special award for MAD MEN.
(If the AFI really wants to honor films for their national or cultural significance shouldn't they be looking at films like Creed (already a hit with critics and audiences and part of totally American iconography via the Rocky series). In years past Trainwreck, which was a big talking point and very successful, if not a "great movie" would also have been a likely honoree.)
Their TV list is a touch more lively but it's hard to be "totally" consensus when it comes to TV with 5,000 programs on air. Unless of course you are the Emmys and you just copy and paste your favorites from year to year no matter what actually happens during that year.
In All Fairness...
When it comes to 2015 movies it is kind of a "consensus" year. You don't find much dissent on Spotlight, Carol, Inside Out, Room or Mad Max Fury Road unless you really go looking for it. My own top ten list (coming in a week or so) ...isn't as idiosyncractic as usual either. But this list is still a snoozer. Not one film that feels even remotely left of field. They're all right their on the pitcher's mound they're so central. Look at me using sports metaphors! That means it's time to say goodnight.
GOOD NIGHT.
Reader Comments (21)
Nat: I'd pack it in with Brooklyn moving beyond Lead Actress and Costume Design, dude, and I'm starting to think (in spite of some pockets of early love) that The Revenant's love or hate reputation is starting to place it somewhere well outside the top 5, probably somewhere between positions 9-11.
2015 has been a terrible year for movies. I want the Oscars to be exciting but the minute someone sweeps televised precursors it's over.
It's been a great year for 4 star movies (out of 5).
Interesting that Brooklyn qualified but didn't make it. I think you're overestimating it, Nat. No SAG ensemble, no Globe Best Pic....I think it's definitely on the bubble. (#8 or #9)
How exactly does Nathaniel R know brooklyn is elligible. I heard it wasn't eligible
Could Star Wars actually get nominated for best picture now that it's met expectations? It'll be fresh in people's minds. It's definitely the "movie of the year" and generally when movies break box office records and get great reviews a best picture nomination follows. Could it steal fury road's genre spot?
Nat, pundits are part of the problem. It is time to admit the elephant in the room. Seriously, replace the AFI lisat The Revenant with The Big Short and you get the same films Goldderby had been naming for a couple of months (minus JOY and BROOKLYN, jthe latter ust because... it isn't American enough(?)
But, instead of being dicouraged by this annoying trend, KEEP DOING YOUR JOB, which is spotlight films that you liker and are well under the radar of oscarologists (TANGERINE, EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT, PIGEON, ETC). The very reason I like to enter your blog and have an opinion is beacuse you don't have the ridiculous avresion to foreinggn films some of your colleagues in the blogosphere ignore (unless you consider YOUTH foreign, which would be hypocritical to the max). What's more, I foresee one or two in your top 10. And that is valid.Its even more valid because it is not fragmented by boundaries un filmmaking, specially foreign ones. I appreciate that, because I am not american, and I know I'm not the only ones. Something I could nerver say of much of your peers in the Critics Choice, nor some clown masquerading as critics a s Peter Travers.But I's like to see you venting your frustration more among your peers, and less to us. We agree with you, but I cannot speak in person with >Jeffrey Wells or Sasha Stone, to name a few, about these things. I think you can. Y can address the elephant in the room, The perils and comformism of consensus picks. Do it. Frutration won't make you feel better about. that. Won't change anything. Unless you think pundits are only suckers functional to Oscar system. Wer all know they're a kind of isololated elitists who like to see theyr own bellybuttons when it comes to picking what's valuable (for them) in films OF THE YEAR. It is a pity some pundits are only looking for matching their collective taste. Are you receiving some kind of award for that? What's the point? It is, all in all, denigrating to your job. You, Nick Davis, are the exception to the rules. I think the onlu way to change this is from within. Jeffery fucking Wells couln't care less what i think about The Revenent. Critic the film, and you receive an insult. Like that famous catchphrase on Mullholland Dr. :"something is very bad" Fix it, please.
JAKE D: I'd actually think that's generous. Here's what my tea leaves are saying is the top 15 for Best Picture:
1. Spotlight
2. The Martian
3. Carol
4. Room
5. Mad Max: Fury Road
6. The Big Short
7. Inside Out
8. Bridge of Spies
9. The Revenant
10. Creed
11. Straight Outta Compton
12. Brooklyn
13. Sicario
14. Star Wars: The Force Awakens
15. Steve Jobs
I just happy that Master of None has been getting so many accollades. That show had a tremendous first season. I do hope that aa awards season continues Aziz and Alan receive se awards, if only for the superb writing of some episodes.
Orrin -- i know someone on the jury
Mike Troutman: Force Awakens being a BP nominee is unlikely. Not just because Fury Road sucked a lot of the blockbuster traction early, but also because I suspect the Academy and critics groups might be waiting for Episode VIII to shower this revival franchise with love.
I think year-end TV lists are usually better mostly because they DON'T try to predict the Emmys. Which... thank goodness!
In 25 years only ONE film of these are going to be in the AFI's top 100.
chofer -- i'm not a miracle worker!
Sadly, BROOKLYN could well go the way of BIG EYES and WILD last year, films with early buzz that dropped once it sank in that they weren't about what counts as important enough subjects: men's lives.
Dan H ---- ARGH. possibly true though. not that i missed BIG EYES. that one was bad. But WILD was so good.
I really think Brooklyn is getting in. The word of mouth on this movie is terrific. And besides that, it is one of the top five films of the year.
Dan H.: If you had said "Straight white men's lives" that might have actually been a more appropriate pejorative. Why? Of the 15 films trackable as the Academy's top 15, 2014 has 11 of that top 15 being primarily about straight white men (The Imitation Game, Selma, Wild and Into the Woods are the exceptions). In comparison, 8 of the top 15 films (Carol, Room, Mad Max: Fury Road, Inside Out, Creed, Straight Outta Compton, Brooklyn and Star Wars: The Force Awakens) for Oscar THIS year have females (some even gay) or black men in the protagonist role. And before you question me including The Force Awakens, who are the ones in the central trio who can wield a lightsaber again? Oh, that's right. The black man and the woman ("force sensitive" was used in interviews in regards to Daisy Ridley's character).
I like that this year is a consensus top 10 rather than a consensus 2, and the films seem more adventurous than last year.
I think Oscar will agree: Brooklyn out, Star Wars in.
cash: As I've said, I doubt it. I think this Star Wars citation is probably just one organization being idiosyncratic.
cash: I do think Brooklyn is out of contention, but, again, I suspect critics groups might wait until Rian Johnson's Episode VIII to shower this revival with awards.