By the Numbers

I recently watched the American Film Institute's (AFI) "10 Top 10," as they revealed their top movie picks from across 10 genres: animation, romantic comedy, western, sports, mystery, fantasy, sci-fi, gangster, courtroom drama and epic.

I found two categories to be obviously absent from this list: comedy and horror. I think these two genres rarely produce good movies, however, so I can't blame AFI. I don't even know what I myself would choose as my top picks for comedy and horror. I did find Big Daddy, There's Something About Mary, Meet the Parents, and Tommy Boy to all be humorous, but far from what I would call a "favorite." The Exorcist, Poltergeist, The Omen, The Sixth Sense, Halloween, and The Orphanage are creepy movies that definitely make my top list for horrors (which I find myself loving although I tend to dislike most of them - i.e. The Ring, The Ring 2, The Grudge, Scream, See No Evil etc.)

AFI's top picks, however, were: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, City Lights, The Searchers, Raging Bull, Vertigo, The Wizard of Oz, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Godfather, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Lawrence of Arabia, respectively. I've seen six of them. Only two received Academy Awards for Best Picture. I've never heard of two. One has my distant relative playing Atticus Finch. Guess I'll have to add four of them to my movie list of "to see" films!