Story Telling

16 months ago a friend of mine (Megan) and I, who are both movie-buffs, decided that we wanted to watch every film on the AFI 100 Greatest American Films list. You can criticize the list for the films that are missing, but overall the films that are there are a pretty good selection of those that really left their mark on the country and the film industry.

We decided that we’d skip the movies that we’d both already seen, leaving 66 films for us to watch together. Well, not exactly “together,” since Megan lives in 3000 miles away in Pittsburgh. Through the miracle of the cheap long-distance and synchronized DVD players we were able to simulate the movie-going experience, even including popcorn and Red Vines on many nights (but without the sticky floors). A bit unconventional, sure, but when your attention is on the movie it matters less that the person you are with isn’t actually there, and afterwards we’d discuss what we saw, often for many hours.
We each subscribed to Netflix, which made things a lot easier, but when we started there some on the list we didn’t think we’d be able to see because they aren’t available on DVD, notably Wuthering Heights and The Jazz Singer. We managed to catch most of those with the help of TCM, but we’d pretty much decided that the last one, The Jazz Singer, would be a write-off for the time being.

We’d made pretty good progress … I struggled through the musicals and she struggled through the war movies and the westerns… but overall I think we both enjoyed more of them than we hated (A Place In The Sun is the one that leaves us both scratching our heads). As we got the the last few titles on the list I made plans to visit her and we’d watch the last film, Casablanca, together in person. As it happened, while I was there in Pittsburgh we learned that not only was The Jazz Singer being released on DVD, but on the same day TCM would be airing it! We’d be able to finish the list after all!

And that’s what we did, last Friday night.

Of course, 2007 was the 10th anniversary of the list and the AFI has released a new version (and plans to do so every ten years), so we’ll have to watch those as well. Fortunately we’ve seen a lot more of them this time, so it will not take 16 months.