AFIâs Top 100 Greatest Films
There were a lot of cool cars being driven by cool kids in high school; Mustang Mach 1âs, BMW Series 5âs and Mazda MX-5âs. Sure, they werenât technically their cars, but they became their identity. Popped poloâs and slim-fit khakiâs traced with a fresh iron were just as much their identity, even if they also werenât technically their clothes. These bi-products of early Brooks Brotherâs fashion and Abercrombie & Fitch roughness would work on ingraining themselves in these factors of cool by lingering as long as humanly possible in these symbols that would later assist in inventing the term âNetflix and Chillâ.
From behind the windshield of the Dodge Caravan that would unfortunately define me, along with the Incubus âMake Yourselfâ CD that spun on repeat in an attempt to mask my inherent softness, I would observe these propped up pre-fuck boys and their donated cool. Why couldnât my parents have sprung a modern day muscle car on me upon realizing I wouldnât be gifted the powers of Sabrina the Teenage Witch on my sixteenth birthday?
Well, because my image wasnât something I could run from. My overweight lethargy and transparent nu-metal image, despite baggy khakiâs and an oversized button-down, were something that I couldnât hide â I had to own up to it despite the suffocating geek I suppressed within. No matter how many times I had my mom bring me to the local mallâs American Eagle, there was no amount of maroon poloâs and pre-faded jeans that could cover up the Cheetos stained fingers and shamefully forlorn look towards the Hot Topic entrance. This was something I had to own.
So I got a job at Blockbuster.
Now mind you, this was before the concept of working at a video store was âinterestingâ or âcoolâ; this was an era of subservient cinema slavery, where discussing film wasnât as universally embraced, at least not in the suburban whiteness of Connecticut. This was a time where the heavy sighs from illegally parked soccer moms were as prevalent as the late fees they accrued. A time where eye-rolls from senior-citizens looking to rent an already-checked-out Cocoon for the eighth time were as blatantly obvious as the over-crowded DVD rack trying to push M. Night Shyamalanâs âThe Villageâ.
The dress code for such a highly respected and sought-after position was one that I already had experience attempting to hide behind; a navy polo tucked into khakiâs, my American Eagle façade proving a warm-up to the minimum wage job I hoped to embrace. It wasnât necessarily egregious attire, as there was minimal flare and not an iota of suspenders in sight, yet it was one that highlighted an already maligned position. There was no blending in, fading back behind the romance of the Frank Capraâs or William Holdenâs; this was an empty and exposed prom-floor with me alone in the middle, a fresh piece of toilet paper clinging to the bottom of my fatherâs loaned dress shoes.
Perhaps the corporate heads of Blockbuster realized this complete lack of concealment from the myriad of high school anguish, as we were given 7-free rentals a week. Thatâs 28 movies a month, and if itâs February, thatâs a movie a night for the entire month! Sure, you could surmise that it was profoundly necessary to know our releases, to understand the sub-genres of film in order to better serve suburbia, but that would be looking at things a little too blankly.
The languid conspiracy theorist in me suggests that it was a corporate take-hold of employee turnover, looking to submerge the high school outcast even further into their new after-school job. That the cinema pariah would be content rising to district manager without noticing that theyâre now 38 years old and failing to make payments on their Chrysler Lebaron. However, I took these tepid offerings from the powers that be and I began scaling my own escape ladder, tackling the AFIâs 100 Years 100 Movies; a cinematic structure that has remained unclimbed for almost 15 years.
Now it remained untouched for so long, not because of its daunting nature (yes, âYankee Doodle Dandyâ feels tremendously disconcerting, despite heavyweights such as âLawrence of Arabiaâ and âThe Best Years of Our Livesâ) but because I was fired for deleting a $10 late-fee off my dadâs account. Without the free rentals aiding in my quest to become even more American through the lens of film, I was relegated to driving 6 miles out of town to Dial-M-for-Movies, a hip indie store that resided in the corner of a shopping center with a liquor and grocery store.
Something happened though, in between those passing days of observing the cultural shift in âEasy Riderâ and âDo the Right Thingâ; I went off to a tiny liberal arts college in New Hampshire. There, the idea of cool â cool cars, cool clothes and even cool cinema no longer remained prevalent. Cars were replaced with Birkenstockâs, clothes with thrift store trades and cinema with pot-induced discoveries. In between watching David Lynchâs âMulholland Driveâ or Felliniâs â8 ½â over crab Rangoon with an intelligent and film obsessed girlfriend, there were countless viewings of F.W. Murnauâs âNosferatuâ synched to Radioheadâs âKid Aâ in a dorm room full of jocks, slackers, geeks and dweebs.
The perception of viewing film and what it meant was completely subverted; no longer were my escapes an alienating process of societal masochism. For once they represented a greater niche that was at once examined and embraced for what it was. Running across the quad to make my Foreign Film class on time might have given me flashbacks to sprinting across the parking lot of my hometowns strip mall, except I had embraced who I was through working at Blockbuster and the American Film Instituteâs 100 Greatest Films of All Time; a list that has so far remained unmarked, 39 of the 100 going unseen and unappreciated.
Looking back, I realize that the high school fraternity of popularity and locker room bravado that clung to their cool cars and clothes acted as a nudge, a catalyst for my own cool. Without sitting in my Dodge Caravan and observing this state of existing, Weezerâs âPerfect Situationâ oozing 80âs synth pop-sadness from the speakers, I never would have ultimately seen me for what I was. In doing so, I was able to embrace 100 films that further acted as a catalyst of cinema cool, sending me into other countries of exploration, spending most of my paycheck on Criterionâs collection or obscure martial art flicks that did nothing but allow me to think my fists were snacks.
After years of getting to know Ozu, Kurosawa, Wong Kar-Wai, Fassbinder, the Bergmanâs (both Ingrid and Ingmar) and Truffaut, Iâve been feeling as if itâs time to go back and finish what I started. I think itâs time to revisit a list of films that helped me shed my heavy exterior; not only introducing me to cinema, but the world that cinema gleamed from. So grab your ragged pair of Birkenstockâs, leave your Trapper Keeper at the door, your Incubus CD spinning, and sprint across your living room to enjoy a little bit of Americana from an ex-Blockbuster employee as I go through the American Film Instituteâs 100 Greatest Films of All Time.