Wednesday, December 30, 2009
National Film Registry Class of 2009
The 25 newest members of the American film canon as defined by the Library of Congress have just been announced. American film is defined broadly enough to include Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West this time around. Among the familiar names in the new list are, in chronological order, the Tyrone Power Mark of Zorro, William Wyler's Mrs. Miniver, William Wellman's Story of G.I. Joe, Jack Arnold's The Incredible Shrinking Man, Rock and Doris's Pillow Talk, Sidney Lumet's Dog Day Afternoon and, of all things, The Muppet Movie. Also included, perhaps for sentimental reasons, is Michael Jackson's Thriller video, though a case can obviously be made for its historical significance. As usual, there's a good share of art and documentary cinema. Someone should gather this stuff together in one place and make it available for on-demand viewing, or else broadcast it in a marathon that'd actually be worth watching. Read the list yourselves and feel free to share your opinions.
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A music video in the National Film Registry? If they wanted to do that, why not include the 1st video MTV ever played, "Video Killed the Radio Star", by the Buggles? They're only including Thriller as a posthumous induction to add to the resume of Michael Jackson. A mere music video does not belong in the registry.
Of course, given what's happened to MTV in recent years, putting it on demand would be just the thing to drive the channel into rethinking its current programming strategy.
As for the Muppets, well, they do have a few Disney movies in the registry, don't they? If they feel Kermit is on a par with Mickey Mouse as a cultural icon, I don't have a problem with that.
Next thing ya know, they'll open a wing for Ed Wood or someone just as bad.....
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