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News
25 New Films Enter National Film Registry ... Good Ones, Too!
by Scott Weinberg | December 28, 2006
Discuss Article
Every year another 25 films are chosen for "National Film Registry" designation, and it's a pretty big honor to be on that list. I suppose one could look at it like baseball's Hall of Fame -- and this year the bigwigs chose some pretty cool movies ... like "Halloween," "Rocky," "Fargo," and "Blazing Saddles."

I'll let Variety explain it: "A place on the list -- always made up of 25 films -- guarantees the film will be preserved under the terms of the National Film Preservation Act." (Click here for the full article.)

The full list of this year's inductees looks like this:

"Applause" (1929)
"The Big Trail" (1930)
"Blazing Saddles" (1974)
"The Curse of Quon Gwon" (1916-17)
"Daughter of Shanghai" (1937)
"Drums of Winter" (1988)
"Early Abstractions #1-5,7,10" (1939-56)
"Fargo" (1996)
"Flesh and the Devil" (1927)
"Groundhog Day" (1993)
"Halloween" (1978)
"In the Street" (1948/52)
"The Last Command" (1928)
"Notorious" (1946)
"Red Dust" (1932)
"Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania" (1971-72)
"Rocky" (1976)
"sex, lies and videotape" (1989)
"Siege" (1940)
"St. Louis Blues" (1929)
"The T.A.M.I. Show" (1964)
"Tess of the Storm Country" (1914)
"Think of Me First as a Person" (1960-75)
"A Time Out of War" (1954)
"Traffic in Souls" (1913)
--

Don't feel bad if you haven't heard of some of those titles; the National Film Registry prides itself on knowing/supporting the older and/or obscure stuff.

Related Items
Movie: Notorious
Halloween
Traffic in Souls
Groundhog Day
Tess of the Storm Country
Flesh and the Devil
The T.A.M.I. Show
Fargo
Sex, Lies and Videotape
Early Abstractions
Rocky
Blazing Saddles
Red Dust
The Big Trail
The Last Command
Bookmark and Share
Comments (1-20 of 55 posts) | Reply
OAKTREELIVE
OAKTREELIVE writes:
on Dec 28 2006 05:55 AM

How was Notorious absent from this anyway?

(Reply to this)
digitalsoul68
digitalsoul68 writes:
on Dec 28 2006 06:08 AM

I'm very surprised (but delighted) that Groundhog Day and Halloween are on that list. GD is a favorite movie of mine and Halloween was one of the ORIGINAL slasher flicks when they were more scary than laughable.

(Reply to this)
red_wine
red_wine writes:
on Dec 28 2006 06:57 AM

I am surprised too. Even that they included Rocky. I mean its good and all and won Best Picture (over Taxi Driver and Network God forbid!) but not worth this honour. Looking for a Boxing movie, they should've included Million Dollar Baby. But I guess it aint old enough for them.

Groundhog Day and Halloween???????????????

Where they trying to be hip or something! I thought they were above all that shit anyways.


(Reply to this)
synergyred
synergyred writes:
on Dec 28 2006 08:30 AM

Groundhog day! :D

(Reply to this)
FireflyFan4evr
FireflyFan4evr writes:
on Dec 28 2006 08:54 AM

Ya, they only have the original Star Wars film on their list and no Pulp Fiction. Head on over to Wikipedia.org and search them up for info about their organization.

(Reply to this)
Bigbrother
Bigbrother writes:
on Dec 28 2006 08:59 AM

In reply to this comment (#851863)
Come on man, I'll concede that Million Dollar Baby was a good movie, but no way is it ever going to achieve the status of Rocky. I bet if you ask any 10 people to name a movie about boxing and give them 5 seconds 8 of them will come up with Rocky. Same story with Halloween, it was sorta the grandaddy of all slasher flix, as for Ground Hog day it has much more cultural impact than you would think. A ton of people I know whenever something repeats itself mention GHD and no one thought in that context before this movie.

I suspect that's what they are looking for Movies that had an influence on our culture. By that standard these all three fit to a greater or lesser extent.


(Reply to this)
aknddon3
aknddon3 writes:
on Dec 28 2006 09:32 AM

In reply to this comment (#851863)
Are you kidding me? Do you honestly think that Million Dollar Baby is even on the same level as Rocky? Million Dollar Baby sucks and is one of the worst boxing movies ever, it is tied with Rocky 5.

Halloween is what saved the Horror genre, you continue to prove that you know nothing about movies.


(Reply to this)
Thre31189
Thre31189 writes:
on Dec 28 2006 11:20 AM

I agree that i didnt like Million Dollar Baby but i dont know about beeing on par with Rocky 5. Rocky is still the movie that most people think of when they think of boxing movies, and Rocky Babola kind of sealed that up for years to come unless someone comes along with something to top it which i dont really see happening.

(Reply to this)
new12play
new12play writes:
on Dec 28 2006 11:27 AM

In reply to this comment (#851863)
I believe every movie that has won best picture deserves preservation status. Im surprised Rocky is just now making the cut. Million Dollar Baby only preserved my dislike for Eastwood's dark trend of having a movie depress you to the brink of insanity. I consider this and Mystic River as being the two most overrated movies in recent memory.

(Reply to this)
aknddon3
aknddon3 writes:
on Dec 28 2006 12:25 PM

In reply to this comment (#851869)
add in Superman Returns then you would 100% correct

(Reply to this)
bubbaburnstine
bubbaburnstine writes:
on Dec 28 2006 01:36 PM

In reply to this comment (#851869)
I agree on Million Dollar Baby, but Mystic River was fantastic

(Reply to this)
Pyramids
Pyramids writes:
on Dec 28 2006 05:14 PM

wtf?? no Bloodrayne? Alone In The Dark? House of The Dead??

What the hell is wrong with these people.


(Reply to this)
dylan21484nj
dylan21484nj writes:
on Dec 28 2006 05:51 PM

kick ass, two of my all-time favorite films made the list, Rocky and Halloween. it won Best Picture, but Rocky remains to be one of the most inspiring films ever made. Halloween is still one of the scariest films ever made and (for better or worse) inspired countless imitations, including the Friday the 13th films.

(Reply to this)
JMA
JMA writes:
on Dec 28 2006 08:42 PM

[b]Good choices[/b]
I'm impressed with the choices this year. I'm glad this organization isn't snobbish about which films it lets in.

And in response to films being overrated: The word "overrated" is used far too frequently on the Internet by people who can't understand why something they dislike is so popular. It helps them to relieve their cognitive dissonance to "explain away" the popularity of something they don’t enjoy or understand.

Seriously, "overrated'" has almost become an online cliche. It has no real meaning anyway, since there is no way a film can be proven to be objectively good and thus can't be overrated. What you have are people that want their opinions to be shared by others and treated as fact. There are certainly films that I don't like, but I wouldn't claim that they're bad in-themselves--they would just be bad to ME. When someone says something is overrated they imply that their opinion is somehow better than the opinions of others, which is ego-centric and narrow-minded. This kind of thinking is the enemy of opinions.

All a filmmaker can really do is get MOST people to like his or her film, because there will ALWAYS be someone that doesn't like it (just check any IMDB board). And that's all I have to say about that.

On a lighter note, congratulations to everyone that worked on the films entering the registry.


(Reply to this)
dylan21484nj
dylan21484nj writes:
on Dec 28 2006 10:32 PM

In reply to this comment (#851874)
bravo sir, bravo.

(Reply to this)
red_wine
red_wine writes:
on Dec 29 2006 01:40 AM

In reply to this comment (#851867)
I honestly think Million Dollar Baby is way better than Rocky. Rocky was just a sappy Cinderella movie. And the level of acting does not even compare. Hillary Swank gets my vote over Sly Stallone.

(Reply to this)
Bigbrother
Bigbrother writes:
on Dec 29 2006 05:16 AM

In reply to this comment (#851876)
That's your opinion and you're certainly entitled to it. I think you'll find most people disagree though. Rocky wasn't just a sappy Cinderella movie. It was THE sappy Cinderella movie (All apologise to Disney). In recent times we forget how things were in the past. because we've seen 30,000 inferior remakes since shouldn't diminish the appeal of the original. For example, alot of people of this generation read Tolkien and say yeah he's using elements that every Sword and Sorcery author uses, BUT that totally wasn't true before Tolkien. Before Tolkien elves were little pint sized creatures that helped Santa make toys. The idea was so good it spawned thousands of immitaters. Same with Rocky. Saying Rocky is just a sappy Cinderella movie is like saying Jaws was just another thriller with a big fish in it or the Godfather was just a gangster movie.

As for the comparison between Sly and Swank. Do you really think people are going to be chanting the girls name from MDB at Swank 20 years from now? I honestly don't. Heck I couldn't even remember what he name was now.

Personally I don't think the level of acting was that far apart. Stallone was perfectly cast as the underdog street kid, Carl Weathers was perfect as the Ali clone, Talia Shire made me really believe she was this shy wallflower and Burgess Meredith come on!!! HE WAS A WRECKIN MACHINE!!!! So who was a bad actor in Rocky again?


(Reply to this)
Bigbrother
Bigbrother writes:
on Dec 29 2006 05:20 AM

In reply to this comment (#851872)
Give it time man, time will tell the tale on those movies greatness :)

(Reply to this)
red_wine
red_wine writes:
on Dec 29 2006 08:53 AM

In reply to this comment (#851877)
The acting in Baby is more delicate and nuanced. The prestigious trio of Eastwood, Swank and Freeman form one of the most fully realised ensemble performances in recent years. The movie does not go for chattered territory and is not made to please the crowd. It has much more satisfying character arcs. I rooted much more for Maggie than I ever did for Rocky coz i knew he would 'rise above the odds' by the end. I actually cared for the characters.

As for the name thing, how ridiculous, the movie is called Rocky. If Baby had been called Maggie, wouldn't that name be more familiar.


(Reply to this)
Bigbrother
Bigbrother writes:
on Dec 29 2006 09:29 AM

In reply to this comment (#851879)
You might have an argument here, except again you have been caught looking at it from a modern view. In Rocky, the first one the movie that we're discussing here ROCKY LOSES!!! He didn't rise above the odds and win until the second movie. Only having been 5 months old at the time I can't say, but having the focal point of your movie, the everyman, the downtrodden underdog lose is not what I call moving thru chartered territory.

Also consider Stallone, who's talents you seem so eager to dismiss was not the megastar he is today nor did he have Eastwoods reputation and experience to fall back on.

Please don't get me wrong here I'm not debating that Eastwood and Freeman are fantastic actors and they did a really good job on that movie, I just think you are making light of the all around achievement that is Rocky.

As far as the name thing goes, fair enough prior to this most recent movie if you had said Balboa 99 out of 100 people would immediately started chanting Rockee Rockee Rockee!!! (The 100th being some crazed history buff) If you say Maggie's last name how many people now or more to the point 25 years from now are going to equate it to MDB?


(Reply to this)
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