by Blair Lovern

Yeah, I'm looking forward to Dark Passage. But AFI has the fancy Top 100 lists everyone talks about. Let's start seeing more from them.

I'm looking forward to this AFI festival, but I've got one request: Bring more old, good stuff next time.

I'm almost exclusively into old B&W crime thrillers and WWII flicks these days. The most recent modern movie I've seen is Letters from Iwo Jima. Probably the most memorable movie I'd seen on the big screen up to that viewing was another WWII movie, Der Untergang (Downfall in English.) But German is so much more startling.

I'm salivating over one particular movie popping up at AFI, which will probably slip under the radar of many people: Dark Passage. Man, that is going to be fun. I've never seen this movie on the big screen. It's not the best noir ever done, it's got a few goofy parts, a few oh-c'mon-what-the-hell-is-this-crap stuff. But the acting is superb, it's neat to see the San Francisco scenery from back then and the whole thing just sucks you in for a mighty entertaining ride.

In general, you need to see movies on the big screen. The crazier the movie, the more ridiculous the screen must be. For example, 300 doesn't need to be on an IMAX screen. It needs to be seen on a massive partition hanging from hot air balloons and anchored on the ground by at least two, 8,000 ton, out-of-commission Russian submarines. That doesn't even make sense, but that's how I envision it.

Just about every day, my DVR pulls off old movies from cable. But I have, basically, never seen any of them on a proper movie screen. Of the handful I have seen, I have never been disappointed. I've been mesmerized. Even if it's a movie I've seen 8,091,177 times on TV (It's a Wonderful Life) I was amazed at how absolutely refreshing it was on the big screen. George Bailey isn't 12-inch tall background noise. He is HUGE! and DOG-GONNIT, HE'S IN YOUR FACE!

Last night I watched the great noir, He Walked By Night for the Nth time. I don't know how many times I've seen it. A lot. Some scenes are as brilliant as I've ever seen in any movie. It's quiet when it needs to be. It's loud when it needs to be. It's dark when it needs to be, light when it needs to be. Again, to my senses, some scenes are cinematically perfect. But I've never been enthralled by it on the big screen. Who the hell shows this kind of stuff on a big screen? Just about no one. You can find a noir festival somewhere every year (usually California), which I keep reminding myself I need to attend. But I keep forgetting.

AFI, you have the top 100 lists everyone talks about. Start showing more films from those lists in a theater at this festival. Yeah, they've got To Kill a Mockingbird and North by Northwest. But you're AFI, man! Bring it: Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Magnificent Seven, Double Indemnity, The Third Man. Bring some small gems like Detour, The Night of the Hunter, T-Men - have a thriller classics day at some theater. Just something cool. I know people like Gene Kelly or Bette Davis and such. I don't know if this makes me a bad person, but I simply cannot watch their movies. I need a dude in a suit and fedora carrying a revolver into the shadows to gun down a sweaty, limping racketeer (also in a suit) who's been shot in the leg after some botched job. I don't care what was botched - some heist, some murder - maybe some victim started to strangle the racketeer with the cord of a swinging, bare light bulb in a fight in a big closet just before he took three slugs in the back by the racketeer's gun moll, who also accidentally shot the racketeer.

I don't need movies today that try to be like original noir. They don't pull it off. It's just people today trying to act like people from yesterday. But the people yesterday did it much better because they weren't trying to be like people 50 years before their time. Authentic cool is a necessity.

Three of the top four movies in the 100 greatest movies of all time were made in 1939, 1941 and 1942. Only 14 movies on that list were made after 1980. How many movie fans have seen these pre-1980 movies on a big screen before? I have no clue. My guess is somewhere between zero and not many.

Movies are meant to be seen on a big screen, not on 42-inch plasma, not an iPod, not a cell phone - a big damn huge movie screen. AFI, if you bring in stuff like Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936) I'm not going to watch it because I'll be in the bathroom throwing up for 98 minutes until the show's over. But I'll give you a D for effort. I can't give a B, and I sure as hell can't give an A. I thought about a C-, but thought I better not.

Yeah, they're showing films from the top 100, almost 24 hours in a row, at Victory Plaza on what's being billed as the largest LCD Hi-Def screen in the country. I don't know what that will be like. If it's cool, I'll have wasted my time on this dumb story. But I believe it's outside? If so, that's not a proper way to watch a proper movie. Bring them inside. Otherwise you're gonna hear a bunch of riff-raff ruin your movie. Plus, what if it rains? Gene Kelly loved that junk in 1952. But this is 2007 and we are not Gene Kelly.

One final item: Instead of a Top 100 movie mish-mash, make it a special night of people wearing hats in old movies, or a special night of bar fights, or a special night of hats, bar fights and Donald MacBride.

I'm asking you AFI people to let movie fans see more of the best of the best in all their splendored best.

• Staff
• Verified User
• Anonymous