Otherwise, the last of our international pollings – on American cinema is now officially underway!
Everyone gets 40 choices (I know, I know, not enough!) to be presented in one of four (4) ways: alphabetically, chronologically, ranked or arbitrarily. Voting Tabulator Bill Kamberger, who gets the final word on eligibility issues, would prefer that the “arbitrarily” option not be employed, but in the end, the voter will do what he or she is most comfortable with. This is the final poll in our INTERNATIONAL series, though DECADE POLLS are looming on the horizon. The current poll, surveying the globe’s most prolific and influential cinema (since its debut around 120 years ago) will run until FRIDAY, MARCH 10TH at 5:00 p.m. EST, the first day of the Oscar weekend. HERE are my own choices, though for me to have left off the likes of Amadeus, The Graduate, Bonnie and Clyde, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Deer Hunter, I Never Sang for My Father, A Separate Peace, Being There, Network, Cabaret, I Walked with a Zombie, Duck Soup, Schindler’s List, Remember the Night, The Great Santini, The Body Snatcher, Isle of the Dead, The Seventh Victim, The Tree of Life, Dead Poets Society, The Manchurian Candidate, Sullivan’s Travels, Rebecca, Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, The Adventures of Robin Hood, North by Northwest, The Maltese Falcon, The Silence of the Lambs, Fried Green Tomatoes, The Music Box, Seventh Heaven, Dr. Strangelove, Pinocchio, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, The African Queen, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Public Enemy, I Am a Fugitive from a chain Gang, White Heat, Young Frankenstein, Mutiny on the Bounty, Do the Right Thing, Blue Velvet, Moonrise, High Noon, Angels with Dirty Faces, The Killers, The Magnificent Ambersons, Empire of the Sun, East of Eden, What’s Opera Doc?, Annie Hall, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Sherlock Jr., The Gold Rush, Lost Horizon, The Awful Truth, The Best Years of Our Lives, 1776, The Big Parade, Trouble in Paradise, Frankenstein, Stagecoach, Marty, Duck Amuck, The Ten Commandments, Singin in the Rain, Splendor in the Grass, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Laughton), The Wedding March, The Shining, Mildred Pierce, The Apartment, Double Indemnity, Manhattan, The Lady Eve, King Kong, Ruggles of Red Gap, David and Lisa, The Man from Laramie, The Naked Spur, All About Eve, Meet Me in St. Louis, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Apocalypse Now, and endless others is total blasphemy. But keep in mind that this polling is aimed at getting one’s “favorite” films, though many will combine the perception of “favorite” and “great.” So be it. Here are my own Top 40 “favorites” listed alphabetically. (NOTE: The Godfather and The Godfather II are separate films. And…..Whether American cinema is the greatest of all cinemas is up for debate, but what is NOT up for debate is that when it comes to diversity of genre, it is far and away the most supreme.)