Galley Friend J.E. and I have been trading emails about the state of Hollywood–I’m more optimistic than he is. J.E. wanted to know how many movies in recent years could come close to touching classic status. I say that there aren’t many, but that there are some. All of which is prelude to asking:

What are your Top 10 movies, all-time? I’ll be interested to see how readers weight their lists and how modern cinema fares. I’d ask you to take your time a bit with these–spend a few minutes thinking about it. This post isn’t going anywhere.

To help you out, there’s the Oscar database, which is wonderful to browse, but that should only be a start. Anyway, to start things, here’s my tentative list, which I reserve the right to edit at a later date:

(1) Casablanca – You may have something else in your top slot, but it’s hard to argue against it.

(2) The Philadelphia Story – After more than 60 years, it’s still laugh-out-loud funny. Not one joke relies on contemporary culture; the acting can’t be touched; and if you aren’t misty at the end, then you’re a robot.

(3) North by Northwest – The best written of the Hitchcock films, it has genuine funny mixed with great suspense and incredible creative economy.

(4) The Godfather – Everything everyone says about it is true. Maybe the most quintessentially American story of the century. Beautiful and immersive.

(5) Citizen Kane – Amazing that a movie as durable and powerful as this hasn’t become overrated. It’s another classic American tale, told very, very well.

My top 5 is pretty locked down in a rough cardinality, but for the bottom half of my top 10, there’s no real point to ranking them, so here they are in alphabetical order:

* Chinatown – So dark, so twisting, so startling. If it had included this line from the sequel–“In this town, I’m the leper with the most fingers.”–then it might have been in the top 5.

* Fellowship of the Ring – In a few years I may want to drop this down, out of the top 10, but it’s so taut, so exciting, so forceful, so exquisite that I’m just as likely to want to move it up. At the very least, it’s the best film of the last 20 years.

* The Godfather, Part II – In many ways better than the first. Shows how well glamour and evil get along.

* The Insider – Very quiet, very unassuming, it creeps up on you. The glowing blue dots that become golf balls sitting on a range under the moonlight; Bruce McGill exploding in the courtroom; Christopher Plummer giving the most perfect and honest portrayal of vanity ever committed to celluloid.

* Sense and Sensibility – It teeters on the edge of sadness, but never goes over the brink. It’s a happy movie that isn’t “uplifting.” And it features Alan Rickman, as a hero.

But that’s just me. Now it’s your turn. Discuss.

Just beautiful:

Just because something is sentimentalized does not mean that it is untrue—or even that we are wrong to layer it over with sentiment. The distaste for sentimentality begins as a rebellion against false feeling, but it finishes as a rebellion against all feeling. It starts as a plain-speaking person’s refusal to be deceived by a coat of paint, and it ends as a rude person’s refusal to use paint at all. It opens as a wise man’s ability to point out the fool’s gold, and it concludes as a fool’s inability to point out the real gold.

For on this point, we dare not be mistaken: Christmas is the real gold, and all the sentimentality with which we gild a thing already golden, all the evergreens with which we decorate a thing already evergreen, all the holly boughs with which we mark a thing already holy—all these are not some vain attempt to mask the truth. They are, rather, the tribute that sentiment will always try to pay to true things, on the same principle by which a wife chooses the prettiest wrapping paper for her husband’s most expensive gift on Christmas morning. What need had the King of Kings—what need had a newborn child in a cattle shed—for the awful oblation of frankincense and myrrh laid before him by the Wise Men? And yet those men were wise, as we are wisest only in our greatest foolishness.

There’s more. You should read it.

Wesley Smith is on the case.

Ever wonder where Freddie Mitchell got his wacky championship belt from? My bet is that he bought it here, at Wrestling Belt World.

They’ve got them all–from the WWE Hulk Hogan era World Championship belt to the WCW Television Championship belt.

Or, if you’re the subtle type, there’s the NWA World Tag Team belt buckle.

If I was rich, I’d give $5 to everyone who sent me a picture of themselves wearing that to the office.

“I know Bill Parcells is madder at his players than the fans are mad at me. The looks he was giving his players–if looks could kill, I declare he would have killed a couple people yesterday.”

–Dallas point guard Darrell Armstrong in yesterday’s Dallas Morning News. Prior to the Mavs-Timberwolves game, Armstrong took the mike and asked the home crowd, “How ’bout those Redskins?” He was greeted with boos and laughs and fined $1,000.

Am interested in the new approval numbers for Bush being reported in today’s WashPo. V. good news for the prez overall, as his numbers richet off the floor they hit in early November, with the economy performing rather well and Iraq hosting successful elections and Katrina becoming a more distant memory.

Two questions occur to me as I read the report by Dan Balz and Richard Morin. One, why this gratuitous caveat: “The other cautionary note for the administration is that Bush’s approval ratings and public optimism about Iraq have spiked in the past after instances of positive news, such as the capture of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein or the election in January of this year, only to recede later.”

Yes, accomplishments do tend to help a president’s approval ratings, which are known, however, to go down as well as up. Duh.

Also, I find interesting the swing of public confidence concerning the relative merits of Democrats versus Republicans on the issue of Iraq. Though Balz and Morin say, “On three major issues — Iraq, government ethics and standing up to lobbyists and special interests — the public still trusts Democrats over Republicans,” they fail to note that on Iraq, Republicans have recaptured much of the support they had lost as of the beginning of last month. On November 2, the public favored Democrats to Republicans on Iraq 48 to 37 percent. In this month’s poll, the preference is 47 to 44 percent, not exactly the clear, ongoing, decisive victory Balz and Morin suggest. Also, one has to wonder if the tide isn’t finally turning after two years of the Democrats’ full-court-press against the president on his leadership and honesty vis-a-vis Iraq.

As to the other preferences mentioned: That the public currently gives Democrats higher marks for ethics and standing up to lobbyists doesn’t surprise me at all.

The weekend actuals are in and, as we suspected yesterday, King Kong beat Narnia over the weekend by a little more than $18 million. (Although it’s worth noting that, in a rare moment of candor, Universal’s Sunday morning estimate was almost dead-on with Kong‘s actual total. How can they guess that close without the Sunday numbers even have happened yet? They have rooms full of math scientists using test tubes and slide-rules.)

If you’ve followed the saga of Narnia watch, you’ll remember that Hugh Hewitt was quick to gloat after Narnia‘s opening weekend, but has been silent on the subject in recent days now that the dream of a Narnia over Kong second weekend has died.

Anyway, this was such a wildly unfair bet that I feel a little guilty even bringing it up. And I certainly don’t expect any fabulous prizes. (Although what self-respecting runner wouldn’t want a Hugh Hewitt Running Club t-shirt?)

The Wershovenist Pig is on the case, researching Wendy’s decision to spin-off Tim Horton and Baja Fresh.

I didn’t even know that Wendy’s owned Baja Fresh in the first place, although I should have guessed it, since Baja is to Chipotle almost exactly as Wendy’s is to McDonald’s.