Nooooo. I almost forgot to share the National Film Registries new titles. Each year they add 25 pictures that are deemed historically, culturally or aesthetically important. Each year I suggest that we should watch all the titles together. Well, the ones we can find at least. Perhaps we'll actually do that for 2016 -- you never know! Getting a spot on the National Film Registry is more symbolic than active. It does not guarantee preservation or restorations but it does suggest that these films should all be preserved and/or restored.
The 2015 additions are:
- Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze (1894) - watch it now. it's six seconds long... the earliest surviving copyrighted film
- Dream of a Rarebit Fiend (1906) -watch it now. (7 minutes) from a short Winsor McCay comic strip
- A Fool There Was (1915) -watch it now. (66 minutes) Theda Bara tempts a married man! It's always the woman's fault, don't you know
- Humoresque (1920) - not the Joan Crawford film inspired by this story!
- The Mark of Zorro (1920) -watch it now (88 minutes) the Douglas Fairbanks version
- Black and Tan (1929) -watch it now -(15 minutes) short jazz film with Duke Ellington
- Dracula (1931) - the Spanish language version
- Our Daily Bread (1934) - King Vidor's socialist drama
- The Old Mill (1937) - animated short Oscar winner
- Hail the Conquering Hero (1944) - Preston Sturges comedy
- The Story of Menstruation (1946) - documentary short
- John Henry and the Inky-Poo (1946) - animated short Oscar nominee
- Winchester '73 (1950) -western with Jimmy Stewart and Shelley Winters
- Imitation of Life (1959) - Douglas Sirk's awesome melodrama
- Seconds (1966) -thriller starring Rock Hudson
- Portrait of Jason (1967) - LGBT documentary
- Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (1968) - a documentary about filmmaking
- The Inner World of Aphasia (1968) -documentary about aphasics
- Eadweard Muybridge, Zoopraxographer (1975) - a biographical doc
- Being There (1979) - the Hal Ashby dramedy with Peter Sellers
- Ghostbusters (1984) - the comic blockbuster currently undergoing a gender flip
- Top Gun (1986) -you feel the need. the need for speed
- Sink or Swim (1990) - documentary about formative childhood
- The Shawshank Redemption (1994) - that insanely beloved prison drama
- LA Confidential (1997) - the awesome neo noir
Big thanks to Matthew Rettenmund of Boy Culture for pointing out this insanely cool bit of trivia about the list:
Of special note: Mother and daughter Lupita Tovar (the world's oldest living actress at age 105) and Susan Kohner were in the Spanish-language Dracula (1931) and Imitation of Life (1959), respectively.
You may recall that Mexican actress Lupita Tovar recently took up the throne or oldest living screen star after the death of Luise Rainer. The super cool thing to know about Lupita Tovar is that she is the grandmother of Chris Weitz and Paul Weitz, both filmmakers (Paul wrote and directed Grandma this year) so her cinematic legacy lives on.
Though the titles are selected by the National Film Preservation Board and Library staff, the public can nominate titles here if you wanna get a jump start on their 2016 list. The movies have to be at least 10 years old so no "OMG THE FORCE AWAKENS WAS AMAZING!" because they will shut that right down.
Wednesday, February 16, 2022 at 9:00AM 
Remember the filmmaking brothers Paul Weitz and Chris Weitz? Their career together started strong with a box office smash American Pie (1999) and a well-loved modest hit About a Boy (2002). The brothers soon went solo as directors though they kept working together, producing and what not. Their subsequent work didn't capture the zeitgeist in the same way though there were sure-fire sequel hits (Little Fockers, The Twilight Saga: New Moon) a troubled attempted franchise (The Golden Compass) a few well received smaller pictures (A Better Life, Grandma) and an award winning TV series (Mozart in the Jungle). Their next project, their first co-directing gig in ages will be a biopic of their Mexican film star grandmother Lupita Tovar (pictured left) and it sounds just great...
