AFI To Honor Good And Evil

Posted Thursday, November 14, 2002 at 2:41 PM Central

by John Couture

The American Film Institute (AFI) announced today that next year's theme for their recurring series of recognizing the best in the first 100 years in American film will be "100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains." The show, scheduled to air on CBS in June of 2003, will showcase the 50 greatest heroes and the 50 most sinister villains.

In what has to be the most wide open race yet, the AFI released a nomination pool of 400 heroes and/or villains that the jury can choose from. Star Wars led all movies with five nominations (Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Han Solo, Princess Leia and Obi-Wan Kenobi).

Of course no AFI list (or list of nominees for that matter) would be complete without its fair share of snubs and head scratchers. First, Keyser Soze is no where to be found on the list, however, his counterpart Roger "Verbal" Kint gets a nod. For Reservoir Dogs, only Michael Madsen's Mr. Blonde is nominated. Mike Myers gets the double nomination for both Austin Powers and Dr. Evil, but Mini-Me gets the shaft. Speaking of Shaft, Richard Roundtree however gets a most deserved nomination.

John Wayne led all actors with 7 of his characters receiving nominations. Bette Davis led all women with 4 characters on the ballot. Various Aliens are represented as was a Great White Shark, a flock of Birds, and a couple of Dogs. Even computers get in on the act as Hal, T-800 and T-1000 each received nominations.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the list is that two of the nominees never even appear on the screen. Both The Man from Bambi and The Witch from The Blair Witch Project garnered recognition even if though they were never captured on celluloid.