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We're a list society. From Casey Kasem and the American Top 40 to 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die to BOP's very own Best Horror Films (one of our most popular features ever), people love to talk about lists. They love to debate the merits of the "winners" and bemoan the exclusions, and start the whole process again when a new list captures pop culture fancy.

Perhaps one of the best-known, most widely discussed lists is the American Film Institute's 100 Years... 100 Movies. A non-profit organization known for its efforts at film restoration and screen education, the AFI list of the 100 best American movies was chosen by 1,500 leaders in the movie industry and announced in its first version in 1998. Since then, the 100 Years... 100 Movies list has proven to be so popular that the AFI came forth with a 10th anniversary edition in 2007, along with other series such as 100 Heroes and Villains, 100 Musicals, 100 Laughs and 100 Thrills.

In addition to talking about which films are deserving of being on the list and bitterly shaking our fists because a beloved film was left out, we also love to brag about the number of movies we've seen. As I was looking over the 100 Years... 100 Movies list recently, I realized that I've seen 47 - less than half. As a lover of film and writer/editor for a movie site, this seemed like a wrong that needed to remedied. And so an idea was born. I would watch all 100 movies on the 2007 10th Anniversary list - some of them for the first time in as much as 20 or more years - and ponder their relevance, worthiness and influence on today's film industry. With luck, I'll even discover a few new favorites along the way.

#41: King Kong

Somewhere between the age of five and nine, I became obsessed with "creature features". The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Godzilla, Gamera, and the Blob all thrilled and terrified me. It's my memory of these times that reminds me that kids love to be scared. Whenever I hear people say that movies like Coraline are too intense for children, I think, "Please. That's exactly the kind of story they love to see." I think there's value in those iconic childhood scares, from the Childcatcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang to Cruella de Vil in 101 Dalmatians.

One of my fondest memories is sitting in my bedroom with a tiny black and white television, trying to adjust the ears enough that I could watch King Kong. I mean, it was a giant ape! And he fought other giant monsters! What a thrill! I'm really not exaggerating for effect. I was exactly this excited about that old black and white movie.

The 1933 version of King Kong sits smack dab in the middle of the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies list. It's certainly an influential movie in my own life story. Watching it again today, more than 30 years after seeing it the first time, would it still have the same power over me?

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