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I think what it boils down to is are we judging art or are we judging entertainment? If we're judging entertainment, then the fact that I've watched Raiders of the Lost Ark like 20 times means something.
Have any of you guys seen the series that originally aired on TCM, and now is on Netflix streaming, called The Story of Film? I was enthralled by the entire series and found it very educational and fun to watch. The guy's approach is definitely an eclectic, artistic point of view, while still capturing all the important milestones and movements over the history of film, including how the ideas made it into the mainstream. Throughout my watching experience, I was adding movies to my IMDb watchlist that I now felt I needed to see.
The truth is, however, I haven't seen most of those films, and even if I did, as great as they are, I might not vote for them in this list. For me at least, determining the "greatness" of a film is for someone else to decide -- probably even some on this forum... I know Straker, ferretchucker, neverending and others have proven to have a deep appreciation and knowledge of film as an art form. Me, I'll mostly just tell you why I liked or didn't like it (which, frankly is more than some folks do when they reply to someone's review with nothing more than "That movie was crap"). I'm not saying I'm incapable of insight, just that the insight is based on enjoyment rather than academics.
For horror lists, however, I feel it's our duty to do the job like a bunch of horror freaks should. :) The 100 Years of Horror list was our opportunity to capture the most appreciated and influential films in horror history, from the perspective of folks who appreciate them the most, and we did an awesome job of it. People will come to this site for the sole purpose of learning about that. They won't come here to learn about film in general. That doesn't mean we can't have fun building the list.
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