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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.

#99: Toy Story

Recently, during the days surrounding the opening of Up, we received some feedback from an outraged reader who accused us of being in the tank for Pixar (though he didn't put it quite as nicely). He said that rather than to bother to write a review for their films, we should instead say simply:

"We here at Box Office Prophets have blind adoration for any- and everything Pixar does. Therefore, we can not be trusted to give an honest or thoughtful review of its works. If you must know, we loved it - we loved it even before we saw it."

So Mark, this one's for you. I'm going back in time to look at Toy Story, the grand-pappy of all CGI animated films and the movie that set Pixar on its path to being a juggernaut both creatively and financially. Is it justified in having a spot on the AFI list, or does our angry young friend have a point?

Truth be told, in advance of its 1995 release, I was not at all enthusiastic about the possibilities offered by Toy Story. I had some big love for classic, traditional animation and was particularly enamored of older Disney releases like Bambi, Pinocchio, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. Additionally, it had only been a year since I was completely blown away by The Lion King, a movie that still stands as one of my favorite animated flicks ever. My heart belonged to traditional animation even if I wasn't fully realizing at the time that CGI had a significant part in both Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King.

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