You’ve got to love any movie list that manages to have both "Dog Day Afternoon" and "The Muppet Movie" on it.
   That dynamic duo is among the 25 latest additions to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.
   Now, I know what you’re thinking: what the heck does that mean?
   Well, the library is all about preservation. It keeps safe original copies of movies that influenced American culture. Right now, it’s got 525 films total.
   Which is all well and good, but, for the average film fan, the entertaining thing about lists like this is dissecting and, of course, criticizing them.
   The compendium features the first music video to be added to the registr — Michael Jackson’s "Thriller." It’s true that "Thriller" was a groundbreaking video in 1983, but does anyone think it would have made the registry this year had it not been for Jackson’s death? (It had been considered for the list in the past but had not been chosen until now.)
   While "Thriller" is rather famous, quite a few of the movies on this list necessitate a quick trip to IMDB to figure out what the heck they are. Take 1972’s "Hot Dogs for Gauguin." Turns out that’s a student film that director Martin Brest made at NYU. (He went on to "Beverly Hills Cop," "Midnight Run," "Scent of a Woman" and ... oh, no! ... "Gigli.") This 15-minute comedy stars Danny DeVito (I know! Danny DeVito!) as a photographer who figures if he blows up the Statue of Liberty, he can take a picture of it and win awards.
   Why that was such a momentous movie that it deserved inclusion remains a mystery to me, but others that made the list are obvious choices. Sergio Leone’s 1968 "Once Upon a Time in the West" was key in the popularization of the "spaghetti western" and played a huge role in Clint Eastwood’s then-burgeoning career. "Jezebel" nabbed leading lady Bette Davis an Oscar in 1938.
   And then you get Al Pacino in the classic 1975 drama "Dog Day Afternoon" and Miss Piggy in the Muppets’ first big-screen foray, 1979’s "The Muppet Movie."
   What do you think of the 25 additions to the library?