Lists

List Day is Friday

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Strange night. I’m mildly drunk right now, so these lists should reflect that.

The Random 10:

  • Mr. Bungle – “Goodbye Sober Day”
  • Barenaked Ladies – “Alcohol”
  • Propellerheads – “Cominagetcha”
  • Louis Armstrong – “What a Wonderful World”
  • Nine Inch Nails – “A Warm Place”
  • UNKLE – “Lonely Soul”
  • Genesis – “Hairless Heart”
  • Tool – “The Pot”
  • Tweaker – “Crude Sunlight”
  • Willie Nelson – “Gotta Get Drunk”

5 Great Beers I’ve Recently Drank

I had three of these tonight, and all of them within the past couple of weeks. Good stuff.

Friday is List Day: Second Time In Two Weeks

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Well, what do you know. Maybe I can do list day more than once a month. Screenshot game update: We’re on Round 4 folks. Hop to it!

Random 10

  • Lynyrd Skynyrd – “Free Bird”
  • Eels – “Trouble With Dreams”
  • Crystal Method – “Keep Hope Alive”
  • U2 – “Where The Streets Have No Name”
  • Mansun & 808 State – “Skin Up Pin Up”
  • Cake – “Italian Leather Sofa”
  • Clint Mansell & Kronos Quartet – “Summer Overture”
  • Radiohead – “Paranoid Android”
  • Pearl Jam – “Deep”
  • Moby – “God Moving Over The Face Of The Waters”

6 Cartoons I Loved When I Was a Kid (Off the top of my head)

  • G.I. Joe
  • Batman: The Animated Series
  • Tiny Toons/Animaniacs
  • Voltron
  • Duck Tales
  • Thundercats

That list could probably keep going on for a while…

Link to Someone New: Top 100 Movies Edition

Lists, Movies / /

A quick note: after a promising start, the screenshot game has stalled a bit. Alex posted a screenshot (update: new screenshot posted, and we have a winner!), but I have no idea what it is, and apparently neither do his readers. If you’ve got a keen cinematic eye, go check it out and see if you can answer it (if you get it right, you get to host the next round!) When I started the game, I was a little worried that something like this would happen. One of the perils of trying to start a meme on a low traffic blog, I guess. That’s why my screenshot was so easy. I bet this could take off if it ever hits a reasonably high traffic blog.

In any case, it’s time to make another attempt at escaping the echo chamber of blog reading that I’ve constructed around myself by linking to people I’ve never linked to before. The theme here is Top 100 movie lists.

  • Edward Copeland’s Top 100: Inspired by the recently revised AFI list, Copeland tries his hand at putting together a top 100. Excellent work, complete with screenshots and even goes the extra mile by putting a description for each film. Excellent.
  • Damian’s Top 100: Another top 100 list, also inspired by AFI and others like Ed Copeland. A very good list.
  • Lazy Eye Theater: My Hundred: Another great list and contains a lot of films that you probably wouldn’t find on other lists (though several will definitely be on my list).

Also worth noting is James Berardinelli’s All-Time Top 100, but I’ve linked him before. Compiling a top 100 list is a daunting task. I think I’ll give it a shot, but reading lists like these always makes me realize how many of the “great films” I haven’t seen. I’ve seen enough movies that I think I can put together a decent Top 100 list, but I’ve got a lot of backfilling to do if I want it to be as authoritative as some of these other lists…

The other challenge is how subjective to be. There are a lot of incredible films in terms of film techniques or innovation, but do they really belong on my list? Citizen Kane is an incredible film, and on any objective list, it should probably be somewhere near the top. But should it be on my list? I recognize the greatness of the film, and I got into it while watching it, but in the end, I didn’t really connect with it the way I do with some of the films that will be at the top of my list. On the other end of the spectrum, I have an inexpicable love for Phantasm. While undeniably creepy at times, it’s also a pretty bad film. Should either of those films be on my list? Who knows? Maybe filling up 100 slots will be harder than it seems, but I have a feeling that I’m going to have lots of honorable mentions…

I doubt I’ll be able to compile a good list by Sunday, but you never know. Maybe I should start with the cinecast confessions list: Movies I Can’t Believe I’ve Never Seen.

One Friday A Month Is List Day

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Apparently I only ever really find time to do a Friday is List Day post once a month. In any case, here you go:

Random Ten:

  • Guster – “One Man Wrecking Machine”
  • Pink Floyd – “Fearless”
  • KMFDM – “Brute”
  • Beastie Boys – “Song for the Man”
  • The Chemical Brothers – “Let Forever Be”
  • Handsome Boy Modeling School (DJ Quest/DJ Shadow) – “Holy Calamity (Bear Witness II)”
  • Mike Oldfield – “Ommadawn On Horseback”
  • Eels – “Somebody Loves You”
  • UNKLE – “The Knock (Drums Of Death Part 2)”
  • Isaac Hayes – “Run Fay Run”

5 Unread Books I Own

  • The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon: Just purchased this and want to read it based mostly on the awesome title. I like Chabon too. And the book is getting good reviews.
  • Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell: This has been out for a while, so I’m behind the trend, but I just picked it up recently. I like Gladwell a lot. Even if I don’t agree with something, he’s usually pretty interesting and thought provoking.
  • Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War by Robert Coram: Based on what I’ve read of OODA loops, I decided to check out this biography. Boyd seems to have lead an interesting life, not to mention that his ideas appear to be playing a major role in current world conflicts.
  • Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace: This one takes the award for longest on shelf without being read. I’ve had this book for at least 5 years, but can’t bring myself to open it up. Firstly, it’s around 1,000 pages, and from what I’ve heard, it’s one of those Pynchon-like post-modern footnotes-within-footnotes type of book. After finishing Gravity’s Rainbow, my interest in such works has waned considerably.
  • The Marble Mask by Archer Mayor: My uncle gave me several of Mayor’s detective/mystery books for Christmas last year. I’ve read a couple of them and while I haven’t read much in the genre, he seems to be pretty decent (if not especially brilliant). I think this would have made good airplane reading, if I hadn’t been engrossed by Neal Stephenson’s Interface.

5 Upcoming Movies I Want To See Even Though I Know They’ll Suck

  • Hitman (October 2007): After some initial distaste, I’ve grown to love the video game and even considered just writing a script myself based on the concepts (just for fun). Movies based on video games don’t exactly have a good track record though, and I can’t say that the no-name makers of this film inspire confidence. Also, there’s this quote from IMDB: “he’s being groomed as the … I don’t know … the next Paul Walker?” Still, the trailer is pretty decent and they’ve retained one of my favorite parts of the game: the Ave Maria.
  • Transformers: God help me.
  • The Simpsons Movie: I stopped watching the show a while ago, as I found myself watching an entire episode without laughing even once. Maybe they’ll reignite for the movie, but it will probably suck.
  • I Am Legend: I loved the book (well, the book is a bit of a downer, but it was good), but I’m not too confident that we’ll see a good translation here. The book’s study of isolation and grim irony doesn’t appear to have made it to the screen. I guess there’s hope, but previous attempts to bring it to the screen have meddled with the story significantly (infamously and inexplicably, a recent script made no references to Vampires, instead using the term Hemocytes. At least the upcoming release avoided that trap…)
  • The Bourne Ultimatum: This one’s cheating, I guess, as I think Greengrass is awesome and I’m pretty sure it won’t suck. But the #3 movie in a series is a tough one, as evidenced by other summer sequels, and I’m pretty sure this will disappoint.