Listosaurus Rex

Don't worry -- Sex and the City is NOT on this list

Romantic movies don’t, in general, have a good rep with guys.  It’s not like we don’t get emotional — just catch one of us watching Rudy.  And we’re even okay with romance in movies, when it’s well done.  What guy doesn’t like the end of Rocky?

But we don’t do chick-flicks.  The term was invented as derisive and inflammatory term towards the type of hyperfeminine film that usually has a dramatic and unrealistic take on love. Romantic comedies? Nuh-uh.  If its primary thread is a love story, then we don’t want it.

Nonetheless, there are exceptions, and I am here today to provide the public service of sharing a few of these.  These are the kind of movies that are so well done or creative that they’ll pierce through that shield of a testosterone and manliness that hides the part of us known as “feelings” or “emotions.”

Are these widely known?  Yeah.  Pretty predictable picks?  Sure.  You’ve probably seen or heard of these four recent stories and one classic.  But the holidays are a romantic and sentimental time, plus Valentine’s day is just around the corner.  You ladies can always use a reminder for what to show us to keep the atomosphere romantic and sweet for both us.

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You want lists?  I got a headache just looking at the titles for all of the lists that have been featured on Wikipedia’s home page.

Want to know what members of the Arkansas Razorbacks have gone to the NFL?  A list of the major events in  British philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft’s life?  How about a list of schools in Marlborough, New Zealand?

Then Wikipedia’s the place for you.  Those are a few of the obscure ones, but a bunch of them are useful, if still pretty specific.  You can look up the discographies of a whole bunch of bands and learn all about how the Redskins have performed historically every year since the franchise was formed. 

So, in summary, if you want to waste hours and hours looking at a learning a lot about niche topics through vaguely interesting lists, the Wikipedia featured list section is for you.

In November 2003, Rolling Stone magazine ranked the greatest albums of all time and extended its list out to a whopping 500.  Here are the top 20:

1. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles
2. Pet Sounds, The Beach Boys
3. Revolver, The Beatles
4. Highway 61 Revisited, Bob Dylan
5. Rubber Soul, The Beatles
6. What’s Going On, Marvin Gaye
7. Exile on Main Street, The Rolling Stones
8. London Calling, The Clash
9. Blonde on Blonde, Bob Dylan
10. The Beatles (”The White Album”), The Beatles
11. The Sun Sessions, Elvis Presley
12. Kind of Blue, Miles Davis
13. Velvet Underground and Nico, The Velvet Underground
14. Abbey Road, The Beatles
15. Are You Experienced?, The Jimi Hendrix Experience
16. Blood on the Tracks, Bob Dylan
17. Nevermind, Nirvana
18. Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen
19. Astral Weeks, Van Morrison
20. Thriller, Michael Jackson

The list is pretty widely criticized by readers, and I think a few of the common complaints are founded.  One is that the list is very heavily American.  Though the top 20 is pretty balanced between British and American bands, there is a steady dropoff on British rock as the list goes on.

Pink Floyd, and most anything progressive, is given the shaft on the list while punk seems to reign supreme. I’m not a big fan of most prog rock, and not very educated on the genre, so I’m not going to stick up for it too much.

Odd is the treatment of jazz on the list.  There are only a few albums on the list.  A bit Miles, a bit Coltrane, but not much beyond that.  Jazz is a segment of music as deep as rock and roll is, so it might’ve been more appropriate to either cut out jazz albums or devote more of the list to it.

Another thing I want to talk briefly about is Beatles albums.  I believe that Revolver would have been the number one on the list if it had been made a few years later.  Revolver is now a little bit more “in style” while people are slightly more down on Sgt. Pepper’s.  

In my mind, though Rubber Soul tops them both.  There is no album whose musical achievments I respect more than Rubber Soul.

I’d also like to say that The White Album is WAY too high up on the list.  It’s too unfocused and gimmicky, even though it’s got some real stunners on there.  For all the Beatles love on the list, Help! is far too low (#332).  The album is significantly more enjoyable overall, in my opinion, The White Album (#10), Please Please Me (#39), and Let It Be (#86).  With essentially every other Beatles album on the list, it’s a complete joke that Magical Mystery Tour isn’t honored.

I have my nitpicks with the list, but nothing overall to keep me from recommending it.  Nobody’s ever going to completely agree on what the best albums are, but Rolling Stone proposes a pretty good choices.

The best part about the list?  It’s got little articles about each one of the  albums.  You could be reading this for days and not get through everything.  It’s very anecdotal and informative, a good read.  I’ve been working on it for months and still haven’t gotten all the way to the end.

Perhaps the best way to view the list, then, is not an authoritative ranking of the best albums, but an overview of 500 great albums, replete with intersting stories and solid writing.  Take a look.

For the second time in three years, Roger Ebert has gone against the grain of film critic and not given us a straightforward, ranked top ten list of movies for the year.  His reasoning?  There are too many good ones to pick just ten.  He also has written many times through they years about how he’s not a big fan of ranking movies.  So we have a set of unranked favorites from the year.  Here are his twenty picks, alphabetically:

Ballast
The Band’s Visit
Che
Chop Shop
The Dark Knight
Doubt
The Fall
Frost/Nixon
Frozen Friver
Happy-Go-Lucky
Iron Man
Milk
Rachel Getting Married
The Reader
Revolutionary Road
Shotgun Stories
Slumdog Millionaire
Synecdoche, New York
W.
Wall-E

Interestingly, I’ve noticed at least one movie on this list (Wall-E) that didn’t get four stars, only three and a half.  This is certainly not a complaint, as I love Wall-E and I hope all of its year-end love will help in the Oscars race for years to come; it is wondered whether, with the right push, it could become the second and animated movie and first since the Animated Movie award was introduced to be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar.

That Wall-E was included is especially strange because some of his four-star reviews of the year (In Bruges, Lakeview Terrace) weren’t included as part of the twenty.

If I have a criticism with the list, it is that it’s coming out so early, and before a few of the Oscar hopefuls come out.  Movie studios tend to load the end of December with releases of artful, award-hopeful movies to have them fresh on people’s mind as the big awards are dolled out.  It’s not just a matter of respect, it’s a matter of money: an obscure film will get a lot more ticket sales if it gets nominated.

Unfortunately, I haven’t had much opportunity to get out so far this year, so I haven’t seen too many of 2008’s movies.  This list includes the favorites of the ones I’ve seen (Dark Knight, Wall-E) and some of the ones I most want to see (Frost/Nixon, Iron Man, Slumdog Millionaire).  Of these, I know W. got mostly mixed reviews, and Happy-Go-Lucky’s were only midly positive.  Most of these seem to be well-accepted by most, too.

It’s always fun to see movies ranked, but I respect Ebert’s choice not to.  Perhaps the days of his traditional Top 10 lists are at an end.  Ebert’s untraditional format is sort of refreshing given the ADHD, list-obsessed nature of many sites and news.  And though I love lists (obviously), it’s pretty cool to see something a little bit less hyperactive, more thoughtful.

Or maybe I just love everything Ebert writes and puts together.  It could be that too.

Nice, LifeHacker!

The website/blog, which is a haven for DIY-techie types of people, has put together a ranking of its most popular top ten lists of the 2008.

I don’t use the web-site too much, except for the occasional software advice.  However, these lists are worth a quick browse through.  You can pick out the ones that look interesting.

My favorites are the lists of Obscure Google Tricks, Underhyped Apps, and Easy Ways to Look Sharp.  Who doesn’t want to look sharp, after all?

The list is a part of the big Best of 2008 series of features.  It’s not even my favorite feature — I like the software overviews more.  But it was a list of lists; how could I not make a post about it here?