My brother Brad has played trumpet in a few ska bands, at least one or two of which have performed live.  He’s a devoted ska fan. As a listener and performer, he’s somewhat of a ska expert. I asked him to make a list of the best ska songs, and he more than stepped up to the challenge, producing a list of fifty.  Without further ado, Brad’s 50 favorite ska songs.

The Top 50 Ska Songs

by Brad

Keep in mind that this list is written by a guy who listens to a lot of Suburban Legends, Catch 22, Streetlight Manifesto, and Reel Big Fish.  The list is weighted toward these groups.  I have listened to lots of other bands too, but these are my favorite.

Most lists like this will be about how important and influential songs are.  This one is simply made of ones that I like, in order from 50 down to 1.  I hope you enjoy it!

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Short version:

Listosaurus Rex will now be focusing on publishing new, original lists instead of discussing old lists from other sources.

Contribute your own lists, and we’ll gladly consider them for publishing here!

Long version:
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Editor’s note: This post is written as a dialogue between me — raptor — and Listosaurus Rex regular, yoshi.

Alright, we came across a list on the site FilmSchoolRejects.com, which is a pretty popular movie blog I sometimes read, that caught our attention.  It’s a ranking of the top five Batman films.  The list is a bit outdated, though.  It was released in 2006, a couple of years before the most recent Batman movie.  Here’s what the site came up with:

1. Batman Begins
2. Batman Forever
3. Batman and Robin
4. Batman (1989)
5. Batman Returns

raptor: I’m not a big fan of this list.  In 2006, Batman Begins was easily the best Batman movie.  But after that, I’m not sure I like where it heads.

yoshi: I agree with your and FSR’s ratings about Batman Begins.  I did see it before all of the Batman movies, so I’m going to be biased.  But it was one of my favorite movies of all time even before the hype of the sequel.  Although I haven’t seen it all the way through, I definitely would not have put Batman and Robin at number three.

raptor: Yeah, I agree.  Batman and Robin is regarded by some as one of the worst sequels of all time.  My feelings aren’t quite that strong against it, but I just didn’t find its wacky art direction and campy one-liners all that appealing.  Cute, maybe, but not great.  Batman Forever, at number two, isn’t quite as bad, but I was still not a big fan.

yoshi: As a side note — my aunt designed some of the furniture props on the evil half of Two-Face’s lair in Batman Forever!  I agree with you, though, raptor.  I preferred the darker feel of Burton’s movies, Batman and Batman Returns.  It reflected the type of introspection that makes Batman as a character interesting, as opposed to the comedic side of the later two.

raptor: I’m with you, yoshi.  For my money, the original Batman is the best of the four from the eighties and nineties, if for no other reason than Jack Nicholson as The Joker.  His performance was a 10 out of 10 in that, and made up for the stiff acting of Keaton and somewhat shallow plot.  You can go through any of the other villains in the series up until Begins, and none of them match the greatness of Nicholson.  Jim Carrey, too manic.  Schwarzenegger, too hard to see as Mr. Freeze.  I haven’t seen Batman Returns all the way through, so I can’t say much about those villains.

yoshi: I’ve seen it.  Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman and Danny DeVito as the Penguin impressed me.  I would’ve put  Batman Returns ahead of the other three from the era.

raptor: But we can agree, yoshi, that by far the best villain from any Batman movie is Heath Ledger?  The Dark Knight came out afte this list was made, but it surely would’ve held the number one spot.

yoshi: Yes.  It was really the details that brought out the insanity of the evil deeds of Ledger’s Joker:  the lip-licking, the makeup, the limping, and especially the way he talked.

raptor: I agree.  He couldn’t have done it better.  He’s a cross between a criminal mastermind, a psychotic creep, and a silly clown.  It just blew my mind.  That wasn’t the only good thing about The Dark Knight, though.  It’s just a top-rate piece of cinematic storytelling, engrossing and thrilling from beginning to end.

yoshi: The Dark Knight wasn’t the only movie missing from the list.  The Batman Movie from 1966 has always held a special place in my heart.  It was in no way a good movie.  The acting was terrible.  But it was so terrible it was hilarious.  The puns are really what made it.  So, raptor, what has yellow skin and writes?

raptor: A ball-point banana! And, you know, some days you just can’t get rid of a bomb.  I read an interview with Adam West, he said people still come up to him and quote lines from that awful but wonderful, extremely campy Batman movie from the ’60s.  I’m with you, yoshi.  In terms of entertainment value, it’s a good one.  The only other Batman movie I thought of that wasn’t on the list was the animated Mask of the Phantasm from 1993.  I adored it as a kid.  I haven’t seen it in a while, but I remember it was an entertaining and thoughtful piece of animated noir.

yoshi: I haven’t seen that one.

raptor: The animated series that it came from was great and pretty influential.  You see touches of it in the other movies, especially in Batman and Robin.  As subpar as Batman and Robin was as a movie, it did a decent job with clever Batman references.  So, at this point, are we goin to make our own respective Top 5 Batman Movies list?  Ready, yoshi?

yoshi: Yep!  My top five are:

1. The Dark Knight
2. Batman Begins
3. Batman Returns
4. Batman (1989)
5. Batman Forever

yoshi: With the 1966 movie barely missing the cut.

raptor: Solid all-around.  To me, Forever and Batman and Robin were just too disappointing.  They couldn’t decide if they were going to be silly or if they were going to be great, nuanced and deep.  The result was a mishmash.  Here are my five:

1. The Dark Knight
2. Batman Begins
3. Mask of the Phantasm
4. Batman (1989)
5. Batman (1966)

yoshi: Sounds pretty good.

raptor: Yep.  And Batman, in general, is the bomb-diggity.

yoshi: You know it.

The website The Top Tens has polled readers and created a list of the top 10 funniest comedians of all time.

In my opinion, comedy is one of the most subjective forms of entertainment.  Great movies, music, and books are very often universally acclaimed, but it’s comedy is usually so one-dimensional (funnier=better), then it’s little more than personal taste.  There’s so much room disagreement that it’s hard to imagine a list of greatest comedians without controversy.

And if you’re going to trust anyone’s opinions on what is funny, are you sure a random, probably small sampling of people’s opinions on the Internet is the best option?

What I’m hinting at is that I don’t think this list is particularly great.  It could be useful if you’re just looking for names of a bunch of comedians to check out.  But there’s no reason to respect it as an authoritative list.  Here are the Top 10.  The site also has some runners up.

1. Jerry Seinfeld
2. Russell Peters
3. Dane Cook
4. George Carlin
5. Dave Chappelle
6. Mitch Hedberg
7. Steve Martin
8. Katt Williams
9. Robin Williams
10. Chris Rock

I suppose a lot of these picks are respectable, but I’m sort of surprised the ever-divisive and gradually-more-loathed Dane Cook was able to make his way to the top.  My two favorite comedians are Mitch Hedberg as the runner up and Demetri Martin, who is listed as a #18 in the runners up section, as by far my favorite.  I’m glad to see Mitch making the top ten and sort of wish Demetri would receive more votes.

The explanations as to who was why the comedians receive different spots are just quotes from voters, and never really insightful.  Very often the quotes voters included are just quotes from the comedians themselves.

Overall, an unexciting list of best comedians.

Happy New Year!

What better way to kick off ‘09 than to look back at some of the things that made ‘08 great?

If Time-magazine’s bewildering set of end-of-year lists wasn’t enough lists for you, here is a run-down of some more countdown lists by the critics:

/Film’s Top 10 list podcast

Joystiq Network’s Video Game of the Year awards

allmusic’s (very extensive) Best Albums and Songs Films

NPR Best Books of 2008 Series

As thorough as those lists are, if you’re looking for something easier to scan, Metacritic’s probably the place to go, especially because most of these pages also have a section incoroporating in the top ten lists of most major critics.

Metacritic’s Best Films of 2008

Metacritic’s Best Music of 2008

Metacritic’s Best Games of 2008

I personally would make and share my own top ten lists in these categories, but I haven’t really experienced enough of any of these released in 2008 for me to be comfortable making the list.  What were some of your favorite movies, albums, or games of the year?