Listosaurus Rex

 Piero Scaruffi is, I’ve gathered, an academic and historian on film, music, and philosophy. I know very little about him, though I’m considering picking up his acclaimed history of rock book (in spite of its famous claims that the Beatles are overrated and bad).  So I googled the guy and found his web-site, which includes a section of film critiques and rankings.

One feature, which was composed by Scaruffi either in 1998 or some time before — the site is ambiguous — contains his list of the “Greatest Films of All Time.”The list contains 100 items, the first 194 (?) ranked, the other 806 seemingly in no particular order. To me, this list encompasses almost everything that’s wrong with film studies as an educational subject and film criticism in general.  

Here are some of the faults with it: first, it’s a list. Now, as we know, I’m a list fiend. But lists are fun. They’re ridiculous. They put logical order and ranking to taste. They are most certainly not scholarly. Scaruffi takes great pride in the fact that his site is scholarly:

 This web site is an online service devoted to the world of culture and entertainment. Unlike other online magazines of this kind, which target mainly the general audience of tv viewers, this web site caters to the upscale audience of “intellectuals” and experts, who are more interested in critical news than in mundane news.      

–Piero Scaruffi, advertising/about page

If his readership is intellectual, why do they need a rigid list?  Any true scholar of art would know that there is no best or worst art.  To attempt to rank the greatness of one piece of art to another’s is a silly side-squabble that is both impossible and a distraction from the point of the art.  If we’re intellectually approaching it as art, why spend time discussing its greatness? Why not discuss the art itself?  

Don’t get me wrong, I love lists about movies. But not lists that rank movies as a cerebral art form. I like lists that rank movies as engrossing, emotive cinematic experiences.  

Other lists that are good are collections of opinions about what the greatest movies are: Sight and Sound is the most respected example, and IMDb is my favorite of these. Statistically mashing people’s opinions on what films are great is different from one critic ranking the greatest pieces of art.

Let’s move on.  Here are Scaruffi’s top ten:

1. Orson Welles: Citizen Kane (1941)
2. Alfred Hitchcock: North By Northwest (1959)
3. Orson Welles: Touch Of Evil (1958)
4. Roman Polanski: Chinatown (1974)
5. Robert Altman: Nashville (1975)
6. Sam Peckinpah: The Wild Bunch (1969)
7. Francis Ford Coppola: The Godfather Part II (1974)
8. Elia Kazan: Splendor In The Grass (1961)
9. John Ford: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
10. Lars von Trier: Riget/ Kingdom (1995)

Sorry, folks, Citizen Kane is not the greatest movie to watch today.  It might be the most influential, perhaps one of the most visually interesting, but it is not the single greatest. It’s still a great movie today, but the time-tripping chronology is old hat at this point, and the movies have gotten better at telling stories as time has passed.  (Side note: I will let you know if this is still my opinion after I have seen the movie with Roger Ebert’s legendary commentary.)

North by Northwest at number two? Really? The movie might be worth a second watch for me, but the awkward sexual puns that made up 80% of the script bothered me. Plus, isn’t this more a piece of entertainment than an artful film?  Sure, Hitchcock was famous for making films that seemed like entertainment but really contained great artistic value. But is it reallybetter than Touch of Evil? Better than The Godfather, or Chinatown, or… etc.?

More than anything else, it’s the precision of the ranking that bothers me. If you read any of his film reviews, he rates movies out of ten, but down to a tenth of a point.  This is ludicrous!  There are one hundred possible rankings.  What really separates a 6.7 from a 6.8?  Remember that this isn’t just anyone picking number ratings for a movie, willy-nilly. This is one of the most respected scholars of film!  And he deems it appropriate to quantify art’s value. Down to a number that precisely.  Ridiculous.

You know what, Scaruffi?  I give your list a 3.7.  And your web-site and the rest of your lists, too.  You call Dogma the tenth best film of the ’90s but Schindler’s List the forty-first.  Now, Dogma’s a good movie, three stars probably, but better than Schindler’s List?  Are you sure your “upscale audience” is going to dig that pick?

Does the guy have some keen insights? Yeah. Do his picks probably have more reasoning than I’m seeing? Probably. Does he know more about film than I ever will? Absolutely. 

But learn something from Roger Ebert, Piero Scaruffi.  Cinema is an art of images and emotion and stories.  It’s one thing to develop a keen eye for what makes a film tick, what makes it valuable and memorable. It’s another thing to elevate art to such an intellectual level that it’s no longer fun.

[link to the list]

Weezer is a fantastic alt-rock band that I have loved since I first heard “Buddy Holly” on the radio a decade ago.  Since then, I’ve taken the time to get to know their music.  I own every album and just about every EP and single, so I’ve observed the band’s evolution from misunderstood rockers to pop curiosity of recent years.

Though I in no way qualify as a “hardcore” Weezer follower, I am certainly a pretty big fan, and here is my opinion as to the twenty-five greatest songs they have recorded and released on major albums.

My ranking is of the studio versions, and no live tracks, B-sides, special editions, or unreleased material has been included. Particular care has been taken to judge the songs on their musical merit, and not consider them based on music videos or other factors external from the albums themselves.  Plenty of singles have been included, but some haven’t been.  Don’t be surprised to see an album track or two fighting their way up there.

Here’s a little bit of background on Weezer if you want to brush up.

Of course, these picks are just my educated opinion.  Feel free to disagree (and let me know in the comments).  Before I start, I also want to say that just about any track from Weezer’s blue album or Pinkerton could have pushed for a spot on this list.  I love both of those albums in their entirety.  And, without further ado, my picks.  Enjoy!

Read more »