Greatest movies?

Men arrested for selling the
Whizzinator (fake heated penis
with urine to foil drug tests).

I have a friend who often asks me, “who’s your favorite movie star?” Or “what’s your favorite book?” Or Who is your favorite President?” Things like that. I cannot get him to understand that I do not have such favorites. I don’t even think about such things. I haven’t the faintest idea how one would pick such favorites. I say, “you mean my favorite President of the past fifty years?” “My favorite book of this year?” The very idea that one could meaningfully pick such favorites is too confusing for me. Of course this sort of thing is not serious. I assume it is done just for the sake of having something to do. While some people seem to like it, I find it not only boring, but absurd. Take the lists people offer of “The 100 Greatest Movies,” for example. The idea is ridiculous. Having looked at some of these lists from time to time I know that they do not always agree, although sometimes there is considerable overlap and some agreement. But I never agree with any of them. For a while Casablanca was often picked as the number one movie of all time. Lately I sense a shift to Citizen Kane. I liked both of these movies but I rather doubt they are the best movies of all time. Even if they are, when I see something like A Night at the Opera, or Duck Soup, or Bride of Frankenstein also ranked as among the 100 best, I have to wonder about the way movies are ranked. Why, for example, don’t they just rank the nth best comedies, or the nth best musicals, or the nth best westerns, or the nth best horror films, or whatever? How can you possibly rank comedies like A Night at the Opera along with dramas like Wuthering Heights or Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf, or even Singing in the Rain? And how can you rank movies made in 1924 or 1925 along with those made in the last few years? When I see these lists, not only do I see movies that I don’t agree should be that highly rated, I always see some that I don’t believe have any business on such a list in the first place. And some of my favorite movies that I believe are truly fine, don’t ever make the lists. For Whom the Bell Tolls, for example (I have blogged about this previously, 7-2-05). Pandora and the Flying Dutchman is another, as is Zorba the Greek.Having perused these various lists, and thought about it, I have concluded that the only reason they exist is that too many people just don’t have enough to do. At least the Academy Awards breaks things down into best actor, actress, musical score, sets, and such.

Another one of my pet peeves, growing in intensity in recent years, has to do with cooking shows. When these shows first started they usually just featured a single cook giving instruction on how to cook certain dishes. While they were mildly entertaining sometimes, entertainment was not their reason for being. But slowly they have changed, starting, I suppose, with Emeril who transformed his show into genuine entertainment and paved the way for what was to come. Now most of the cooking shows are contests of one kind or another, who can bake the greatest cake in an hour, or who can produce the finest meal out of cheese, or who can barbecue the best hamburger or ribs, and so on. I no longer watch these shows. If I want competition I turn to football. Again, I guess people who don’t have enough to do watch such shows. I suspect that many people who read blogs are in the same category.

Oh, yeah, I heard Obama had picked his team of hot-shot economic advisors and is trying to do something about our delicate condition. I’m waiting for results as I rather doubt Bush will get out of the way long enough for anything constructive to happen. I thought he looked cute in his Peruvian poncho. I’m waiting to see if my 20 – 60 – 20 rule will apply to Obama. It has been my experience (mostly as a Professor) that no matter what is involved, 20% of the people think you are great, 20% think you are lousy, and 60% basically don’t think at all.

LKBIQ:

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.
Dorothy Parker

TILT:
There apparently is no such thing as a .25 caliber revolver.