Lists! There must be Lists!!!

I think Entertainment Weekly finally ran out of things to say, so went with the "Best of" List approach. Not sure what they'll do next week, possibly take a break. It's truly sad what the internet has done to the print publication, specifically the magazine. Truly sad. Not that they were ever fantastic, but they used to have meater issues. An entire, 134 pages worth, of nothing but best lists. This is thicker than normal, they usually run less than 100 pages with ads. The sad bit is that they aren't exactly telling me anything new about pop culture, what people believe is the best of television, film, books, theater, or music in pop culture, or what their critics believe is. Nor am I that surprised by their choices nor the fact that I blatently disagree with most of them. Moulin Rouge at number 10??? Shudder. Although Titantic at number three (Lord of the Rings was 2) is a lot worse (not Lord of the Rings, Titantic). Pulp Fiction I can understand - it was tight and flawless and changed the entire genre, not to mention Travolta's career. The other two were just pop culture teases that gave me a headache. The book list isn't much better, while I can sort of buy Cormac McCarthy's somewhat over- hyped The Road on the list, Harry Potter - The Goblet of Fire? Order of the Phoenix was darker. I found Goblet sort of slow. This is clearly a subjective game, but then anything in relation to pop culture is. It's impossible to be objective about this stuff. You like what you like after all. That's all there is to it. And life would be so much easier if we all liked the same stuff (or my life would be much easier if I liked the same stuff as everyone else did instead of constantly and somewhat stubbornly insisting on going my own way).

The best list or rather my favorite (I don't necessarily agree with all of his choices) is Neil Gaiman's list of new classic monsters...

Swamp Thing (Alan Moore's version),
William Defoe's Max Schreck in Shadow of the Vampire,
The Weeping Angel's in Steven Moffat's terryifying 2007 Doctor Who episode Blink [which is still the best Who episode ever. The only one I rewatched and considered saving],
Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs and Red Dragon back when he wasn't quite human and all the scarier for it,
Grendel,
Eugene Tooms (X-Files),
The Nightbreed (Cliver Barker's 1990 film),
Pennywise the Clown (from Stephen King's IT because Clown's are scarey),
The Pale Man in Pan's Labyrnthe, and
Craddock McDermott - the vengeful ghost that came with the suit in Joe Hill's 2007 novel the Heart Shaped Box.

The rest are rather preditictable and not unlike all the other lists we've seen lately. But if you want to read them, you don't have to pick up EW - the internet has managed to make it possible to read every article in a mag yet never ever have to buy one if you are industrious enough. Me, I like buying and flipping through the things during commericials...but I'm in the minority, I'm certain. The internet appears to be intent on killing print publications or at the very least changing how they are currently distributed, which may not be a bad thing. It's changed how music, film, video, photographs and tv shows are getting distributed, why not print?

Anyhow, I think the whole point of "best of" lists is to limit ones choices from over 1000 to just a 100. Yes, there's over a million books published each year, but if you only read these select few, which we've convienently selected, you'll be ahead of the game, and better still -you'll have something to brag/talk about with your next door neighbor. It also provides great fodder to bloggers, bloggers love best lists. I've already seen two memes regarding the EW lists. Hey, I'm not being critical - I love lists too, make them at work all the time - it's a habit I inherited from my Dad. Keeps me from forgetting stuff. I'm a bit like the heroine of In Plain Sight - I make to do lists than forget about them completely.

The week from hell finally has come to a close. Halleugha. Here's hoping next week is better. Feeling a bit of deja-vue this week. Two things happened that reminded me of 2006. Making me think life really is just one big pattern that repeats itself in different layouts.