I noticed lissener was back around, and I always loved his lists as far as his favourites in various media. Inspired by his list in the perfect books thread (and hopefully as a way to draw him in to making an updated list for me to check out!), can we do a top ten thread for movies, albums, books, or whatever else you want?
Here’s mine (slightly embarassed because I know my music and movie choices are going to show which era I grew up in, but it can’t be helped):
Books (I am going to mix fiction and non-fiction, but anyone can feel free to do whatever they want with it)
Critical Path - R. Buckminster Fuller
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
The Once and Future King - T. H. White
Return to Neveryon (series) - Samuel R. Delany
Toilers of the Sea - Victor Hugo
The Story of Art - E. H. Gombrich
The Kingdom of this World - Alejo Carpentier
Ada - Vladimir Nabokov
The Illuminatus! Trilogy - Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson
The Divine Horsemen - Maya Deren
Albums
Out to Lunch - Eric Dolphy
Left of the Middle - Natalie Imbruglia
Haunted - Poe
No Depression - Uncle Tupelo
Homogenic - Bjork
The Big Gundown - John Zorn
Blur - Blur
Folklore - Nelly Furtado
The Shape of Punk to Come - Refused
The Mauricio Kagel Edition - Mauricio Kagel (more like a compilation, but I’m not being picky here)
I don’t really think it’s possible for me to order them, or even to pick just ten. So instead, here are 10 Things I Really Like Off The Top Of My Head:
Movies:
Dancer in the Dark
The Last Picture Show
The City of Lost Children
2001: A Space Odyssey
Solyaris
Lost in Translation
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Ghost World
Magnolia
Taxi Driver
Albums:
Homogenic - Bjork
Crazy For You - Best Coast
Nevermind - Nirvana
Loveless - My Bloody Valentine
Wounded Rhymes - Lykke Li
Fever to Tell - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
The Divine Comedy - Milla Jovovich
Witching Hour - Ladytron
Let’s Get Out of This Country - Camera Obscura
Anna Calvi - Anna Calvi
I wrote a blog piece on my 10 Desert Island movies when the most recent Sight & Sound poll came out (one of those 10 has been mentioned already in the thread).
Thanks for the shout out, infinitii. Sorry for the delay in replying, I had to leave for work just after you posted.
In no particular order:
ALBUMS
Mary Margaret O’Hara
Jane Siberry: When I Was a Boy
Jeff Buckley: Grace
Diamanda Galas and John Paul Jones: The Sporting Life
Kate Bush: The Dreaming
Tricky: Maxinquaye
Eddi Reader: Mirmama
Air: All Along Air
Nobukazu Takemura: Child’s View
Butter 08: Butter
Ella Fitzgerald: Ella in Rome, the Birthday Concert
Anna Domino: Mysteries of America
Bjork: Gling Glo
David Bowie: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust
PJ Harvey: Stories From the City Stories From the Sea
Ruby: Salt Peter
Geraldine Fibbers: Butch
Queen: News of the World
BOOKS
Flannery O’Connor: The Habit of Being
Sigrid Undset: The Master of Hestviken
Sigrid Undset: Kristin Lavransdatter
Jean Henri Fabre: The Hunting Wasps
Halldor Laxness: Independent People
Par Lagerkvist: The Dwarf
Charles Dickens: Our Mutual Friend
Russell Hoban: Riddley Walker
Samuel Beckett: Molloy
Knut Hamsun: Hunger
MOVIES
Carl Theodor Dreyer: The Passion of Joan of Arc
Carl Theodor Dreyer: Ordet
Kenji Mizoguchi: Ugetsu
FW Murnau: Sunrise
King Vidor: The Crowd
William Wellman: Track of the Cat
Charles Laughton: Night of the Hunter
Douglas Sirk: All That Heaven Allows
Yasujiro Ozu: Tokyo Story
John Ford: The Searchers
Howard Hawks: Rio Bravo
Paul Verhoeven: Showgirl
Nicholas Ray: Bigger Than Life
Nicholas Ray: Johnny Guitar
Leo McCary: Ruggles of Red Gap
Leo McCary: The Awful Truth
Andrei Tarkovsky: Solyaris
Andrei Tarkovsky: The Sacrifice
Lar Von Trier: Dancer in the Dark
Roberto Rossellini: Europa 51
Jacques Tourneur: I Walked with a Zombie
Sergio Leone: Once Upon a Time in the West
William Wyler: Dodsworth
This is all off the top of my head; I don’t really keep an official list. So I’m sure I’ll be slapping my forehead and adding titles.
Two things:
1)I wonder if it would make sense to put ages on here. A 25 year old is going to have very different lists than a 45 year old.
2)OP, sorry to side track this for a minute, but was Ada hard to read. Lolita was one of my favorite books so I picked up Pale Fire. I’m in the last 60 pages of it and hating every single word. I know it’s a very different style of book, but it makes me nervous to read another Nabakov, being 50/50 on them now. I have a feeling, so as not to ruin myself on Vlad, my best bet is to just wait a few years and re-read Lolita. I know I’ll get more out of it the second time as it took about 2/3rds of the book for me to get over the subject matter and realize how well it was written.
Thanks everyone! I love individuals’ lists more than a collective top 100 list, because all of the quirks haven’t been smoothed out of them. For example, just using lissener’s lists, everyone knows Charles Dickens and John Ford, but I’m definitely going to be checking out “The Hunting Wasps” and “Track of the Cat”.
Joey P: “Ada” is (typically of Nabokov) beautifully written, but very difficult. You might also have issues if subject matter tends to colour your views on a work. If you are interested in more Nabokov though, his autobiography “Speak, Memory” is wonderfully written, and very unique for am autobiography. I liked “Pale Fire” too, though, so your mileage may vary.
Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy - Elton John
Clutching at Straws - Marillion
The Stranger - Billy Joel
Pontiac - Lyle Lovett
Escape - Journey
In Rainbows - Radiohead
Ben Fold’s Five - Ben Fold’s Five
Soundgarden - Super Unknown
Spacehog - Resident Alien
Spacehog - The Chinese Album
Rush - Exit Stage Left
Judas Priest - Screaming for Vengeance
TELEVISION (in roughly descending order)
The Singing Detective
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
NYPD Blue
Prime Suspect
The X-Files
The Sopranos
Top of the Lake
Twin Peaks
Longmire
MI-5
Impossible to narrow down to 10 each, but for the moment:
Albums:
Husker Du - New Day Rising
The Beatles - Revolver
R.E.M. - Murmur
Gang Of Four - Entertainment!
The Clash - The Clash
The Replacements - Let It Be
Prince - Sign O The Times
The Jesus and Mary Chain - Psychocandy
XTC - Skylarking
Beastie Boys - Paul’s Boutique
Movies:
Bicycle Thieves
Play Time
Brazil
Make Way For Tomorrow
Miller’s Crossing
Airplane!
Mulholland Drive
Boyhood
Groundhog Day
Ghost World
TV Shows:
The Wire
Get A Life
Breaking Bad
The Sopranos
Seinfeld
The Shield
The Simpsons
Deadwood
NewsRadio
The Larry Sanders Show
They’re equally good, IMO, but Make Way For Tomorrow doesn’t seem to get half the love Tokyo Story gets, and I always like to bring it into the discussion.
I’d also like to add that I could probably switch out Airplane! and Ghost World with The Manchurian Candidate and The Godfather (or maybe Wages of Fear?), but I guess I’ll stand by my list as posted.