... In The Whole Wide World

As I write this, I'm sitting (which is good, typing while standing is difficult) and watching the yearly showing of "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer." As we all know, it's the best holiday special, any holiday, in the Whole Wide World. From the 60s stop-animation to the horrible lines ("His beak blinks like a blinkin' beacon!") to the gay elf dentist to the Abominable Snowman that ceases to scare after about age 8 to the beloved songs, well ... the best. No question.

That's kind of what this blog's about. The Best. I'm getting a little sick of The Best.

This all started, well, in my mind, not in reality, last week when I was given a magazine by a nice soul at band practice. She thought I'd like it because it's all about movies. And she was right, it's a fun magazine. It's called "Movies Rock." And it contains a list. We read through it last week, and I looked some more when I got home, and then it hit me how sick I am of all these lists. Everyone has them. The 50 Best This, The 100 Best That. This was just a random occurrence till about 10 years ago, when VH-1 got hold of the idea and rode it for all it was worth. And if you'll notice, VH-1 is now a non-entity in the world of cable television. I'm sure there's something to be learned there.

So now everywhere you turn you have to see The Best of everything. I mean, look at any TV commercial, if you dare, and I don't mean the ones selling products in the store. I mean the ones advertising the shows on the very TeeVee you're watching. It's gotten absolutely sickening in the past year. Every week you'll see a commercial for a TV show, and it's, "This week is the most exciting episode ever!" "The most shocking ending ever!" "The most amazing hour you'll see!" "The most outrageous hour this year!" And they're all for the same show! Every single week we're supposed to believe these shows can top themselves. Well, I don't. Not even the shows I like.

But anyway, VH-1 took this The Best idea and held on. They gave us the 100 Greatest Albums of All Time, The 100 Greatest Bands of All Time, The 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time, The 100 Greatest One-Hit Wonders, The 50 Greatest Hair Bands, The 100 Most Outrageous Television Moments, and on and on till you want to puke. And maybe you do puke, and I certainly can't fault you there. They never did the lists I wanted to see, like The 100 Best Misheard Lyrics, The 50 Bands That Should Have Retired Long Ago, The 100 Greatest Examples of Bad Plastic Surgery, The 50 Artists We're All Afraid To Admit Suck Wind, and the like.

Anyway, all these shows are four or five nights long, start at 100, and count down to the big Number One Slot, and we're all supposed to watch with bated breath. Like it matters. I mean, the Best? To whom? Youm? I mean, You? Who are you, Panel of List-Makers, to tell us what the Best of anything is.

Now, VH-1 is the most offensive of the list-makers, but there are others. TV Guide comes out with these from time to time, The Best TV Shows of All Time, The Best TV Stars of All Time, The Best Sidekicks of All Time. People and Entertainment Weekly are always telling us the Sexiest and Best and Worst Dressed, and the Most Exciting, and the everything else. We never see "Some Really Good Movies," "A Random List of Cute Guys," or "Here's Some Things You Might Have Missed." I wouldn't mind giving those lists a look.

Anyway, back to the "Movies Rock" magazine. Their list was "The 50 Greatest Soundtracks of All Time." The only thing I'll give them is that they started right out with Number One. We didn't have to turn pages and pages to get to the Big Spot. But that's about all I'll give them. And here's why. The Top Five Alone.

1. "Purple Rain"
2. "A Hard Day's Night"
3. "The Harder They Come"
4. "Pulp Fiction"
5. "The Graduate"

Yeah.

1. "Purple Rain" - Wrong! You've got to be kidding. Actually, Prince would probably appear in the aforementioned Artists We're All Afraid To Admit Suck Wind, possibly in the Top Ten. I can't be the only one who saw straight through this piece of self-aggrandizing crap. And for those of you who contend that "When Doves Cry" is some sort of masterpiece? Well, explain it to me, because I've never understood it. Send me a paper, 500 words, double-spaced, and I'll give it a read. When I have time.
2. "A Hard Day's Night" - Wrong! You've got to be kidding. "A Hard Day's Night" was the definitive music movie. Forget Elvis, he was in hack movies dancing around and playing characters. This was the Beatles being the Beatles, and it was magnificent. You tell me this album shouldn't be sitting at the Number One Spot. I won't believe you, but tell me anyway.
3. "The Harder They Come" - Wrong? Who knows. I haven't seen the movie. I know some of the songs. Reggae. Heard one, heard it all. That's just me, though. I certainly don't see it being Number Three.
4. "Pulp Fiction" - Interesting choice, but I don't know how I feel about it being so high up. Certainly good music in there, and no one can deny that the songs in "Pulp Fiction" made the movie what it was.
5. "The Graduate" - Wrong! You've really got to be kidding here. Simon and Garfunkel? I'm not sure I know what to say. Then again, I thought "The Graduate" was a terribly overrated movie (there's a list!), and for such a supposedly "edgy" premise, I'm not sure I'd go with folk singers doing "Scarborough Fair." Which when I was little, I thought they were singing, "Scarburr Affair." But again, I was small.

There's more to like and dislike in this list. These folks consider, for the Top Twenty, such gems as the soundtracks to "Boogie Nights," "Midnight Cowboy," and "Almost Famous." Forgettable, sorry, Nilsson, I love you and am glad you made some money from "Midnight Cowboy," but I wouldn't call the whole soundtrack great. However, on the bright side, they include in that same Top Twenty "Rushmore," "Animal House," "American Graffiti," "The Big Chill," and "The Blues Brothers." "O Brother, Where Art Thou" came in at 26, "Repo Man" at 35, and "Rock and Roll High School" at 40. "Last King of Scotland" weighed in at 46. I saw that within the past year, and I don't even recall it having a soundtrack.

And just to add insult to injury, there's a sidebar in this article that names the Five Best Music Documentaries, and "DiG!" isn't even on the list. That's a sin and a crime.

Only a few days ago, I was looking around on the internet during some dull moments at work. I'm not supposed to do this, so please don't tell anyone at TheCompanyIWorkFor I was doing it, or they'll send someone out to break my knees. Which unfortunately is not an injury serious enough to keep me home from work, because I'd still be able to sit at my desk. Anyway, I found myself on the Entertainment Weekly website, and they were touting a list called, and I swear to you I'm not making this up, as ludicrous as it sounds, "The 50 Smartest People In Hollywood." They actually found 50 people in Hollywood they thought were smart enough to put on this list, and yes, I was shocked, too. I was even more shocked after reading the list.

Coming in at Number 50 was Ben Affleck. Need I go further?

I will.

On down the list, and I have to be honest here and say a lot of these people are studio insider people and so I can't speak for anything they do, but down on the list is a composer who's done the scores for several films and can't read music. If he's so smart, why doesn't he learn? He might make better scores! Angelina Jolie pops in at Number 33, and I guess that's because she can be sexy and adopt children and go to Africa, all good things save for the being sexy, I guess, the inexplicable Ben Stiller weighs in at the inexplicable Number 20, maybe that's simply because after all the crap he's perpetrated on the world the man still has a career, and Mr Clooney comes in at Number 13, which I have no problem with other than the fact that he started a fight with Fabio recently, and that can't be very smart.

Tyler Perry slides into the Top Ten at Number 7, Meryl Streep edged him out to take Number 6, and Will Smith edged her out to take Number 5. Will Smith, the affable guy everyone likes, but really. I mean, Jodie Foster speaks fluent French and graduated from Yale, and she was only Number 30, for God's sake. Will Smith is the man who, while being interviewed recently and defending Tom Cruise and his Scientology thing, uttered the line, "You have people [that] are attacking and wanna fight that don't know nothing. How you gonna not know nothing about Scientology and attack somebody?" And while his idea is fine and his business, if the grammar is coming from the fifth smartest person in Hollywood, we're all in trouble.

Anyway, Judd Apatow is The Smartest Man In Hollywood, and I like Judd, so I'm not going to say anything snarky. Instead, I'll say this. Number Three was James Cameron. And really, like Ben Affleck, there's not that much more to say.

Meanwhile, not happy to let things be, the New York Daily News came up with the 50 Dumbest People In Hollywood. Lindsay Lohan tops that list, and Britney Spears comes in at Number 14. I have a hard time believing there are 13 people dumber, but apparently the Powers That Be think there are.

In fact, in the Dumbest People List I think we have the perfect opportunity to finally drop the placements and bunch them together. "Here Are Some Really Dumb People." "And If You Care, You're One of Them."

We don't care, though, do we?

Betland's Olympic Update:
* By the way, Rudolph? Over. High Definition? Bullshit. They edited the holy crap out of it! They edited lines out of songs!
* Acrowinners, we have acrowinners. So, what cookies are you bringing to the cookie exchange.
- Honorable Mention goes to me, because no one else played.
- Runner-Up goes to the DeepFatFriar, who just went wild with nut munchies this year, with his, "Rhino Rear End Nut Munchies." Sounds interesting, and oddly crunchy, for some reason.
- And this week's winner goes to LilyG, with her, "Roasted Raisinet-enhanced nut meltaways." Mmm. I can't pass me up a good meltaway.
- Thanks to all who played, you've all done very well!