Odds & Ends
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Top Ten Silly Movie Lists
Lists that attempt to categorise the Top Ten, Top Fifty or Top One Hundred of a particular thing (Films, American Films, Horror Films, Action Scenes, Stars, etc) are a staple of arguments between internet nerds, but they also pop up in a wider context. The classic example is when magazines or media outlets run one as a stunt: they choose the Top Fifty of something-or-other, and then hope that news services will pick the story up, thus getting whatever outlet came up with the list some free publicity. At their best, these can be a lot of fun, and a few, such as the lists by the American Film Institutue, arguably serve some legitimate role in raising awareness of classic films. However, every so often you get a real doozy: when Turner Classic Movies in Britain surveyed their readers to come up with the best director, actor and actress that had never won an Oscar, they came up with Demi Moore as the most deserving actress. TCM, of course, still came out a winner - the poll was reported as if it was serious news worldwide. Another recent example is Premiere magazine's list of the 50 Greatest Movie Stars, which went as follows:
The story that was carried by news services, and thus appeared in media outlets all over, played up the outrage of Tom Cruise and Julia Roberts finishing so high: while I don't necessarily agree with Cruise's placement, any modern star who was listed above James Stewart, John Wayne, Henry Fonda, and other such "classic" stars was going to be singled out in this way. (Cruise has at least been around and anchoring hit movies for twenty years, which gies him a decent claim to be amongst the top of the current stars). What I liked most about those stories was the reference to the editors "painstakingly" assembling the list over two years. It's fifty names in pretrty much random order - how painstaking can the process be? What the list reminded me of, though, was a book called Anatomy of the Movies, edited by David Pirie, published in 1981. If you can track it down, it's worth reading - it includes contributions from various big name insiders (including Donald Sutherland, Martin Scorsese, Robert Towne, and others). My favourite section is its list of the Most Profitable Stars, which is done much more systematically than the Premiere list (or at least so I will assume, until provided with details of their painstaking research). Starting from the thirties, and using actual box-office data, it lists the most profitable stars for five year blocks until 1970, and then anually throughout the 70s. (Top star of 1978: Burt Reynolds. Those were the days). These lists are then the basis for a overall list for the period 1932-1980 which goes as follows: 1. John Wayne Because of the way this list is done, it rewards consistency, which seems a reasonable principle. What is most interesting about this list, however, is Clint Eastwood's stellar perfomance: he is listed as the top star of 1972, 1973, and 1979-1980, and never dropped below 6th during the seventies. This prompted the following comment in the book: ... John Wayne emerges far ahead of all other contenders, reflecting the sheer longevity of his popularity and therefore earning power. His only possible rival is Clint Eastwood, who may soon transcend Gable, Crosby and Cooper, but he will need many more years of major screen success to threaten Wayne.Subsequent to this declaration Eastwood has starred in twenty movies, including Sudden Impact, Pale Rider, Unforgiven, In the Line of Fire, The Bridges of Madison County, Absolute Power, and Million Dollar Baby, not to mention having two years where he was Oscar nominated for acting and won both the Best Director and Best Picture Oscar. So how did he end up 40 spots below Tom Cruise? One last and particularly brain-busting example. A friend of mine in the UK, knowing of my interest in animation, alerted me to a particularly strange list: the 100 Greatest Cartoons. Run by Channel 4, the survey came up with the following 100 cartoons. The nominations, incidentally, were supplied by Channel 4, who only nominated 105 cartoons, meaning that The Wacky Races, at 100, only beat out five other candidates. The final list chosen from the nominees by viewers was as follows: 1. The Simpsons In sending it to me, he assumed I'd be outraged by the low placing for Bugs Bunny, and the high positioning of Tom & Jerry. While Tom & Jerry's strong finish was a surprise, the placements didn't worry me so much (and it was good to see The Iron Giant up at number 12) What really gave me a headache was the way that they had used a very wide definition of "cartoon" and thus ended up comparing totally different things with each other. So a cartoon TV show "The Simpsons" competes against feature films ("The Lion King"); series of feature films ("Toy Story / Toy Story 2" mysteriously being merged into a single entity); TV shows that have also been feature films ("South Park"); characters ("Bugs Bunny"); series of theatrical short cartoons ("Looney Tunes / Merrie Melodies"); one-off TV specials ("How the Grinch Stole Christmas"); and series of TV specials ("Charlie Brown"). It's kind of like having a list of Favourite Movies that includes Citizen Kane, "Cheers", Scarlett O'Hara, the Bond Series, and the Grand Final Telecast. Posted by Stephen Rowley @ 23.3.05  
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