Everybody loves lists, and in particular, I love movie lists. I love them even though I understand the ridiculousness of the lists themselves. What makes a particular movie “better” than another? Does it have to due with a movie’s story, its cinematography, or its cultural relevance? Perhaps it is a combination of factors that go into determining whether one movie is superior to another. Ultimately, though, it all comes down to opinion. Maybe we can all agree that Taxi Driver is a better movie than Jonah Hex, but how would you rank it against a movie like Hitchcock’s Notorious? Both are great movies, and arguments can be made to rank either one ahead of the other, but there is no absolute method to weigh each of their values.
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| Sorry Josh |
Roger Ebert put it best, saying that “all lists of “greatest” movies are propaganda.” To me, though, there is nothing wrong with that, as long as you know that going into them. For me, movie lists are great place to discover movies I either haven’t heard of, or perhaps didn’t give much thought to. I’ll admit that The Night of the Hunter, L’Atalante, and The Scarlet Empress were all movies I first discovered on top movie lists.
So what am I trying to say here? Well, I’m trying to justify the fact that this site will be home to many of these movie lists in the future. But I also want to make a larger point on movie lists, and opinion-based lists in general. That is that these types of things shouldn’t be taken too seriously, that they are all based on opinion, and that it’s OK to disagree with them. Hey, Sandra Bullock won the Oscar for best actress last year, that doesn’t mean I’ll never watch the Oscars again.
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| Eh, maybe it does... |
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