top ten top ten lists

so i'm pretty excited that this year, not only do we get all kinds of the usual best-of-the-year lists all over the place, but we get the best-of-the-decade ones, too (never mind that the decade doesn't really end until next year... i also prefer the cleanliness of 0-9). yep, it's that magical time of year when the whole world goes list-crazy, and just cause i love you guys, i'm going to break it all down for you so you don't get too overwhelmed with the listiness. and not to make you feel like you have to read the whole thing or anything, but holy crap this took me a long time. in fact, i think my couch-sitting partner made it through 7 levels of borderlands while i typed this. most. epic. blog post. ever. but hey, no pressure.

1. movies - entertainment weekly has a list of the ten best movies of the decade. so does the new yorker. as you can imagine, there is no crossover between the two. i'll admit i'm a much bigger fan of the movies on the ew list, mostly because i haven't heard of 90% of the movies on the new yorker list (i suppose, actually, they should be called "films"). i was excited to see that they included the darjeeling limited, a super awesome movie which richard brody describes as "[fusing] love and death, comedy and tragedy, comfort and adventure, understanding and opacity, style and substance in a modernism of personal and reflexive cinema and a classicism of grand and subtle literary emotion." exactly what i was thinking, richard brody, when i called it a "super-awesome movie." i could write for the new yorker so hard, you guys. ps. for a nice middle ground, my friend nate has his own list on his blog, which i am happy to report also includes an acceptable amount of wes anderson. and while we're talking about movies (i know, i am so cheating here), you might want to check out the best movie posters of the decade. i seriously love that the 40 year-old virgin is on there.
   
2. television - back to entertainment weekly, they have a sort of okay list of the top ten tv shows of the decade. while i'm not sure i agree that a show that only had 13 episodes should be on this list (or any list, for that matter) and that it includes both the shield and the wire (aren't they the same show?) i guess people like the sopranos and lost okay. i prefer film.com's list of the best comedies of the decade, where they give props to both the american version of the office and 30 rock, my absolute favourite hour of television. now if i could just figure out what people's obsession with the seriously painful gilmore girls is...
3. music - as usual, rolling stone is pretty much the place to go for any music-related lists (okay, i guess my music snob friends would tell me otherwise, but it's my blog). they've got a list of the best albums of the decade which should piss everyone off nicely (i'm not sure how you can make the decision that yankee hotel foxtrot was a better album than the blueprint. i'm not saying it was or it wasn't, i'm just saying that's like deciding cheese is better than chocolate cake), and a list of the best songs of the decade which i must say makes a pretty good argument for "crazy." at number one. personally i think the best thing about the rolling stones lists is the comments section: ""100 best songs of the decade" is an oxymoron. it should have been an empty list - as i can't remember one decent song let alone 100. this is a world wide malaise and i can't see any end to it." thanks for those uplifting thoughts, gazzie.
4. characters - i really like techland's list of the best characters of the decade, only because a) it encompasses all characters in all forms of media, and b) their number one pick is from a web comic i have never heard of, but that made me actually lol for real when i saw it (true story!). i09's list of the best new characters of the decade is awesome just because it features dr. gaius baltar, who everyone should totally love to hate to love. i also quite enjoyed this list of the best tv characters of the decade, mostly because a) it talks about stephen colbert as a character, b) it has a list of tobias funke's most memorable quotes, and c) there is not one character from the gilmore girls on the list. also, not to give anything away, but house is number one. as he should be. oh, and here's a list of the best movie characters of the decade that is fairly boring and predictable but was the only one i could find.
5. books - the goodreads list of the best books of the decade is voted on by users, so it's no surprise that the bane of my existence, the kite runner, is on there. seriously, it seems like i've had this conversation about a hundred times in my life:
   
   random person at party: oh, you're a writer? have you read the kite runner?
   me: yes i did. nice weather we've been having, eh?
   random person at party: oh my gosh, wasn't it just, like the best book ever?!
   me: yes. it was sort of like that. do you need another drink or anything?
   random person at party: i mean, you must totally wish you could write something like that! the characters are just so, you know, interesting. and it's so poignant! don't you think it was poignant?
   me: no. no i didn't. actually, i hated it.
   random person at party: (silence) oh. (scathing look of contempt). well, i guess you would know, you being a writer and all. (exits huffily)
   
   so yeah, the kite runner. bane of my existence. i'm not even going to say anything about the twilight books on there, cause everyone knows that they're trash and that twi-hards are all crazy. but i actually kind of liked the time traveler's wife. and there are enough books on there that i could scrape together, say, a top five of my own favourites. (since you asked, let's go life of pi/white teeth/everything is illuminated/bel canto/never let me go) the new statesman also has an interesting list that might as well be called top ten books that i really should read of the decade. at open book toronto, there's an interesting list of the top ten literary feuds of the decade (the ryan bigge/leah mclaren one is my personal favourite) which reminded me that i really need to get in one of those. and of course, not of-the-decade but of-2009 should disqualify this list (by the obviously brilliant, insightful, and cutting edge trevor j. adams) from the running, but since it's my blog, i'm going to do whatever the hell i like, thank you very much. oh wait, what's that, you say? my name's on the list?! well, i'll be a monkey's uncle.
   
6. canadiana - if this list is already a little too americentric for you, let's pause for a second and see what canadians have been up to this decade. not surprisingly, maclean's has the best canadian books/movies/music/television of the decade, along with some political-y ones that should be helpful to you if you run out of ambien. i liked the television one best (clone high was canadian?! who knew!?). now has a list of the best canadian books of the decade that, in a shocking twist, doesn't put margaret atwood at number one. the maclean's and the ctv lists of the best canadian movies are pretty similar (both put atanarjuat at number one; tragically, neither mention bon cop, bad cop). but the most hilarious by far is the ctv list of the top 25 canadian albums of the decade - not for the list, which is acceptable, but for the user comments: "no nickelback? no theory of a deadman? no three days grace? there is no way none of these bands have not had a bigger impact on canadian music than any of the bands listed above." that's a triple negative there, herb tarlik. are you trying to confuse us with your mind games, or do you really think three days grace was more influential than arcade fire? okay, cancon complete. phewf. now the crtc will stay off my back.
7. hockey - so, yeah, i was pretty tempted to just include lists that ranked sidney crosby higher than ovechkin... or better yet, left ovechkin off entirely (okay, there weren't any of those). i was especially loathe to consider lists that not only ranked ovechkin higher, but also used as evidence him winning the calder trophy in a rookie season that he clearly stole from crosby to begin with. but hey, i am nothing but a fair list-maker. okay, i am many things other than a fair list-maker. but whatever. i will begrudgingly admit that any player that can go hat-trick-for-hat-trick with crosby (number seven on this list of the top ten hockey games of the past decade) or help him transform the post-lockout nhl (number four on this list of the ten biggest nhl stories of the decade) can't be all bad.
8. stuff - and "stuff" basically means technology, right? pc magazine has a list of the best products, services and technologies (again, which basically means technology) which, for a magazine called pc magazine, is pretty apple-heavy (don't let john hodgman know). the list of the webby awards for most influential internet moments of the decade is kind of along the same lines... all youtube/craigslist/twitter-y. but this newsweek list of the things that were unknown in 1999, indispensible now kind of seriously blew my mind. and i mean, it's true... how did we win arguments before wikipedia? how did stoned college students and bored office drones entertain themselves before youtube? and what did we do before e-tickets? went to a travel agent?! holy crap. and i have to say, i might not have heard of chipotle before this article, but because of this list it might be rocketing to the top of my list of restaurants i wish we had in canada.
   
9. worst-ofs - this one's for all the haters out there. techland has the top ten worst superhero movies of the decade, which is mostly awesome due to the fact that the spiderman 3 entry has a video clip of the jazz club dance/fight scene. for even more hilarity, the worst photoshop disasters of the decade is pretty amazing (my favourite one is the swedish taxi!). this list of the worst songs of the decade deserves a mention just because of the 5000 word essay on why the counting crows/vanessa carleton cover of big yellow taxi is number one. i also like this list of the worst nba teams of the decade, only because the raptors are not on it (although toronto is not off the hook, according to the washington post, who name the rom as the worst architecture of the decade). the time picture gallery of the ten worst things about the worst decade ever is also pretty cheery, especially if you feel a desperate need to relive 9/11, katrina and the tsunami. but by far my favourite of these is the perennially-awesome guardian's list of the people who ruined the decade, if only for the following tagline: "michael cera: deluding awkward indie boys into thinking they'd get the girl since 2003."
10. celebrities - so, i'm up to number ten already and i still had two categories left to cover: video games and celebrities. worthy and weighty subjects, both. upon great reflection, i decided to go with celebrities, because, frankly, gamers are mean (although if there was any way i could have gotten victor lucas or scott jones involved in a flame war, i would have in a heartbeat!) so instead, let's talk about some nice, safe, happy top celebrity scandals of the decade, shall we? how about some pretty knockout dresses of the 00's? (please read this article and tell me why they are all yellow. seriously, ew, call them mustard, call them canary, call them sunny, they're still fucking yellow. also, that dress michelle obama wore was damn ugly. yeah, i said it.) enjoy some top ten worst celebrity entourages of the decade! peruse some top twenty five celebrity twitpics of 2009 (eligible for this list only because there really were no twitpics before 2009). there... do you feel like you've dropped a few iq points? then my work here is done. oh, ps, shadow of the colossus as the best video game of the decade? you decide.