I think every arts and entertainment writer is slowly figuring out that the public likes lists and we're all now list producers. I felt I might have an easier time getting a piece published on actors who should win a second oscar if i just counted up the names and organized them into ten. I even had to delete a name or two off my list to make it a round number.
I was looking for a good preview of fall films online (Premiere used to have a good one, but alas they've gone out of business), so I had to go to the ew.com and I found it there. Does anyone know if I can order back issues?
EW.com also had a list of the 20 most chill-inducing moments in tv and film, but this is really a very jumbled and scattered list submitted by users and these kinds of lists rely more on short-term memory (i.e. the season finale of Heroes makes the list, Fantasia winning American Idol). The list is here:
http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20057450_19,00.html
My main complaints here are that:
1. Lists shouldn't be everything there is to entertainment/culture writing. We should be able to have attention spans long enough to read articles that aren't in list form
2. If you're going to make a list of the greatest something of all time, you shouldn't go with just things that are really recent. A list of greatest TV shows that includes that puts the Simpsons, Seinfeld, or Sopranos at the top ignores the fact that television existed before 1990 and produced some incredibly influential and sharply-written work that when put side by side with Simpsons, Seinfeld, and Sopranos might prove better than those shows. (Besides, I prefer The Practice, The Office, and Arrested Development to the above three shows)
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