Coming Soon: The Lists

Image courtesy of indiemusicfilter.com.

More than a few people in the various critical spheres doth protest too much when it comes to lists, notifying you that they hate them or that they are a necessary evil, but seemingly have no problem offering up their own when pressed.

In the past, I've included my best of the year lists on this site, but never any all-encompassing ones. So, this month I'm going all out. Why not, right? During the next four weeks, I'm going to post four lists - two massive, one medium sized and another relatively short. My hope is that they will provoke some discussion or that I'll get an email or two lambasting me for my negligibility for excluding a particular work. I'm hoping that my readers - or, perhaps just, reader (thanks, Mom) - will have something to say.

First will be my list of the 20 greatest TV shows, which will be followed by the top 500 albums (primarily confined from the 1950s to the present and listed in order) and, then, a non-numbered list of some of my favorite pieces of writing (that is, novels, plays, poems and maybe a nonfiction title or two). That last list will be lacking some major titles, so I'll make mention of any considered great works that I have yet to read.

Last will be my movie list, which will be a little different from the others. For one, it'll probably include more than 1,000 titles. Secondly, it's not numbered and will not be a "favorites" list in the usual sense. Rather, it's a list I'd provide someone if they asked me to give them the names of all the titles I thought they should see to have a well-rounded film education. It'll include some obvious choices, many personal favorites, a number of films that I might not necessarily love but are significant and some obscure titles. This list will be broken down by decade.

And, of course, around the last weekend of the year, I'll get to my best of 2013 list, which comes a bit later this year as a number of extremely well-regarded - and potentially promising - films are getting released at the last minute. If you'd like to send your own list (of any sort), you can post them in the comment section on this site or email them to nathanduke2001@yahoo.com.