{"id":638,"date":"2007-02-07T23:49:00","date_gmt":"2007-02-08T03:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/?p=638"},"modified":"2025-08-26T14:56:49","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T18:56:49","slug":"the-trouble-with-lists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/2007\/02\/07\/the-trouble-with-lists\/","title":{"rendered":"The Trouble With Lists"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, I guess I can die then\u2026<\/p>\n

The Houston Chronicle<\/em>\u2019s tech writer, Dwight Silverman, has posted on his blog a list of 15 films he considers essential film geek watching<\/a>. Not surprisingly, I\u2019ve seen all films on the list.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d also have to say that I\u2019m not that impressed with his choices overall. Sure, I\u2019ve enjoyed every film named to one degree or another and 12 of the titles sit on my DVD shelf at home. But Silverman\u2019s list is an awfully narrow slice of science-fiction, fantasy and horror genre films that arguably are pretty well known to the general public. I mean really, two Star Trek<\/strong> films? Even a die-hard Terry Gilliam fan like myself is wondering at the inclusion of 3 of his films. Likewise, Sam Raimi gets two of his films named to the list with Silverman even admitting that Army Of Darkness<\/strong> is \u201ca more mainstream and approachable film\u201d than the first two Evil Dead<\/strong> flicks. How, exactly, can a movie be both “mainstream and approachable” and worthy of being placed on a list of “geek films”? It seems to me that the two are mutually exclusive.<\/p>\n

In an effort to provide some more geek film titles for his readers, Silverman also links to another blog that contains the title of 81 geek movies \u201cthat do not suck.\u201d <\/a>While this new list does traffic in roughly the same science-fiction\/fantasy\/horror milieu that Silverman\u2019s list, it does deserve some credit for trying to expand things a bit with the addition of the \u201cObsessive Nerd-Chick Stalker Geek,\u201d \u201cCult Film Geek\u201d and \u201cNostalgia \u201cI was a nerd kid in the 80s\u201d Geek\u201d categories.<\/p>\n

But still the list is problematic. There are a few titles \u2013 An Evening With Kevin Smith<\/em> and Children Of Dune<\/em> \u2013 which aren\u2019t films but made for DVD specials or television mini-series. There also seems to be a lot of padding on this list- naming both Spider-Man<\/strong> films, four separate Star Trek<\/strong> films (though the original Star Wars<\/strong> trilogy gets grouped as one entry), and films like Constantine<\/strong> and Swordfish<\/strong>. Swordfish<\/strong>?!<\/p>\n

Ultimately, while both lists attempt to be something that starts discussions among film fans (See, we\u2019re doing it here), they fail in that their scope is limited to however the writer chooses to define \u201cfilm geek.\u201d In both instances here, the writers clearly think that geekdom (Geekatude? Geekosity?) is clearly confined to a few narrow genres. But what about those people whose unabidding love is the movie musical or westerns or silents? Don\u2019t they get their geek lists too?<\/p>\n

No art can be judged in a vacuum and if one only exposed themselves to films considered \u201cclassics,\u201d one would rapidly loose any standard by which to judge said films. It\u2019s much better to have knowledge of a wide range of films from all genres in order to be able to better appreciate any movie they may watch. Soderberg\u2019s recent The Good German<\/strong> invariably invites the viewer to draw comparisons to Casablanca<\/strong>. But how are those comparisons tempered when the viewer also factors in the Pam Anderson film Barb Wire<\/strong>, which also drew inspiration from the Humphrey Bogart classic?<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always tried to steer clear of \u201cBest Of\u201d or \u201cEssential\u201d lists here at FilmBuffOnLine. It\u2019s not that I\u2019m afraid that someone is going to disagree with my choices. It\u2019s that there are too many choices to narrow a list down to manageable levels. That\u2019s why if pressed for a list of movies that one absolutely must watch by friends or family, I always answer \u201cAs many as you can.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, I guess I can die then\u2026 The Houston Chronicle\u2019s tech writer, Dwight Silverman, has posted on his blog a list of 15 films he considers essential film geek watching. Not surprisingly, I\u2019ve seen all [click for more]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[138,84,86],"tags":[7864],"series":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-638","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-genre","7":"category-news","8":"category-opinion","9":"tag-opinion"},"aioseo_notices":[],"nelio_content":{"autoShareEndMode":"never","automationSources":{"useCustomSentences":false,"customSentences":[]},"efiAlt":"","efiUrl":"","followers":[2],"highlights":[],"isAutoShareEnabled":false,"networkImageIds":[],"permalinkQueryArgs":[],"series":[],"suggestedReferences":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}