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Crunch time, you have to sort your boys from your uncles here. Last minute rearrangements can spell danger, stick with the gut instincts. It was actually funny that these top two fell into place before the rest of the lists did. The top is easy, everyone has their loves.

Top Ten Movies
2. Taxi Driver – I’m God’s lonely man
This is easily the most serious movie I have ever seen. Just brutally hardcore, yet I find it very watchable. De Niro helps by making Travis Bickle one of the most interesting characters to ever be committed to film. The guy clearly does not fit in. He just doesn’t, and you get the feeling he never did. He went to Vietnam, probably to try and find purpose, but it never came to him. He looks for new purpose in other avenues. His new lady friend, a politician and a young hooker. The manner in which De Niro crafts Bickle’s journey through his different avenues of redemption is brilliant, how he never won the Oscar I don’t know. Scorsese creates a New York that just looks so old and gritty. The soundtrack is haunting (a cliché, I know, but listen to it alone in a dark room, it’ll get you every time). This is cinema at its highest form of art.

Top Ten TV Shows
2. Seinfeld
This was always going to be here, or number one…Seinfeld defined television for a generation, and it did it for a reason. It was brilliant. The writing is so consistently stellar. The actors, who I wouldn’t call the greatest ever, create some of the greatest characters ever. There are so many quotable lines, and it is so re-watchable. The reason for this to be here are enormous, but the greatest one is Festivus. That episode may be the funniest episode of any show ever on the television. It is so classic that I created a drinking club around it, one that still lives on today. The other reason would be Puddy. Anyone who challenges my inclusion of this show obviously hasn’t watched it before. This show will never have a counter-cultural clash where it will be cool to bag it out. It’s timeless.

Top Ten Books
2. A Maze of Death – Philip K Dick
I bought a paperback version of this book at Frankston markets in the mid-nineties for 50 cents. I didn’t know who the author was, I didn’t know what the book was about, I knew nothing. It had a wickedly old school sci-fi cover to it and it sounded good enough on the back; I gave it a crack. I read it a few weeks later, when I got to it and I have never looked back since. Philip K Dick is one of the greatest authors I have ever had the pleasure of reading. As sci-fi escapism the books work, but ones like this just operate on a whole other existential level. He gets so much into them, religion, politics, aliens. This one has such an awesome end and meaning that I knew I needed more of his stuff. I concede, A Scanner Darkly is the best I have read of his, but this will always be my mistress, my first, my favourite.

Top Ten Comic Books
2. The Walking Dead
I had been away from comics for a few years. Chicks, uni and no cash made a huge impact in this scene. I had been years off the horse and then they pull me back in. I have been, and always will be, a huge zombie fan. Zombies flicks of all kinds have passed before my eyes and I can never get enough of the premise. You locked in against forces on your own, a small band of survivors holing up and just surviving. I love it. Then, from the same brother who inspired my last choice, I get a new habit. He buys me the first trade of The Walking Dead, says it’s about zombies and he’s heard some good things on Amazon. That’s all we either know. I sit down and read it. The comic format is almost fresh again in my eyes, I slowly sink into it. I read the first issue in the trade and think…ugh, this is a bit played, unlucky bro, maybe not the bullseye you wanted. By the time I finish the trade I am hooked. I cannot believe how good the story is, great characters, new plot developments, a real sense of the new. I buy up all the trades and currently get each on as it comes out. This is one of the greatest entries into the zombie canon, all time. Romero created the genre, but Robert Kirkman will carry it well into this new millennium. The comic is good because it is about the characters, not the gore. There are issues with no zombies because it is all about how the people interact. And these people can die, they can make bad choices. It’s just fantastically real. If you like zombies, hell, if you like good writing you owe it to yourself to check this out. It’s fucking magic!

Top Ten Songs
2. Miss Misery – Elliott Smith – To put bad thoughts in my head
Listen to this song and tell me you don’t love it. The lyrics are cryptic, the singer dead and the movie it’s in is wicked, but the song, man, the song. I could listen to this all day, and did a good stint on repeat when I was reading the last trade of the comic Sleeper, which Brubaker named a character after this song. This song has stood out as one which compliments a lot of my moods, which some songs cannot do. I challenge all readers to sit down, close their eyes and listen to this song. It’ll sing its way into your top ten too.

Posted on March 27th, 2008 by ryan
Filed under: books, comics, life, movies, music