celebrity gossip, academic style

It’s that time of year: Finals, Incessant Grading, avoiding shopping centers, seeking out limited edition Mint M&Ms, battling snow, or, if you’re in Austin, near-80 degrees and running in your shorts and a tank-top. But it’s also Listing Season, not only for the year, but the decade. While 2000 saw me just finishing my freshman year of college, it was also the beginning of my media studies career. The breadth of my memory during those years was impinged by the fact that Whitman (and my hometown in Idaho) are both surrounded by wheatfields and boasted very few screens, but as I moved through the Northwest (Wyoming, Seattle, Eugene) and down to Texas, I was exposed to the wider cultural world. (Did you know that some theaters play movies with SUBTITLES?!?) There was Netflix. There were iTunes. When I tried to watch Y Tu Mama Tambien, the clerk didn’t say “So, for Tuesday, I’ve got WHY TOO Mama Tambeen.”

These Best-Ofs are all over the map, but I hope you add your own thoughts to at least one of the categories below.

CELEBRITY

• OVERALL CHAMPIONS OF THE CELEBRITY GAME

3.) Barack and Michelle Obama

2.) Ellen DeGeneres and Portia Di Rossi

1.) Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie

• MOST INGENIOUS MANIPULATION OF THE MEDIASCAPE:

3.) Dudes behind “Shit My Dad Says” and “Stuff White People Like”

2.) Lonely Island Crew and Friends (Samberg and Timberlake in particular)

1.) Lady Gaga

• MOST TRANSPARENT MANIPULATION OF CELEBRITY STATUS

3.) Octo-Mom

2.) Paula Abdul

1.) Heidi and Spencer

Speidi Dons Swine Flu Masks - BRILLIANT.

• MOST BEIGE CELEBRITY PLAYERS, NO MATTER HOW HARD THEY TRY
  

3.) Eva Longoria

2.) Jessica Biels

1.5) Jessica Alba

1.) Katie Holmes

• BIG STAR LEAST LIKELY TO INSPIRE SCHOLARSHIP IN 30 YEARS

3.) Jennifer Garner

2.5) Matt Damon

2.) Vince Vaughn

1.) Jennifer Aniston

• POOREST-PLAYED SCANDALS

3.) Jude Law

2.) Sarah Palin

1.5) Tom Cruise, immediately after couchjumping

1.) Tiger Woods

• MOST LONGEVITY, DESPITE LACK OF PERTINENT PRODUCT:

3.) Trista and Ryan (From The Bachelorette)

2.) Britney Spears

1.) Nicole Richie

• MOST LIKELY TO DISPROVE THE CELEBRITY BABY THEORY:

3.) Shiloh Jolie-Pitt

2.) Tom Brady and Gisele Bunchen’s recently born super-child.

1.) Nahla Aubrey (Halle Berry + Gabriel Aubry)

• IRRECOVERABLY PLAYED OUT

3.) Jennifer Love Hewitt

2.) Tara Reid

1.) Lindsay Lohan

• SADDEST SMUT:

3.) Owen Wilson

2.) Rihanna

1.) Britney

• MOST ENTERTAINING CELEBRITY TWITTERERS:

3.) Shaq (Wins for his description alone: “VERY QUOTATIOUS, I PERFORM RANDOM ACTS OF SHAQNESS”

2.) Sarah Silverman

1.) Rainn Wilson

• LEAST LIKELY TO TRANSITION FROM REALITY STARDOM TO ACTUAL STARDOM:

3.) Jon and Kate

2.) That Guy Who Actually Won American Idol Last Year (not Adam Lambert)

1.) Jersey Shore’s “The Situation”

• NICELY PLAYED, INDEED:

3.) K-Fed arranges to be paid thousands of dollars in weekly allowance so that he can watch his two sons, take them to amusement parks, tag along on ex-wife’s international tour, and gain 100 pounds.

2.) Reese Witherspoon sticks with asshole Ryan Phillippe just long enough to win her Oscar for Walk the Line; ends up with hottie Jakey G.

1.) Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie proclaim they’ll get married “when everyone else who wants to can.”

• BIGGEST GAME CHANGERS:

3.5) Janice Min

3.) Perez Hilton

2.) X17

1.) TMZ.com

The 21st Century Gossip Maven

• MOST INDELIBLE CELEBRITY IMAGES OF THE DECADE

MOVIES

• FILMS VIEWED IN THEATER THAT SEEMED SUPER PROFOUND AT THE TIME BUT NOW MAKE ME SLIGHTLY EMBARRASSED:

3.) Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
2.) American Beauty
1.) Garden State

• FILMS ATTENDED ALL ALONE THAT ATTRACTED THE MOST CONFUSED LOOKS FROM COUPLES AND GAGGLES OF WOMEN:

3.) Fighting

2.) The Notebook

1.) American Pie 2 (This was when I was working in the mountains of Wyoming and had a Sunday afternoon off. This was all the theater was playing. I missed movies. A lot.)

• BEST QUIETEST FILMS:
  

3.) The Visitor

2.) Marie Antoinette

1.) Junebug

• MOVIES VIEWED DURING FIRST FEW MONTHS IN FRANCE BEFORE MY FRENCH COULD HANDLE NO SUBTITLES AND THUS TOTALLY SCREWED WITH ME:

3.) Swordfish

2.) Muholland Drive (Watched twice more in English and still don’t fully comprehend.)

1.) La Pianiste (No, I’m not talking about Polanski’s Adrien Brody lovefest. I’m talking Haneke’s brutal masochistic self-mutilation film from 2001.)

• MOVIES ON WHICH I WROTE MY UNDERGRADUATE HONORS THESIS, WHICH TOTALLY SUCKS, BUT TURNS OUT THESE MOVIES AGE QUITE WELL:

3.) In the Bedroom

2.) You Can Count On Me

1.) The Royal Tenenbaums

• MOVIES THAT MADE ME GET ON BOARD WITH A CULTURAL PHENOMENON I HAD THERETOFORE REJECTED:

3.) Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

2.) Ratatouille

1.) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

• MOVIES THAT TOTALLY F-ING TOOK ADVANTAGE OF ME AND CAUSED ME TO WEEP UNCONTROLLABLY FOR 1/3 OF THE FILM’S LENGTH:

3.) Brokeback Mountain

2.) The Notebook

1.5) The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

1.) The New World

• FILMS THAT MADE ME CHAMPION AUTEURISM EVEN THOUGH I KNOW BETTER:

3.) Children of Men (Cuaron)

2.5) Cold Mountain (Mingella)

2.) Brokeback Mountain (Lee)

1.5) Bright Star (Campion)

1.) The New World (Malick)

• MOVIES I REALLY LOVED THAT I USE AS PROOF THAT I’M NOT EUROCENTRIC

3.) Nobody Knows

2.) The Return

1.) Spring, Summer, Winter, Fall…and Spring

• FAVORITE FOREIGN FILMS THAT PROVE THAT I AM INDEED EUROCENTRIC

3.) Bloody Sunday

2.5) Read My Lips

2.) Happy-Go-Lucky

1.5) The Wind that Shakes the Barley

1.) The Lives of Others and Let the Right One In

• TOP NATURE PORN

3.) The Assassination of Jesse James

2.) The New World

1.) Old Joy

• MOVIES THAT ARE INDEED AWESOME BUT MY STUDENTS’ MASTERBATORY ENTHUSIASM HAS RATHER SPOILED THEM:

3.) City of God

2.) Kill Bill / Inglourious Basterds

1.) Batman Begins

• BEST MAINSTREAM, TIGHTLY PLOTTED, TOTALLY CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD CINEMA BUT OVERWHELMINGLY ENTERTAINING:

3.) Star Trek

2.5) 3:10 to Yuma

2.) The Departed

1.5) Inside Man

1.) Almost Famous

• BEST DOCUMENTARIES INVOLVING HANDSOME FRENCHMAN IN ALTERNATIVE CLASSROOM SETTINGS:
  

2.) To Be and To Have (Etre and Avoir)

1.) The Class (La Classe)

• BEST UNTOUTED MASTERPIECES:

3.) Michael Clayton

2.) In Bruges

1.) The Brothers Bloom

• BEAUTIFUL THINGS WITH NO LIST HOME:

The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Amelie, Where the Wild Things Are, Wall-E, A Serious Man, Frozen River, Wendy and Lucy, There Will Be Blood, Half Nelson, United 93, A History of Violence, The Squid and the Whale, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Synechdoche NY, American Splendor, 25th Hour, Frida, About a Boy, Adaptation, The Believer, Memento, Gosford Park, Moulin Rouge.

• AND ANNIE’S RATHER ARBITRARY, FORGETFUL, AND WILLFULLY EMOTIONAL TOP FILMS OF 2000-2009:

10.) Brokeback Mountain

9.) The Hurt Locker

7.) Up

6.) We Are England

5.) No Country for Old Men

4.) Four Months, Three Weeks, Two Days

3.) The Best of Youth

2.) Children of Men

TIED FOR FIRST: Pan’s Labyrinth / Junebug / The New World / The Diving Bell and the Butterfly