More Lists: Most/Least Likable Actors

I was trying to quantify likability recently.

I thought it'd be fun to make a list of 'Most Likable Actors,' based purely on their perceived likability from watching their movies. But then I realized that the problem is that what I know about the actors personally from press tours and Hollywood gossip would color my selections. Some actors seem nice in movies but are also famously nice in person (Tom Hanks, for example), while others have been run down so thoroughly by the press that it's impossible to buy them as a nice person in movies anymore (Katherine Heigl, Megan Fox, etc.). I had to tryto mentally separate that out, which is harder than it looks. Here's the tack I took:

Pretend for a moment you are not a resident of Earth. You have never watched television, surfed the internet, or read a single newspaper (yeah, yeah, I get it, nobody on Earth reads newspapers either). You arrive in your spaceship and steal every movie and TV show ever made. While watching these movies and shows back in your cushy spaceship movie room, you determine you'd like to meet and hang out with some of the actors, the ones who seem nicest based solely of their performances. After all, some people seem likable even in unlikable roles, whereas others can't seem likable even when rescuing puppies from hot lava. If I were that alien, hanging around in my spaceship, here's the list I would come up with:

10. Ryan Reynolds

9. Nathan Fillion

8. Michael J. Fox

7. Neil Patrick Harris

6. Zachary Levi

5. Jorge Garcia

4. Jackie Chan

3. John Krasinski

2. Will Smith

1. Tom Hanks


For fun, I tried to think about the reverse. Here's the group the aliens would most likely try to kill.

10. Chris Cooper

9. Mickey Rourke

8. Jack Nicholson

7. Ray Liotta

6. Sean Penn

5. Jesse Bradford

4. Christian Bale

3. Steven Baldwin

2. Dane Cook

1. Matthew Lilliard

More Lists: Gay Writers

It turns out lists are fun! More lists!

Favorite Gay Writers
Since I did a list of favorite gay musicians, I decided I wanted to also do a list of favorite gay writers. This turned out to be tricky, since it's obviously hard to identify who's gay and who isn't when a writer's been dead for several generations and didn't see fit to leave a definitive statement on his or her sexuality somewhere in their will. And that's without considering that the practical definition of what's considered homosexual has varied throughout history. So, instead:

Favorite Gay Writers,
Based Entirely Upon Heresay And Internet Speculation

5. Walt Whitman
Impassioned and bold, it's moving even if you hate poetry. I remember stumbling on it in middle school and being shocked by it. "They're having us read this? This is... filthy! Awesome!" This was also during a stretch where I was memorizing synonyms from the thesaurus for "fat" and "ugly" in order to more esoterically insult people. I was not a fun middle schooler to spend time with.
Read: Leaves of Grass

 

 

4. Hans Christian Andersen
Have you ever read 'The Little Mermaid'? The Little Mermaid is given a choice between murder and suicide, and picks suicide. It's amazing. How much would he have hated Disney?
He also wrote 'The Little Match Girl,' 'The Ugly Duckling,' 'The Princess and The Pea,' and 'Thumbelina.' You would be suprised how dark some of those storie actually are.
Read: The Complete Fairy Tales


3. David Sedaris
Capable of finding humor in everything, including his own OCD, he's engaging to read, though it seems like he'd be tough to hang out with in person. He's also a NPR commentator, and reads his work aloud on some of their programs. I particularly recommend listening to "6 to 8 Large Black Men," his piece on Christmas in Holland.  Here's a link.
Read: Me Talk Pretty One Day.

 

 

2. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Probably not gay, but seemed to have at least some sort of major crisis of sexuality during is lifetime. It always bugs me that people prefer Thoreau over Emerson. Thoreau's a more accessible writer, but Emerson was brilliant. It is near-impossible to quote Emerson and not sound like reasonably intelligent.
Read: Essays (First Series)

 

 

1. Lord Byron
At least these rumors are slightly more founded: Byron's publishers instructed biographers to avoid disclosing his bisexuality. Byron's work is remarkable since it shows tremendous passion and fervor towards it subjects, but we know from Byron's life that he burned hot and cold in all his relationships, destroying the reputation of a number of women, one of whom described him as "mad, bad, and dangerous to know." Somehow, this makes his work more appealing to me. I particularly enjoy "So, we'll go no more a roving."
Read: Selected Poetry

 

Least Favorite

Herman Melville
Call me tedious.
Read: Moby Dick. If you must.

More Lists: Musical Supergroups

Facebook has gone out of its way to inform me that Joseph Arthur has formed a supergroup with Ben Harper and George Harrison's son called "Fistful of Mercy." I listened to the first track, and it sounds like a slightly peppier Joseph Arthur (not that there's anything wrong with that), but there's nothing there that made me say "wow, now that these three have come together, there's gonna be amazing things happening!" But it did inspire me to consider my favorite supergroups of all time:

10. The Dirty Mac 
Created for a special Rolling Stone concert. They played together just once, but can you imagine if they'd made a record?
Key Players: Eric Clapton, John Lennon, Keith Richards, Mitch Mitchell (The Jimi Hendrix Experience)
Best Song: N/A

9. Me First and The Gimme Gimmes
Concept albums featuring punk covers of songs from a particular time period/style (musicals, country, the 60's)
Key Players: Fat Mike Burkett (NOFX), Spike Slawson (Swingin' Utters)
 "Leaving On A Jet Plane"

8. Velvet Revolver
A failed attempt to prove that Weiland could stay in a band for more than 5 minutes, before their label released them so they could get rid of him. Those 5 minutes were fun, though.
Key Players: Scott Weiland (Stone Temple Pilots), Slash (Guns N' Roses)
Best Song: "Slither"

7. The Dead Weather
Jack White once lost his voice and asked Mosshart to fill in for him during a White Stripes show. Apparently, magic happened.
Key Players: Alison Mosshart (The Kills), Jack White (The White Stripes)
Best Song: "Treat Me Like Your Mother"

6. Broken Bells
Indie pop sensation meets with indie rock superproducer (Beck, Gnarls Barkley, The Black Keys) for slightly monotonous, occasionally brilliant synth pop.
Key Players: James Mercer (The Shins) and Danger Mouse (Gnarls Barkley)
Best Song: "The High Road"

5. Traveling Wilburys
The first real supergroup, to which all supergroups are compared.
Key Players: Boby Dylan, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison, George Harrison, and Jeff Lynne
Best Song: "End of The Line"

4. Audioslave
A somewhat successful attempt to prove Cornell could stay in a band longer than 5 minutes, the band broke up in 2007 over "irresolvable personality conflicts as well as musical differences." Shocking.
Key Players: Chris Cornell (Soundgarden), Tom Morello (Rage Against The Machine)
Best Song:  "Cochise"

3. Broken Social Scene
A rotating crew of members of the Toronto indie scene.
Key Players: Almost 20, including Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan (Stars), Feist, and James Shaw (Metric)
Best Song: "Stars and Sons"

2. Bad Company
So memorable as their own act, I hadn't even realized this was a supergroup.
Key Players: Paul Rodges (Free), Mick Ralphs (Mott The Hoople), Boz Burrell (King Crimson)
Best Song: "Bad Company"

1. The Postal Service
A name coined by Gibbard and Tamborello's need to ship the tracks back and forth while they worked on the songs. Poppy indie electronica.
Key Players: Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie), Jimmy Tamborello (Dntel), Jenny Lewis (Rilo Kiley)
Best Song: "We Will Become Sillhouettes"

And, on the flip side, my least favorite

Alter Bridge
The guys from Creed tried to prove that they'd be a better band without Scott Stapp. Incredibly, this turned out to not be true.
Key Players: All the guys from Creed minus Stapp, plus Myles Kennedy (The Mayfield Four)
Best Song: N/A

 

 

Random Lists

I couldn't sleep tonight - probably because I slept all day - so I decided to make some seriously random lists:


It started when I was reading an article about Jorge Garcia (Hurley from "Lost"), who's on the cover of the new Weezer album named, appropriately, "Hurley." As such, he was asked to name his five favorite Weezer songs. I found his list somewhat lacking in Weezer knowledge: if "Hash Pipe" is your favorite Weezer song, you're clearly not an actual Weezer fan. I mean, I'm not a snob about these things, particularly with Weezer - I've only owned maybe half their records, and none the past few years - but if you were to make a list of the top 40 Weezer songs, would "Hash Pipe" even make the list? I don't hold that against Garcia - he's gotten thrown into this pretty recently, and purely by accident - but I thought it was worth making my own list.

Favorite Weezer Songs
5. Glorious Day
4. Perfect Situation
3. Only In Dreams
2. El Scorcho
1. Say It Ain't So

Which just led me to keep making lists:

Favorite Gay Musicians
5. Sara
4. Tegan
3. Rufus Wainwright
2. Jennifer Knapp
1. Elton John

Disqualified for being dead: Freddie Mercury

Favorite TV Shows that ended their runs too soon
5. Pushing Daisies
4. Wonderfalls
3. Firefly
2. Freaks and Geeks
1. Arrested Development

Favorite TV Shows that ended their runs too late:
5. That 70's Show
4. Boy Meets World
3. The Simpsons (ongoing)
2. Gilmore Girls
1. The West Wing

Favorite Shows that ended their runs perfectly (This turned out to be really rare)
3. Battlestar Galactica
2. Lost
1. The Office (British)

Well, that's enough for now. I might add more later.