There’s not much to this as a game, but it’s mesmerizing.

(h/t Jonah Goldberg)

From the Times of London, The 100 Best Films of 2008. 100! Just from 2008!

That is crazy, and there are indeed many bad films on their list (Be Kind Rewind? I like Mos Def too, but let’s be serious…). But there is something refreshing about the excecution of this particular list as we enter Best of the Year season: the movies are in alphabetical order. Well, actually, they’re in alphabetical order within two tiers, 5-star and 4-star, but there are only fiver in the former category. This means that you get the good part of such lists - tips about good things you might not know about - without the useless part - a pointless attempt to put a bunch of really good things into an ordinal ranking of goodness.

The balance is even worse with All-Time Best lists, where there are bound to be fewer things you didn’t already know about, and the selection and ordering is necessarily absurd. McSweeney’s sums it up well:

Top Ten Best Ever.

BY PETER FERLAND

- - - -

1. “Standard” by Generally Beloved

2. “Obvious” by Everyone’s List

3. “Understandable” by Debatable but Worthy

4. “Totally Obscure” by Feel Suddenly Inferior

5. “Universally Forgotten” by Curiously Vehement Reverence

6. Whole body of work by Your Ignorance Limits You

7. “Otherwise Underwhelming” by What Was Playing That Time Specific to Me When Everything Came Together Just as It Should Have

8. “Footnote” by Guess Which Were My Drugs

9. “Other-Culture Techno Trance Experience” by See How Well-Rounded I Am

10. “Children’s Version of See Above” by We’ve Got Kids Now