this is not really happening...

Pete replies again:

My point, and the one to which I adhere, is that nobody's really going to care much one way or the other if I add my voice to the infinite chorus of those who already feel the need to rank the previous year's movie offerings. People can get that anywhere, so I don't agree that it's "sadistic" to deny my visitors another one.

If it were the case that all top-10 lists were identical, then this argument would work just fine. The reason everyone from Roger Ebert to the guy down the hall has a top-10 list is because top-10 lists are never identical. They express the particular values of the one who composes them. Insofar as that is the case, people cannot get Pete's top-10 list "anywhere." They have to ask Pete. And the fact that a lot of top-10 lists have the same 5 movies in them makes the other 5 movies on the list that much more interesting, and surely reveals a lot about the author.

Pete continues: "I don't like to do year-end top 10 lists, and I don't think a lot of the people who read APCB are too broken up about it." And that's fine. I'm not suggesting that Pete should do a top-10 list. My only point was that Pete's reason for not doing one was particularly unpersuasive. His everyone-does-it-so-I-won't rationale was, in my opinion, misplaced in the context of top-10 lists in general, and top-10 lists by bloggers in particular. Blogging, by its very nature, is but a tool for the blogger to espouse his personal opinion on the events of the day. That others have opinions on the same subject cannot be a justification for not blogging, for otherwise all but a handful of blogs would disappear.

I would never have brought this up had Pete simply stated that he did not want to do a top-10 list. Surely, all bloggers can choose to write what they want on their blogs. But when he states that "[t]he movie lists are the worst," I just have to respond, for it is an instance of Pete categorically passing judgment on others' posting of such lists. I personally think top-10 lists can be very valuable tools, as they provide a door into a critic's overall taste in film. Reading a particular critic's reviews throughout the year surely provides much insight into his or her tastes, but there is a danger of not being able to see the forest for the trees. The top-10 list at the end of the year, at the very least, helps a reader to avoid that.

I will end by saying that the real impetus for my initial post was Jim Dedman's pretentious post suggesting that creating a Best of 2003 list is somehow conformist.