When thinking about movies, manga, music, or miscellanea they encounter, it makes no sense to either of them to categorize products in order of preference.
“I don’t find the process helpful,” says The Girlfriend, a professor of film and media studies. “My brain doesn’t work that way.”
My brain definitely works that way. Not that I’m in any way unusual. At least for my generation, the apotheotic evocation of list-making mentality — Number One, with a bullet — remains Nick Hornby’s novel “High Fidelity,” including the pleasurable Stephen Frears movie starring John Cusack (2000) and the less successful series starring Zoe Kravitz (2020).
I try to explain to The Son the book’s hook.
“The narrator writes a list of his Top Five Breakups,” I start.
“Top five what?” The Son interjects.
“Breakups.”
“What’s that mean?”
I’m not sure The Son, a college junior, has ever had a romantic relationship; nor is he inclined to read or watch stories involving romances. I explain the concept of breakups, then start to describe the narrator’s system of ranking them. I can’t recall: is the narrator’s list chronological, or ranked from least to most devastating?
“Why would anyone do that?” The Son asks. “That seems ridiculous.”
If your brain doesn’t work that way, I guess it does. To me, lists aren’t just conversation openers. Determining why “The Godfather Part II” is better than “Goodfellas” helps define how I think about movies, delimits a personal aesthetic.
My Connecticut Friend, whose brain certainly works that way, sends me and one of his Palm Springs Friends a link to four songs released from The Pretenders’ new album, “Hate For Sale.”
“These sound good,” I text.
“Her voice has never changed,” texts Palm Springs Friend, of Chrissie Hynde. “What is her secret?”
I send a recent pic of Hynde on stage, looking impossibly fit, shaggy haired, face well creased, a shade of pale beyond crepuscular. Also eternal: her aggressive eyeshadow strategy.
“Vampire blood?” I posit.
“Young men,” suggests Connecticut Friend.
“You guys should try it,” I write.
Connecticut Friend: “So not worth it."
Palm Springs Friend: “If they were deaf," adding an explosion emoji.
The songs send me on a listing errand: Top Five Pretenders Albums. I remove from consideration the first two, “Pretenders” (1980) and “Pretenders II” (1981), before bassist Pete Farndon and, especially, guitarist James Honeyman-Scott died of overdoses. Those are transcendent rock albums on another level from what followed, which remain marked by solid craft and Hynde’s smoky alto, rough-edged romanticism, snarky fuck-you grit.
5. Get Close (1986)
4. Break Up The Concrete (2008)
3. Viva El Amor (1999)
2. Last Of The Independents (1994)
1. Learning To Crawl (1984)
I acknowledge never having listened to “Alone” (2016). On the basis of these four songs alone, the new one promises to push from the Top 5 the disappointing “Get Close” — an album redeemed mostly by “Chill Factor,” maybe one of Hynde’s Top 5 songs. But that’s another debate.
These are not conversations I can have with The Girlfriend, who likes The Pretenders, nor The Son, who couldn’t pick Chrissie Hynde from a photo lineup with Lada Gaga, Adele, Patsy Cline, and Shirley Bassey.
Not to mention he rejects the notion of Top 5 lists.
“Too many things can influence how I think about, let’s say, a movie,” says The Son. “Maybe I happened to be in a great mood when I watched it. Or maybe I was in a terrible mood. Or maybe I was with a friend I liked and we had a great discussion about it afterward. That doesn’t have anything to do with the movie itself, but it affects how I think about it.”
Well, sure. E.g.: I cannot defend “The Fabulous Baker Boys” (Steve Kloves, dir.) as a Top 10 Best Movie, but it tops another list.
I can peg the date I saw it: Oct. 19, 1989, two days after the Loma Prieta earthquake. I was in Santa Cruz, Calif., a few miles from the epicenter. The ground hadn’t stopped shaking, which was starting to weird me out. Power had yet to return; the office where I worked as a temp secretary remained closed. Feeling fraught, antsy, I spent the day at the Santa Cruz fairgrounds, where the Red Cross had set up a tent city for the displaced. I toted boxes of water, filled generators with gas, drove to a pharmacy for supplies.
At some point after noon I sensed a disturbance near the fairgrounds entrance, saw a crowd, walked over. A man in a track suit strode forth, followed by a retinue. I got close, saw Mick Jagger: impossibly fit, shaggy haired, face well creased, a shade of pale beyond crepuscular. A gorgeous woman I took for his assistant remained glued to his side; Mick focused attention on a no-nonsense woman I later learned ran the fairgrounds operation. (The Stones were on the Bay Area leg of a tour; they gave the Red Cross $500,000.)
Someone had a camera; Mick consented to a couple of snaps with the Red Cross exec, the assistant scurrying out of frame. Someone held forth an infant for him to hold; Mick sniffed, shook his head, said, “I am not a politician.” The group moved on.
An hour or so later, so did I. Buses were still running. As mine rattled toward the Beach Flats neighborhood, the driver noticed functioning traffic lights.
“Power must be back on,” he announced. Not two minutes later I watched blink on the lights of a movie marquee, which read “The Fabulous Baker Boys.” I pulled the cord, hopped off the bus, walked back. The 4 p.m. show would start in five minutes. The manager seemed to be the only employee on the premises; he sold me a ticket, tore it, walked from ticket booth to candy counter, poured me a soda, grabbed a box of Milk Duds. I went into the theatre, which was large, old, run down — sticky floors, massive screen, maybe 350 seats covered in battered red velvet, every one vacant. I walked two-thirds of the way down, sat dead center, opened my candy, awaited the previews. A private screening.
Is “The Fabulous Baker Boys” any good? I’m not a fair judge. Walking in I thought Jeff Bridges was pretty brilliant, was half in love with Michelle Pfeiffer; walking out, I removed all qualifiers. The score is terrific. I’m a sucker for smart screenplays that reveal tender hearts of tough guys: “Michael Clayton,” “Logan,” a half-dozen Bogart pictures. “Baker Boys” is in my wheelhouse.
Top 10 Movie? Doubtful. Top 10 Movie Experience? Number One, with a bullet.
(New York state numbers on Wednesday: 356,458 diagnosed with Covid-19, up 0.6 percent; 107 dead, to a total of 23,083, up 0.5 percent. Overall U.S. deaths: 1,528, to a total of 87,184, up 1.8 percent.)
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