Thanks arsaib4, for checking out the Rosenbaum thread. I'm going to bring it up again because I've learned a lot from it myself and I hope to share it with others.

To Oscar: Re your manifesto behind your list:

(You wrote) I provided a link (which I've tested) to a post in which I do precisely that.

For quick navigational purposes I wish you'd provided that link again here.

(You also commented) I've thought at times, when debating others less familiar with your methods, that the quality of the debate would have been enhanced by acknowledging commonalities rather that taking an entirely confrontational approach.

I will try to do so. My aim is to focus on issues not personalities.

(And you added:)You make it sound like it's a competition, like a road race

What may seem an easy ten-miler to you, may be pretty daunting to the neophyte jogger.

Question: Does Rosenbaum "denigrate" lists (as I asserted)?

I maybe should have said "expresses reservations about." Here is the exchange between Rosenbaum and IMDb "Classic Film" participant jiankevin on this topic:

- I was actually quite surprised when I saw that your book argued for the necessity of canons, given your previous criticism of the AFI's top 100 lists and how it institutionalizes popular taste in much the same way as any canon does. Also, you testify to the profound affect that the Sight and Sound top 10 list had on you during your college years (as was the case for me) -- but couldn't one say that this, or any list, may be as limiting in its own way (in the perspective it espouses) as the AFI list? If the goal is to encourage people to see as many things as possible, I wonder if any canon or list alone is up to that task. Would you agree to that the problem is not in these canons or lists but in our attitudes towards them (for example, I don't think it was the virtue of the Sight and Sound list in itself, but your attitude towards it, that made it worthwhile)? Or is there something else that warrants our consideration?

I'm certainly not arguing that one list is as good (or as limited) as another list or that every canon or list necessarily institutionalizes. (I also am not arguing that it's invariably good to see as many movies as possible.) The criteria used for choosing participants in polls is very important. Sight and Sound knew how to get a representative sample of international critical thought in the 50s, 60s, and 70s; more recently, I think the same magazine has shown a less certain grasp of what's going on in criticism--although they obviously pay a lot more attention to business and market issues. The AFI seemed (and seems) concerned almost exclusively with market issues, not with criticism at all--which is partly what made their list so unsatisfying to me.
I recommend again perusing this thread on IMDb for anyone interested in Rosenbaum or the making of "definitive" lists of films:http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000010/flat/8771093.

At the end of his new book, Essential Cinema, where he introduces his list, Rosenbaum says, "Such a list thus carries an unfortunate ambiguity, one also present in some of Andrew Sarris's critical valuations in The American Cinema, namely, that in many cases it isn't clear whether an exclusion entails a critical judgment." He goes into this a bit more in the whole IMDb "interview" with jiankevin.

Since Rosenbaum has put out a notable list this year and engaged in some discussion of it, I hope maybe we can have some discussion of Rosenbaum's books on this site.

Again, issues, not personalities. We're all friends here. But I will not abandon my general aim of seeking to inspire debate.