Top 5: 100

This is my 100th post! When I was in kindergarten, we spent all year learning to count to 100 and had a special celebration on the 100th day of school by bringing in 100 of something. I brought 100 buttons from my grandma's sewing box. My best friend that year, a little girl named Ashley, brought in her collection of 100 pencils and let me keep one! It's blue with white snowflakes, and I still have it somewhere. I don't have gifts to send to all of you, but I'm dedicating my Top 5 list today to things with the number 100 in them in celebration! (I considered doing a Top 100 list but that just seemed too time consuming.)

5. Billboard's Top 100 of the 2000s
We all know that Billboard keeps a running total of the Top 100 songs, which is why this is relegated to last place on my list. Although instead of linking you to the current Top 100, I'm sending you to the best of the last decade. For me, 2000-2009 encompasses parts of junior high, high school, and college, which means a lot of these songs remind me of prom.

4. IMDb's Bottom 100 Movies
If you love torturing yourself by watching horrible movies and laughing at them, or just want to see how bad movies can be, then this list is for you. IMDb asks their users to rank movies on a scale of 1-10  and the bottom 100 includes films with average reviews of 2.5 and under. You can contrast this with their Top 250, whose highest-ranking film is The Shawshank Redemption with a glowing 9.2.

3. 25 Celebrated Saul Bass Title Sequences in 100 Seconds



I know that I'm a nerd because some of my fondest memories of college are the essays I wrote and presentations I delivered. I'm that weird person who enjoys researching and always had a knack for picking quirky topics that somehow still fit into the assignment (case in point: I once wrote a paper making the claim that Willy Wonka was a Marxist). One of my favorites was a group presentation for my History of Graphic Design course on the topic of title sequences in movies, which is how I first learned of the site Art of the Title, where this video is from. Acclaimed graphic designer Saul Bass is known for fantastic title sequences - see if there are any you recognize!

2. All-TIME 100 Novels
Time Magazine compiled their list of the top 100 novels, or more precisely, the top 100 English novels published since 1923, when Time began. Even with those parameters it's a great list and includes novels from all genres and audiences, such as young-adult classic Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret, graphic novel Watchmen, historical fiction Gone With the Wind, and recent masterpieces published less than 10 years ago. I used this list when compiling my 2010 reading list.


1. 100 YEARS / STYLE / EAST LONDON

 

Posted by the Westfield Stratford City shopping center in London, this video reviews 100 years of fashion in one long choreographed scene. It's great to see how style changes over the years and subtly morphs into something completely different. And not just fashion, but hairstyles, dance styles, and even music transition from decade to decade from the early 1900s to present. I don't know if this was a commercial or just an online campaign, but whoever came up with the concept is a genius. Watch for the moment in the 1940s when the man dons a British uniform and heads off to war!