Sexy Back

Y’know, I really do enjoy Entertainment Weekly. I enjoy it so much in fact that I continue to dish out cash for a copy, even when everything in it – and more – is available on their website. Why do I do it? Let’s say five parts habit, three parts loyalty, and two parts financial stupidity.

If there’s one thing EW loves to do, it’s create lists. Pop culture moments, must-own DVD’s, celebrity meltdowns, gross-out flicks. You name it, they list it – and this goes over and above the usual year end ten-best geekery that many others partake in (guilty!).

Their latest endeavour hit stands last week, and it was their 50 Sexiest Movies. Let’s take a moment to examine their creme de la creme…

Before I move on, give me a few words on OUT OF SIGHT. If you haven’t seen it – stop reading right now and get your hands on it. Based on a great book by Elmore Leonard, directed by Stephen Soderbergh, it’s one of my favorite movies of all time. It’s got an amazing cast, some really funny dialogue, and is just gorgeously shot. Many people I’ve met have specifically avoided it because of Jennifer Lopez. Well that’s the great news, it’s one of the very few movies in which Jennifer Lopez doesn’t play Jennifer Lopez (trust me – there’s a difference).

But…

Is it “The Sexiest Movie of All Time”? I’d agree that two of the scenes in the movie are pretty damned hot, but that’s me – and that’s the hitch. “Sexiness” is amazingly subjective, what’s sexy to me might not be sexy to the guy standing next to me. The other time this comes up of course is when we’re discussing humour – what makes you laugh might not make me laugh, and vice versa. My head-scratching with the list goes beyond the gold-medal-spot. There are a lot of titles on here that I wouldn’t classify as “sexy” (much as I loved them…ONCE and LAST OF THE MOHICANS??). Since sexiness is so individually specific, the question must be asked; why make the list? The obvious answer of course is to sell magazines, which indeed worked given the fact that I’m $5.18 lighter.

An old friend used to say that list conversations eventually get too specific to be fun anymore (“Give me your top five latin-born right-handed pitchers not named Pedro”). But with this list, EW has done the opposite – they’ve taken a very generic banner and tried to make a list, but one that I’m still betting would lead to every title on it being called into question. Weird that way that happens isn’t it? For the curious among you, the complete list has been posted after the jump.