Evan's Snobby Pop Culture Guide:

Evan's Snobby Pop Culture Guide:

**1/2 (high concept production with value but less than meets the eyes and ears): Linn Manuel Miranda, Aaron Sorkin, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Led Zepplin, Tim Burton, Gone With the Wind, Joss Whedon, Pink Floyd, Oliver Stone, Lost, CB DeMille, Downton Abbey, Glee, DW Griffith, Les Mis, The Doors, Wicked, Animaniacs, Prog Rock (sorry Gary...), Brian de Palma, Lord of the Rings, Grateful Dead, Rick and Morty, Stanley Kramer, Gipsy Kings, John Huston, 12 Angry Men,

*** (a perfect product that does what it does): Marvel and DC, Madonna, MJ, Three Stooges, Brill Building, Saturday Night Live, John Ford/Westerns, Black Sabbath, Lieber&Stoller, Buddy Holly, Milton Berle, Kanye, Cowboy Bebop, Journey, James Bond, K-Pop, Michael Mann, Elvis Presley, Grease, Michael Crichton, Queen, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Phil Spector, Homestar Runner, Dave Barry, Fawlty Towers, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Eurovision

***1/2 (aspires to more, sometimes gets there): Stones, Star Trek, Stewart&Colbert, Jay Z, Judd Apatow, Norman Lear, Mad Magazine, Breaking Bad, Quentin Tarantino, David Bowie, Punk, Game of Thrones, Stephen King, Prairie Home Companion, Monty Python, Coen Brothers, American Horror Story, Miyazaki, Frank Capra, Clint Eastwood/Spaghetti Westerns, Ridley Scott, Tom Wolfe, Frank Miller, Kendrick Lamar, Patsy Cline, Pete Seeger, James Michener, Battlestar Galactica, Velvet Underground, Stieg Larsson, Esquivel, Herbie Hancock, Ornette Coleman, Neil Simon, Community, Christopher Nolan, PT Anderson, Van Morrison, Elmore Leonard, Paul Simon, Bob Marley, Popol Vuh, Kurt Vonnegut, X-Men, Chronicles of Narnia, Jerry Lewis, late David Lean, Key and Peele,

**** (perfect pop culture): Beach Boys, South Park, Marx Brothers, David Letterman, Mel Brooks, Prince, I Love Lucy, The Far Side, Looney Tunes, Mitch Hedburg, Stevie Wonder, Sid Caesar, Powerpuff Girls, Laurel & Hardy, Motown, Prince, Charlie Chaplin, Batman the Animated Series, Big Mouth, Johnny Carson, Benny Goodman, Carol Burnett Show, Django Reinhardt, The Who, Moms Mabley, Ella Fitzgerald, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Broad City, Buster Keaton, Beavis & Butthead, Screwball Comedy, Tina Fey, Robert Zemeckis, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Count Basie, Agatha Christie, Edward Gorey, AC/DC, Conan O'Brien, Cheers (post-Diane era), Spongebob Squarepants, Parry Gripp, Funk, Rogers & Hammerstein, The Nutty Professor, Joan Rivers, Run Lola Run, Richard James, Goran Bregovic, The Big Lebowski, Superman, Artie Shaw, Glenn Miller, Preston Sturges, Abba,

****1/2 (art): Bob Dylan, Twilight Zone, Dave Chapelle, Aretha Franklin, Hank Williams, Maus, Leonard Cohen, The Searchers, Public Enemy, Alan Moore, Dick Cavett, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, The Wire, Janis Joplin, American Crime Story, Joanie Mitchell, George Jones, Black Mirror, Billy Wilder, Freaks, Film Noir, The Manchurian Candidate, Apocalypse Now, Miles Davis, Parasite, Cab Calloway, George Carlin, Blazing Saddles, Monty Python movies, Stanley Kubrick (begrudgingly), Batman, Philip K. Dick, Robert Johnson, Will Eisner, Nick Cave, Jimmy Hendrix, Jordan Peele, Thelonious Monk, Carousel, David Fincher, Jimmy Rogers, Neil Young, Charles Mingus, John Lee Hooker, Dave Brubeck, Moonlight, Robert Smigel, Brian Eno, Paul Schrader, Chinatown, Springsteen, Roseanne (first run...), Bjork, David Byrne, Irving Berlin, Stephen Soderbergh, Classic Disney, Sonic Youth, Edith Piaf, Sunrise, Don Bluth, Don Hertzfeldt, Norm MacDonald, Buster Keaton, Ray Bradbury, Wes Anderson, Sandra Bernhardt, Frank Zappa, Ali Farka Toure, Radiohead, Pere Ubu, Twelve Years a Slave, Sufjan Stevens, Charlie Parker, Coal Miner's Daughter, The British Office, Nine Inch Nails, Sam Peckinpah, Fawlty Towers, Monty Python: Upper Class Twit of the Year & Argument & Silly Walks & Lumberjack Song & Spam & Spanish Inquisition & Fish Slapping Dance & Gangs of Old Women & Revolutionary War Re-enactment & Dead Parrot,

****3/4 (great art): Louis Armstrong Hot Five, Otis Redding, Duck Soup, Seinfeld, Richard Pryor, The Wiz, Gershwin, Amadeus, Scorsese, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, The Sopranos, Leonard Bernstein, Alfred Hitchcock, Ray Charles, Muddy Waters, Woo... (name redacted), Pet Sounds, Stranger Things, American Graffiti, Greg Daniels, Lena Dunham (fuck you), Modern Disney, Alfonso Cuaron, Fela Kuti, M*A*S*H, Glow, Christopher Guest movies, Jelly Roll Morton, Raymond Scott, Monty Python: Life of Brian and Meaning of Life ,Dr. Seuss, Bob's Burgers, Woodie Gurthrie, King of the Hill, Astor Piazzola, Smokey Robinson, Bonnie and Clyde, The Critic, Bill Monroe, Jerome Kern, Bill Evans, James Br... (name redacted), Jelly Roll Morton, Fargo, Margaret Cho, Marvin Gaye, David Lynch, Kander & Ebb, Earle Scruggs, Roald Dahl, I Claudius, Celia Cruz, Bubbles' Redemption Arc in The Wire, Dolly Parton, Fiddler on the Roof, Sing Sing Sing and King Porter Stomp, Casablanca, Chuck Berry, Tito Puente, Howard Hawks, Robert Johnson, Cole Porter, Derek and the Dominos, The Music Man, Black Panther, Hello Dolly, Cheers (the Diane era), Amadou & Mariam, Flanders & Swann, Orson Welles, A Fish Called Wanda, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Daria, Noel Coward, Jason Reitman, Bill Bryson, Veep, Patton Oswalt, Babylon Berlin, Buena Vista Social Club, Um Khulthum, Art Tatum, Abdullah Ibrahim, The Right Stuff, Alexander's Ragtime Band, Robert Crumb, Ang Lee, Al Green, A Night in Tunisia, Rogers & Hart, The Sorcerer's Apprentice and Dance of the Hours in Fantasia, Judy Garland, early David Lean, The Princess Bride, Levinson's Baltimore Series, 

***** (hits something transcendent): Sondheim, Simpsons, Beatles, Spielberg (yes), Mad Men, Johnny Cash, The Godfather, The Muppets and Sesame Street, Peanuts, Jerome Kern, Tom Waits, Richard Linklater, Calvin & Hobbes, Frank Sinatra (really), Randy Newman (shut the fuck up I don't want to hear it), Spike Lee, Six Feet Under, Ed Sullivan, Ernst Lubitsch, Pixar (begrudgingly), W. C. Handy, Robert Altman, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers, Alison Bechdel, Shel Silverstein, James L. Brooks, Freaks and Geeks, Charlotte's Web, Alexander Payne, Maurice Sendak, Lo... (name redacted), Jerome Robbins, Jacques Brel, Strange Fruit, Kurt Weill, Robin Williams standup, Bojack Horseman, The Producers, The Social Network, Charlotte's Web, Charlie Chaplin, Chicago (the musical), Heaven from Top Hat - Pick Yourself Up (Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers), Jim and Pam's Wedding in The Office, Thunder Road, Nightmare by Artie Shaw, Singin' in the Rain, What's Goin' On, White Christmas, Fan Dance in The King and I, Radio Days, Bonnie and Clyde's assassination, Astaire and Gene Kelly's duet in Ziegfeld Follies, Be Our Guest, Under the Sea, Planetarium in Rebel Without a Cause,

*****1/2 (unnameable): Citizen Kane, Pan's Labyrinth, Pinocchio, The Wizard of Oz, Into the Woods, West Side Story, Company, Rose's Turn, Sweeney Todd's epiphany, the painting sings in Sunday in the Park With George, Bobby sings Being Alive in Company, Homer jumps Springfield Gorge, Homer and the Toaster Oven, Sideshow Bob and the Rakes, Ned Flander's breakdown in Hurricaine Neddy, the end of Lisa on Ice, Mr. Burns and Germs, Homer the Heretic, El Viage Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer, The Suitcase, The Other Woman, My Old Kentucky Home (three Mad Men episodes), Day in the Life, Tomorrow Never Knows, Blackbird, Eleanor Rigby, The Emerald City and the flying monkey attack in The Wizard of Oz, last reel of Close Encounters & ET, bell ringing in Lincoln, introduction of survivors in Schindler's List, Opening of Saving Private Ryan, Jungleland (Springsteen), The Giving Tree, Muppets sing Inchworm with Charles Aznavour - Turn the World Around with Harry Belafonte - Just One Person with Bernadette Peters, Sesame Street - Goodbye Mr. Hooper, I Don't Want to Live on The Moon, What's The Name of That Song, Sing a Song, It's Not Easy Being Green, If Moon was Cookie Old Man River (Showboat), One For My Baby and My Funny Valentine (Sinatra), Baby What'd I Say and Busted (Ray Charles), the hospital scene in Godfather I and the assassination of Don Fanucchi in Godfather II, Nick playing Spirit of the Radio in Freaks and Geeks, Jacques Brel singing Les Desesperes, last twenty minutes of Come on Feel the Illinoise (Sufjan Stevens), The Dance at the Gym and The Balcony Scene in West Side Story, Steam Heat from Pajama Game and To Life from Fiddler on the Roof, Fred Astaire - drum scene in Damsel in Distress - Hat Rack Dance - Dem Bones (last w/Cyd Charisse), Gene Kelly roller skate dance in It's Always Fair Weather, Where The Wild Things Are, Satchmo's 1947 Symphony Hall Concert, I've Been Loving You Too Long, Seinfeld - George's Marine Biologist monologue - the trip to Susan's cabin - the Kavorka - the Junior Mint, Radio Raheem sequence in Do The Right Thing, The Assassination and the Dance Sequence in Malcolm X, Louis CK's daughter asks 'why', Sam and Diane fight, King Heroin (James Brown), Kyle McLachlan hides from Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet, Gene Kelly doing Make'em Laugh, Reminiscing in Tempo & Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue & Come Sunday (all Ellington), the Psalm in Love Supreme, Roma - the father leaving - the scene in the water - the riot/pregnancy sequence, the drinking scene in Y Tu Mama Tambien, the tracking shots in Children of Men, Christopher's intervention and Carmela leaving Tony in The Sopranos, the ending of Six Feet Under, the band plays in The Music Man, Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell's opening scene in His Girl Friday, the recovery and reconciliation in Sunrise, the opening of UP, the dance in space of WALL-E, the shower scene and climax of Psycho, Judy bathed in green light in Vertigo, Grace Kelly in Raymond Burr's apartment in Rear Window, the jail scene in Dumbo, Bambi's mother's death and the fire scene, the tracking shot and Tommy getting made in Goodfellas, the 'did you fuck my wife' sequence in Raging Bull, the TV drop and Travis Bickle's training sequence in Taxi Driver, the animation in Hugo, the long farewell in Before Sunrise, the hazing in Dazed and Confused, the Bill Evans playing Peace Piece, Springtime for Hitler, opening and the Planetarium scene in Manhattan, Martin Landau discovering Angelica Houston in Crimes and Misdemeanors, the assassination attempts in Babylon Berlin and Nashville, the traffic jam in Nashville, Hellhound on My Trail (Robert Johnson), I'm So Lonesome (Hank Williams) Flanders and Swann singing the Hippopotamus Song, Opening of The Lion King, Robin Williams in Aladdin,

********** (Cats): Cats