Noah Baumbach rivals Wes Anderson as one of the most important filmmakers of the 21st century, in my opinion. Reason being, he creates depth in superficiality; he makes memorable characters with consequential flaws which make it impossible not to fancy them.

I have the hugest crush on John Cusack. There is something about his B-class celebrity that really speaks to my heart. My admiration began immediately after I watched High Fidelity. Cusack plays Rob Gordon, a record store owner/retired D.J. that is going through a bad breakup.

Dolores O’Riordan’s voice is one of the most recognizable female voices in rock; O’Riordan may well be the reason The Cranberries earned much of their success in the mid 1990s. The band’s most commercially successful album, No Need to Argue sold over seven million albums in the United States and is popularly recognized as the couch album, as the cover art and album notes all contain the band sitting on an old plaid couch in various locations.

Stephen Chbosky has published only one novel in his career. Chbosky more commonly authors screenplays and television scripts, although his novel, The Perks of Being a Wallflower is one of the most popular books floating around America’s youth. The story follows Charlie, an awkward freshman and his path to self-discovery through writing letters to someone he has never met.

Green Day rarely gains respect outside of the albums Dookie and American Idiot. But I have to respectfully disagree and claim that Nimrod is the album that proves the band’s importance. Although the tacky track, “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” is probably the only track on the album still getting airplay, the album truly has some good tunes that were reluctantly looked over.

My childhood heroes included the employees of the fictional record store Empire Records. A.J., Lucas, Gina, Corey, Joe, Warren, Deb, and Mark all entertained me for endless hours as I watched them play out their regular day at work. Shoplifters, impromptu dance numbers, and a washed-up celebrity make Empire Records a movie to watch again and again.

Morrissey and Marr made a name for themselves when they joined forces to become the legendary as well as infamous group The Smiths. I use the word infamous because most people have heard of The Smiths, but have never actually heard their music — or if they have, they don’t know it.

Revisiting this film time and again has never disappointed me, ever. Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums is easily my favorite movie of all time — reason being the quirky characters. Anderson picked a stellar cast, including Gene Hackman as Royal Tenenbaum, Luke Wilson as Richie Tenenbaum, Gwyneth Paltrow as Margot Tenenbaum, and Ben Stiller as Chas Tenenbaum, just to name a few.