The Silver Screen, Panels and Gutters, Prose and Poetry, Dulcet Notes and Rhythms, All Arts Martial, Sinking the 9 on the Break, "Base--a Certain Game of Ball," Racqueteering, Duels with Blades, Professional Thievery, Quickdraw Showdowns in Dusty Streets, Breaking the Bank at Chemin de fer, Resourceful Zombie-Killing, Crafting the Doom of Others, and any other pursuits from which can be derived epics of eloquence and justice. And Backgammon.
Good storytellers, and true characters. Preferably both whenever possible.
(A sampling) Bob Dylan, Neko Case, Johnny Cash, Explosions in the Sky, David Arnold, The Band, The Beatles, Roy Budd, Cat Power, Sam Cooke, Miles Davis, Echo and the Bunnymen, Hem, Joe Hisaishi, Iron and Wine, Jenny Lewis and The Watson Twins, Thelonious Monk, Ennio Morricone, Willie Nelson, The New Pornographers, Beth Orton, Frank Sinatra, Tilly and the Wall, The Who, Yo La Tengo
(Top 25) Rififi, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Seven Samurai, Casino Royale ('06), The Third Man, A Man Escaped, Grand Illusion, Record of a Tenement Gentleman, The Thin Red Line, Sansho the Bailiff, The Twilight Samurai, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, The Hustler, Le Samouraï, Blade Runner, Letter from an Unknown Woman, Croupier, Once Upon a Time in the West, Dr. Strangelove, Chinatown, Exiled, There Will Be Blood, The Big Lebowski, The Passion of Joan of Arc, Heat
Battlestar Galactica ('03), Firefly, The Sandbaggers, Bablyon 5, Batman: The Animated Series, Benson, Brotherhood, Californication, The Colbert Report, The Daily Show, Deadwood, Dexter, Freaks and Geeks, Heroes, House M.D., Night Court, Rome, Sledge Hammer!, Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation, This American Life, Twitch City, Veronica Mars, The West Wing
Ian Fleming, Dashiell Hammett, Nick Bantock, Andre Bazin, William Blake, David Bordwell, Ed Brubaker, Michael Chabon, Darwyn Cooke, John Donne, Arthur Conan Doyle, Will Eisner, Warren Ellis, James Ellroy, Federico Garcia-Lorca, Aldous Huxley, Geoff Johns, Jack Kirby, Brad Meltzer, William Shakespeare, Greg Rucka, Richard Stark, Jim Thompson, Matt Wagner, William Wordsworth
I enjoy watching it, but it's no BSG.