How can I chmod/chown a specific list of files?

Almost all Unix tools accept a list of files as non-option arguments. As usual, the different arguments have to be separated by space:

chmod 644 one two three

In your second example, if you're using Bash, a simple

chmod -R 644 !(cache)

will be enough.

This approach requires extended pattern matching. If it's disabled, you can enable it with

shopt -s extglob

See: Bash Reference Manual # Pattern Matching

Make a list of filenames in ./list-of-filenames-to-change.txt and then run:

chmod g+w `cat list-of-filenames-to-change.txt`

or use the method described by others here:

chmod 644 one two three

or go to town with the first option but manipulate each line in the file (in this example: replace " /" (WITH whitespace before) by " ./"):

chmod g+w `sed 's/ \// .\//' update-writable.txt` 

If the files you want to modify are in one directory you can ls them with the needed pattern.

e.g. I need all downloaded .run files in pwd to be changed to executable:

chmod +x `ls *.run`