I'm pretty sure the numbnuts thing was a reference to the way the salesmen in "Glengarry" treated the office manager.

Leads?
I'm sorry, but in what universe does market research exist only in a single hard copy that comes by messenger on little index cards?

The alterna-plot
The alternate plot seems likely at this point to be the resolution of whatever happens with Jacob and Not-Locke. This is where the Losties seem to end up.

Not exactly deconstruction
Deconstruction implies taking a thing apart to examine it. That's not what these guys are doing at all. This show could be better characterized as anti-comedy; they've taken some fairly vicious swipes at mainstream comedy. This week they tore up SNL, last season they did a nasty parody of…

Why not get Billy West to do the voice.
He's pretty much the new Mel Blanc.

But why is he on the plane? And why is Locke in a wheelchair?

Mike,

There's a whole bunch of other stuff that seems wrong about the parallel storyline.

The numbers
are Hurley's lotto numbers and the numbers that were stamped on the hatch.

Why are we assuming that these are alternate stories
We are assuming that these parallel storylines are what occurs because the detonation of the bomb prevents the plane crash from ever happening. But too much stuff is different and wrong for that to be what's going on.

Is he much bigger than he used to be?
I am a frequent flier and I have seen bigger people than Smith fly without a problem. I have seen overweight couples asked to sit on opposite sides of the plane in small aircraft, but I have never seen a fat person bumped from a full flight. What they did to him was wrong.

This Erin/Andy thing is building toward something.
Andy's inability to ask Erin out is going to pay off in a dark way. The Jim/Pam thing went in the happily-ever-direction, but Andy is the show's dedicated chump. The Nard-dog is going to lose his battle with loneliness.

Two thoughts on "eXistenZ"
1. If I had an Xbox made out of vaginas, I would totally plug that thing into the back of my skull.

How overpaid actors become overpaid
Step 1: "We've already sunk a lot of money into preproduction on this God-awful piece of shit, and now we realize nobody wants to see God-awful pieces of shit anymore."

I agree with the review
I really like Schwartzman and Galifianakis, and I dig Jonathan Ames, so I was really psyched about this show when it first started, but I don't think it's lived up to its promise.

The Cheesy Blaster
You cannot make a joke out of a fast-food product in a world where the KFC Double Down exists.

This used to be one of the best shows on television
It went out with kind of a whimper, though.

Voice overs and narrators
These aren't a cliche as much as a device. There are two reasons why these happen that make sense.

This is a cash in
Nominees sell DVDs. A lot of the pictures that studios build Oscar campaigns around also get limited releases in December and then get wide release after they are nominated, so the studios rake in cash on the nominations. More nominees equals more money, unless this move backfires.

Top grossing foreign language film of all time?
It may have been the top grossing foreign language film of all time, but it was beat the next year by "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," and it was totally eclipsed by "Passion of the Christ.