“I always believe the movies I've made are smarter than the way they are perceived by sort of mass culture and by the critics"

When I think about worst Best Pictures I tend to think about movies that both got robbed and their reputation tarnished (Citizen Kane turn out just fine without winning Best Picture. Losing is the best thing to happen to Brokeback Mountain, a 15-minute short film stretched out to two hours with one amazing performance…

I mean, I think Bullock was the weak link in Gravity. But I also recognize I'm in the minority when it comes to that and it's silly for Dowd to say otherwise.

This episodes gives the best explanation for the causes of World War I ever put to film. Hell, it's better than a couple books on the subject.

Good news writers! Considering the horrible working conditions of the AV Club, you're not likely to outlive any of these people!

Can't believe you forgot the Forrest Gump/John Lennon episode. Some people say it's where Lennon got the idea for the song "Imagine," though I don't really see it. Besides that, still a great interview.

Movies tend to use the same occupations over and over, even for their "everyman" sort of roles.

Those reviews contain a troubling lack of understanding about human interactions, and not of the "how would a spaceman behave in these circumstances?" variety but of the "how do guys behave around their ex-girlfriends?" sort of thing.

The Catholic Church's "We've made a few changes" commercial.

Name three that are not gut-busting comedies or strange arthouse dreamscapes.

At one point, I just thought that A.A. Dowd was just harsher than me on movies. Quite a defensible position, not every lark might be worth my movie time.

"Please, Mr. Kennedy" remains robbed.

At what point does someone in the White House just say, "This internet petition thing is being mainly used for computer nerds to whine about stupid stuff, let's just get rid of it." Because whomever has to answer these things must be getting really sick of it.

I dunno, winners of awards have often said "x" should have won instead of them. I don't see how it means anything even if I happen to agree with them compare to when I think they were the rightful winner.

It's so traditional for the Grammys to get it completely wrong that it would actually be an insult to Lamar if he won over Macklemore.

Prez is suddenly the protagonist of a sitcom about an inner-city teacher just looking for love in all the wrong places.

But will they like baseball?

Wiseau is an alien, barely hiding that fact, and yet no government organization has kidnapped him to cut him open.

The only thing pettier than award shows are the artists who pretend they don't care but then get angry when they don't win one.

Well hell, if people are angry about the idea that their money is going to the already wealthy, Zack Braff financing a movie through his fans is a terrible place to start.