Well, sure, no one outside the US watches MLS, because it's primarily an American league (although, there might be a Canadian team or two — I'm a typical American in that I care so little that I can't even be bothered to look up a simple fact about soccer).

The way Lazlo says "Play it!" to the hesitant band is awesome.  You see why Ilsa fell in love with him, why other men will follow him in a dangerous resistance, why Strasser wants him dead, and why Rick has immense respect for him and his work.

"Lisa!  Get away from that jazz man!"

Wow, I figure a lot of restaurant owners/managers yell at their employees, but at the customers?  What for?  For ordering the wrong wine with the pork chops?  Or asking for a different side dish than what normally comes with the meal?  Shit, that would be pretty hilarious.  I mean, a person running a business would…

Me, too, @avclub-d89b833158f0d9a73fd33bb243fe5786:disqus

I've been on the fence about this show for months, since I watched Rome, loved it, and was wanting more res Romanae — but I didn't want to waste my time on something that was of low quality.  I've heard enough good things about this show around here to get me down off the fence and watch the damn thing.  I respect the…

Re: MLS Chicago vs. New England.

"Does the pope wear a funny hat?"
"Well, I guess it is kinda funny."
"Say, speakin' of Polacks…"

I was going to say T2 by itself, just because I saw it at the gym the other day for the first time in forever, and man, that is a great movie to work out to!  It also totally holds up, more than 20 years later.  At least the visuals (I wasn't listening to the dialogue).

Here's how you know you're watching something other-worldly great when you're watching Casablanca: when the Bulgarian girl asks Rick's advice about Capt. Renault, her performance is not at different in style from other stilted, mediocre actresses of the 1930s and 1940s; but every other performer is on such a more…

I always thought NNW was among the consensus top-tier of Hitchcock's movies.  Maybe the critical landscape has changed in the 15 or 20 years since I paid close attention, but back then, it seemed that everyone agreed that Hitch's topper-most films were (in alphabetical order):

The Blues Brothers is indeed absolutely perfect.  Aretha Franklin seems not to want to be there, but everyone else involved in that scene is so joyous that it lets me forget that she's kind of trying to ruin it with a wooden performance.  And Ray Charles has one of the funniest scenes in the movie.

Having just watched the movies it is a loving parody of (Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, and Son of Frankenstein), I can tell you that if you love the visuals in Young Frankenstein, you will find much to luxuriate over in the 1930s movies.

@avclub-43465afbef176647281f961fabbb8a94:disqus , maybe I'm not remembering Part II, but according to the "rules" of time-travel in these movies, doesn't the "original" timeline (i.e., that which we see at the beginning of Part I) cease to exist, because Marty goes back to 1955 and changes the future?  I remember that…

No way: that movie isn't just a look at the minutia of 1955, but it's also a time-capsule of sorts of 1985.

Some of the interstitial vignettes in In Our Time are just wonderful.  I really like "The Killers" and "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place."  I also remember "The Three-Day Blow" as wonderfully capturing the type of conversation that educated, upper-class men in their early 20s actually have, when they are first expanding,…

Even the Baby-Sitter Bandit one was great, because, to my knowledge, it was the first time any animated show had made it explicit that two characters had sex.  When that waterbed was sloshing around, and Homer commented that his "work here is done," I knew this was an entirely different kind of show than I had seen…

LOVEJOY: "…be they ["camera" pans to Ned] Christian, [pan to Krusty] Jewish, or  [pan to Apu, and Lovejoy pauses and says] miscellaneous."

As I'm sure most people around here can and do, I have Simpsons quotes ready for just about every occasion.  It's not like something I've prepared and rehearsed; they're just in there, not too far from the front of my mind at all times.  When situations arise that need a bon mot for the edification or entertainment of…

@avclub-d7b683529752a4d24d84c4941861a363:disqus  when I was in Slovakia, there was a bar I frequented, and one night when I was settling my check I noticed they had written "Angličan" at the top, which means "Englishman."  I asked if that referred to me, and they said it did.  For some reason, after drinking my usual…