Hey, get a pen pal, huh?

I just realized I said "'My Penis' contains a lot of pathos."

In re: "Also: 'a bit'" not 'a lot.'"

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Hunter S. Thompson's literary voice is so particular and vivid and entertaining, it would be foolish to adapt his work for the screen without adding a shitload of voiceover. To simply show the things he rambles on about would be a lost opportunity.

Richie Alpert and the Orchid Station Brass: "This is coming way way downthread, but I don't think Warren was saying Queens wasn't in NYC, he meant that 90% of the cliches out there about NYC are all Manhattan specific (and only certain parts of Manhattan at that), when in fact less than a quarter of New Yorkers (to…

Oh, I forgot to mention: I like cougars.

Speaking of the suburban character of parts of Queens: I live in its Kew Gardens neighborhood. It's beautiful. Trees, winding roads, rolling hills, a huge, wooded park with a jogging path, mansions, elegant pre-war mid-rise apartment buildings. The Long Island Rail Road rumbles decorously 2 blocks from me, and takes…

"Seems to me that American Beauty was describing the exact opposite of a soulless existence."

Warren Oates: "I grew up in Queens and Nassau County, Long Island (yes, they are kind of the same, but believe me, they are vastly different areas) and I never mistook where I lived as a 'small town', but at the same time it's not NYC."

This one is so common one hardly notices it at this point, but I always feel slightly insulted when the hero arrives to save the day at the very last split second.

"Taxi Driver" used narration as something other than narration, too.

"Rushmore"

Nabin talks about channel-surfing…
Likewise, people floating on the surface of a pool or underwater in a pool has become movie shorthand for alienation.

I would not
trade the narration in "Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind" for anything. What sets it somewhat apart from most uses of narration is that it isn't tacked on for our benefit or to make the storytelling easier for the filmmaker. The voiceover here is literally an interior monologue. It's what we would…

I don't watch the Simpsons, so can't validate my remarks by declaring "don't ya see? I'm being like the Simpsons!"

Anywhere I lay my head: "Is anybody here living in St. Louis? I really need some friends."

New York subways in the summer: like walking into an oven where somebody's baking Bum Piss Pie.

The summer air in NYC is a thick brew of humidity and car exhaust that clings and clings some more. Take one long, hot, extremely soapy shower per day and it's tolerable.

If he'd been simply "authentically, hatefully depraved" there might be some chance I'd appreciate his writing, though I doubt it. That he insisted on yoking that to gooey, self-pitying sentimentality renders it toxic. A film like "Home Alone" is Hughes at his nihilistic-yet-maudlin worst.