I'll stick up for "Jaws" the book a bit. I liked the (70s spoilers) plot of Hooper getting eaten and the shark dying from eating too many people, rather than blown up by a one liner and a scuba tank.

Yeah, "Everybody Loves Raymond" certainly didn't hit that spot for me. They were all pretty horrible and only Peter Boyle was horrible and funny.

"Anything Goes" by Madison Smartt Bell works, for me, because it's about a bar band and Bell keeps the stakes very low. He published it between parts of his 2/3 awesome trilogy about the Haitian Revolution.

Click on the Simon interview linked above, he drops some hints about things he wants to portray.

I still haven't figured out that scene. I think Sonny clearly doesn't recognize the guy, but that doesn't mean he didn't save him. And people who do heroic shit often do not like to talk about it. But, Sonny was bragging on it earlier in the season, in the scene in the bar where he's talking to a soldier, and what…

First: Pretty funny, but had draggy bits (Freakshow, fer instance)
Second: Not as funny, but still funny, also draggy bits. (Inbred hillbillies, most of Cordry's scenes)

Ricky, check out "Anatomy of Murder," shot in Marquette, Ishpeming and Big Bay. Really neat old movie with Jimmy Stewart, Lee Remick, Ben Gazzara and George C. Scott(and a Duke Ellington cameo). Based on a novel written by a Michigan Supreme Court Justice under a pen name and directed by Otto Preminger. Pretty…

I'll thank History Girl and her countrymen and countryladies for the excellent Great Big Sea show I saw in Kalamazoo. Transplanted Canadians were going to (politely) tear the roof off the State Theater when one of their songs had the line "And I'll be Canaaaaaadiaaan."

I understand not liking "Chasing Amy." I understand liking it, because I like. I don't understand just hating the ending, though.

"The case could be made that the equality between the sexes shown is the result of losing everything not necessary for service to the state."

" The Fifth Element is a lot like Dark City. A movie dumb people think is smart."

Michigan State's football team used to come out to "Who Let the Dogs Out" sometimes during the early 2000s. I'm not sure if a bunch of amped up football players made Baha Men slightly more badass or if you can't make Baha Men slightly more badass. But it sure didn't help them win many games.

Vince or Luke were telling someone to get out there to X and throw a block when they were calling their renegade play. That would mean the anonymous QB was to go like up at wide receiver.

I thought that was where Al's Pancake World was.

My guess would be that Annie, having gone to a conservatory to study violin, probably has at least middle class parents she could call on if it came down to it. Maybe not, but the show hasn't given us anything on that.

"The Federal Flood of 2005 ravaged many areas of the city, without regard for race or class. The one thing I feel that most of the Katrina coverage gets wrong is the emphasis on the Lower Nine as the epicenter of damage. There were a lot of other damaged areas that deserve mention, like Chalmette, and New Orleans…

"Joe Buck should be chained at the ankles to Artie Lange for all of eternity. Fuck Joe Buck and the bullshit nepotism that got him his fucking miserable job. Asshole tried to take all the joy out of our World Series win against the Rays."

"The Giant Spider Invasion" is up there. I grew up in the U.P., so that was part of it.

http://www.imdb.com/title/t…

"The Star Spangled Banner" seems kinda understated and literary in the world of national anthems. Most of them are basically "The motherland is awesome!11!!!!!!!!" while the U.S. anthem is just sort of a little story about a mostly forgotten battle. (The other verses we don't sing are much typical anthem fare)