"Get to…" Like it's a privilege? As if context means nothing? Maher is a smug prick, sure, but it's absurd to equate his use of the forbidden word with hate crime. With all the REAL hate crime going on these days! All this word policing is a distraction.

Stupid joke, but it was aimed at himself, not at anybody else. It did absolutely no harm. Meanwhile Trump invites to the White House a man who endorsed shooting or lynching the first black president. Please save your outrage.

I watched the first three episodes entranced, sucked into a slowly evolving nightmare. Then the next couple of episodes raised ominous signs of turning into a much more conventional series. Then I read the book, and I really can't go back to the series now.

Interminable, talky, thuddingly obvious play, way overrated. Nothing particularly interesting about its asshole protagonist, either, though it huffs and puffs trying to build him into King Lear or something. Sounds like a yawn of a movie too.

"Comfort and Joy" is a nice little film, and I can't get the jingle from one of its ice cream trucks out of my head thirty+ years later.

Unbearable movie. Stillman's Young Republican characters are ripe for satire, but instead he juxtaposes them with insulting caricatures of Spaniards who are supposed to make his protagonists look good. He has absolutely no interest in the city he names the movie for (there isn't a trace of Catalan culture, language,…

"The Girl in the Corner" which follows a long silence at the end of Lyle Lovett's "Road to Ensenada." He's held off commenting directly on his ill-fated marriage to Julia Roberts up until then. It's a wistful, poignant song without a hint of vengeance, and a fun portrait of a Hollywood party too ("Tim he was tall, and…

Waaaay back in 1977 there was a fun movie called "Star Wars." We all went to see it and had a hell of a time. It was exciting and funny and ironic and a throwback to old radio serials, B-movies and comic books. There was nothing in it that demanded to be taken seriously. Even Obi Wan and his lessons about The Force…

Reportedly Gable and Monroe didn't get along. He objected to all the lingering close-ups she was getting and she told him, "that's because people would rather look at my ass than at your face."

Guess you're all too young to remember Sammy Davis Jr. on "All in the Family"…

Fairport Convention did this three times, "Come All Ye" "Walk Awhile" and "Angel Delight". And after Richard Thompson left the band, the first song on his first album (see photo) was a mission statement if there ever was one: "Roll Over Vaughan Williams."

Another good place to start: one of the shorter, more accessible, and funnier DeLillo novels is "Cosmopolis" (much better than the movie).

The big family Christmas party in Ingmar Bergman's "Fanny and Alexander." I wanted to climb up onto the screen and live there forever.

Someone forgot Bowie's horrendous sax playing on this very atypical cover by 70s Brit folk rockers Steeleye Span, or was trying to forget, as I was until this article reminded me.

Another Richard Thompson song — the title says it all — "I'll Regret It All In the Morning."

Another Richard Thompson song — the title says it all — "I'll Regret It All In the Morning."

Overlooked here is John Sayles' first novel, "Pride of the Bimbos" — about a bunch of baseball has-beens and never-weres traveling the south as a transvestite team. Might be hard to find, but wonderful, probably Sayles' best book.

Overlooked here is John Sayles' first novel, "Pride of the Bimbos" — about a bunch of baseball has-beens and never-weres traveling the south as a transvestite team. Might be hard to find, but wonderful, probably Sayles' best book.

One other reason Tintin never caught on in the USA: Americans like their comic book heroes with chins.

I still have mine! I hung it up and used it again in 2000 and plan to do the same every 28 years as long as I live.