Things working in Ron Howard's favor:
-He is capable of being snarky (Arrested Development's narrator & Gung Ho, an old film he made)
-Apollo 13 was a strong film that presented space travel and crew life well
-Han Solo is somewhat reminiscent of the Fonz
-American Graffiti is possibly underrated and it has a lot of the…

same

I like elements of Pet Sounds, but I probably need to give it another listen, because it usually kinda bores me, and I actually am not always that impressed with the production.

I thought about mentioning Echoes, but then decided that I value that song mostly for the entire band's approach together, as a whole. Good guitars, though.

that's a good one

+1 on "More Than a Feeling"
Between the Buried and Me has some amazing riffs - maybe the Selkies solo, or something off of Colors or The Great Misdirect, like the part toward the end of Swim to the Moon (starting at the 10 min. mark onwards).
I don't like the Eagles, but I cannot deny that 'Hotel California' really…

I dislike a lot of what Chuck Lorre does in television and how his shows develop over time, but I loooooooove the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles old school cartoon and its theme song

Take that word "borderline" out of the sentence about Bill Maher, and it'll be correct.

give Reapers another listen or two and just try to play air guitar (or real guitar) while you listen and you'll probably start to like it too.

yeah, that's my take. Those select tracks are strong.
The crappy lyrics weigh it down, unfortunately, and the uneven nature makes it hard to listen to as an album, which is what prompted my comment about it and The 2nd Law.

I came around to 'Madness' and think it's awesome now, but it's the unevenness of the rest of the album that I dislike, and the sense that they were just messing around with things and weirdly dialing it in/messing around

Madness is excellent.

I don't love Viva La Vida, but there are some great moments, like Death and All His Friends & Lovers in Japan. X&Y is hit/miss, but I really like a handful of songs on it, like White Shadows, Talk, and a few others.

Part of their problem was that they had two vocalists, and one of them sounded more appealing, and people really liked when he sang certain notes.

btw, the newest Thrice is good.

"Music Box" is great, too.

eh?

3! 2! 1!

The problem is that the timeline is so stinking weird. All of the Mexico material should take place over the course of a couple days, at least, and the "high gear" at the end feels like a completely different day. That virus conflict was contrived for an "end of the day" surprise.

"One" did that to me for a long time