I was too young to get into R.E.M. when they were with I.R.S Records, but after hearing "Everybody Hurts" sopping up the wallowing angst in "My So-Called Life," I couldn't quite think of their music in the same way again. Prior to that, right after I bought "Automatic For the People," I turned on the TV and saw a…

I love him, but my wife can't stand his voice for some reason (it's a bit adenoidal at times, I admit, but … I mean, it's genuinely soulful and he can carry a tune). This past spring, I told her that tickets to a solo concert he was playing near us would make a *great* Father's Day gift, but I didn't get 'em, and the…

Say what you will about all the Modernist pinwheels fizzling throughout "Ulysses," it's a bighearted, movingly humane book — which is remarkable, I think, when you compare it to the intellectual steeliness (and, usually, antisemitism) of most of Modernist literature.

The special includes people who make references to "Futurama" or "The Simpsons."

We're in luck! They have a special going for people who use words like "halfsies" and "twofer."

Hey, care to go halfsies on the have-yourself-killed thing with a fellow pedantics major?

Robert Picardo
I mentioned him in another comment, but I feel compelled, in light of all the well-deserved Dick Miller love here, to champion the great Robert Picardo, one of Joe Dante's regular players. After "The Howling," he became something of a go-to guy for good-naturedly donning torturous special-effects…

Don't leave out the always-awesome Robert Picardo! Next to Dick Miller, he's my favorite Dante regular. Also, I can't look at David Cross without thinking of Picardo in "The Howling."

It's sad that animatronics like that are something of a lost art nowadays, with CGI and everything. Rick Baker's work in the sequel will always be impressive, though, and the first film deserves credit for making the most of its bicycle-brake puppetry.

A chillingly thought-provoking question for the ages.

Yeah, P.J. O'Rourke and Christopher Buckley are like the Luke and Owen Wilson of contemporary "conservative" satire. (In hindsight, that was a stupid comparison, but that movie trailer has made me too stupid to think of anything better.) Who else … Joe Queenan? I'm at a loss as well.

Eh, maybe hockey butt is more familiar to Canadians or something. I hesitate to expound upon it further, but I wouldn't use the word gigantic. Guys who play hockey are usually chagrined by a certain posterior shapeliness resembling that of, say, a male (or female, for that matter) figure skater. I'll leave it at…

Both William Goldman and Lawrence Kasdan have written some great movies, and yet the two of them created "Dreamcatcher." Bad screenwriting is a combination of retards and assweasels, at the very least.

Sorry. I was just trying to counter-commiserate with idiotking there. Enough about my butt, my face, or any combination of the two.

I could take 'em both. I know Jew-Jitsu.

[One of the greatest directors of all time, and I had to start a thread about glasses. Nonetheless:]

Hey, I'm trying to "be true to myself," but I'm a nebbishy Jew who looks like a lacrosse player (I'm not even sure what I mean by that, but hey). I've got muscle-y legs and "hockey butt," which conflicts with my inner hipster, fashion-wise. I've worn chunky black glasses before, but I have a feeling I'll be sending…

No, I do wear prescription glasses. If I didn't, believe me, I wouldn't be wallowing in it — I'd shoot myself in the fucking brain, and with good cause. Right now I've got tasteful Gold & Wood frames, and I've got some Harry Potter-style Matsudas, but I guess I'm reverting to the whole Elvis Costello wannabe thing…

Hipster-douchebag eye accessories
It pains me to say that I just ordered a pair of Lemtosh eyeglasses from Moscot in NYC. It's the most unabashedly hipster-ish thing I've done — they're the glasses Johnny Depp likes to wear (his actually may be vintage Tart Arnel frames, which his obsessive fans are quick to point…

But … the heart wants what the heart wants! Right?