Realistic
Really liked that Marshall's still in Minn. Most of the time, death on TV is taken care of in a very special episode, and then never mentioned again. It was so much more realistic that Marshall would have to stay home for a few weeks to take care of things.

Might be good …
This could be interesting. Sportscenter is all but unwatchable these days, and the Onion's Sportsdome suffers by parodying a show that has devolved in to unironic self-parody long ago.

Perfectly put, QBF. They strike me as America's Radiohead (who I do like): very talented, very musical, very smart, beloved by the Pitchfork crowd … yet, I can't imagine ever listening to an entire album start to finish. I guess tossing a few turgid, tuneless "sound collages" on each album makes you brilliant …

How early in his career did he make those ass flicks?

I agree with Roark … pay back the gov't before you're crowing that "you're back."

So, so true … I have a completest streak in me, and I often get burned by less-than-stellar follow-up album from bands that I thought could do no wrong. I still listen to Robbes & Cowards; I listen to about one song off of Loyalty … but I like three of the four songs on Behave Yourself.

Wasn't there supposed to be QL TV movies every so often, after the show ended? A reboot in the hands of NBC gives me cold sweats of the FlashForward/The Event kind …

If you hate something …
… don't you do it, too. I call bullshit a bit on the AV Club's smug attitude towards this trash. If it's so devolved, and so awful, why is it covered in TV Club, why is there a story a day about it in Newswire, and worst, why oh why is there an AV Talk segment devoted to it?! I realize that…

Wow, the tone of this is pretty nasty and sour … which I suppose mirrors the online/print edition. But live and in person, that tone just seems off-putting, at least to me.

Well, fair enough. I didn't mean to compare all of the artists I sorta threw together artistically or musically. I was just trying to think of artists/bands whose longevity is never questioned, while others seem to have an expiration date. And I understand that some would argue that PJ and U2 are simply just no good…

Not Fade Away?
I'm genuinely curious about a phenomena I've noticed not just here at the AV, but in other areas of music discussion. Whenever PJ seems to be discussed, there's always the inevitable, "Yeah, I loved them 15 years ago," or
some variation of, "This news would have excited me in 19**," or just basically…

Any Connecticuters out there? The Peabody in New Haven has a lot of these guys' discoveries there. Good stuff.

I've seen PJ a number of times live - always a new setlist, always played like it was the first show of their first tour, and always better than the last. How many bands in their 40s - hell, how many bands in general - give you that consistently night after night?

I mean, a doc on the undeniable awesomeness of the Philadelphia Eagles, sure … but this?

And she was the forced-to-retire-because-she's-too-old ballerina in Black Swan … can hot mom married to fat sitcom husband soon be in her future?

"I have a screaming baby at home; I'm not impressed. You want to turn your spine into broken glass, I've got it, 24/7." - Patton Oswalt's pretty spot-on review of "Crown on the Ground."

20 parts? Hell, I think that Steve should take a few years and expand this into a book. I love this era of music, and I love many of these bands. The tone of these columns are perfect: analytical, reverent, but also balanced and objective, without much hagiography. Steve - write the book!

The numbers turned out to be in surprisingly bad taste (Countdown to Marshall's Misery!) …

My friends who have kids will sit thru just about any sequence of bright, moving shapes on a big screen in a dark theater, if it'll keep the kids quiet for two hours. One man's 2-hour suck fest is another man's 2 hour respite from wondering "Why the fuck did I have three kids? Oh, yeah - 'cause I can't say no to…

Yet, B'Port is always cited as an up-and-coming city (at least according to CNN and Forbes Magazine, amazingly enough). The Blackrock and Stratfield sections are pretty cool, but I agree: if you're on Iranistan, roll up the windows …