Boy sometimes it seems like a Starship Troopers argument breaks out every three months or so on the AV Club. Count me among those who didn't care for it. I prefer my satire to be a little more complex than just hyper-inflated stereotypes and over-the-top dialogue. Unless you're David Lynch, and you have the unsettling…

Cliff Clavin is also Republican. All it takes is one bite, you know, and then you're a Republican for life. I wonder if Kelsey turned him or if he turned Kelsey.

I don't see that Weeds is "stalling" or that this is a regular flaw in the show. As far as I can tell, it moves at exactly the same pace of narrative and character development as any other sitcom, you simply have a few crime drama twists thrown in. Personally, I thought last season was great, I thought moving away…

Also, Carl Hiaasen. I'm suddenly excited about this book.

@Sheltie

I was in Savannah recently, and it turns out that the Flannery O'Connor house was restored and has a library currently named after … wait for it … Jerry Bruckheimer. Turns out Jerry was always a fan of the devoutly Catholic and grotesque Southern short story. Go fucking figure, and for those of you playing at home,…

Accents are hard to type, by the way.

Resume. Resume. It still sounds funny to me!

@Andy Capp

The short story.

That's a good point, TWPD, and Bardem's character was a bit of a smoldering artistic urbane-yet-rustic European cliche himself, but it's undeniable that both Cruz and Bardem were a lot better at playing their respective cliches, and thus a lot more fun to watch, than either Johansson or Hall.

Yup. The mostly positive reception of VCB makes me think that movie critics as a whole have finally decided to stop worrying and love the late Woody Allen shit parade. Witness the offhand declaration above that the women in VCB are "carefully crafted." One is an uptight bitch and the other is a slutty bimbo, and that…

I was worried about it in season three, because it seemed like they had played out the drugs-in-the-suburbs angle, and they were starting to take the show in ludicrous directions. But season four was a big improvement. The move away from LA really added a lot, raised the stakes, etc. Also, Albert Brooks.

@Bertram

Saw TV last night in Richmond. Agree that the higher-production stuff tended to sound like mush, although that's hardly a TV-only problem. 60% of the live shows I've seen tend to sound like cranked up reverb with a guy shouting somewhere deep inside. I'm not a live music expert, so I don't know if this is a problem…

Solid show. A good start for Conan. Pearl Jam is fine. I haven't bought a PJ album in years, but they're definitely in the top 40% of pop music acts throughout the years. Maybe even … top 35%?

I was a Tori fan. Didn't get me laid. I even listened to Sarah McLachlan. That didn't work, either. Message to horny young nerdlings: triangulation does not work. REPEAT. Triangulation DOES NOT WORK.

At the risk of spoilers, warning warning, consider yourself warned, the ending of BM was pretty clear, I thought. The Judge is an all-consuming, unstoppable force. As far as the ending of The Road: 1) I don't think you can understand it without reading the whole novel as a message for McCarthy's (youngest) son; and 2)…

One decent movie per summer month isn't that bad. I guess. But there are some really high profile turds on that list. Especially part one. Also, just the name Dax Shepard made me really angry, and then I looked him up on Wikipedia, and now I'm even angrier. Did Boobies in Space come and go without my knowledge?

Okay, I'll cut him some slack on "Joey." But that doesn't explain "Clean Cut Kid," or even most of Empire Burlesque. Not awful stuff by any stretch of the imagination, just proof that even the best lyricist in pop music history is capable of some pretty awkward moments.