Ah, the impotent rage about the female characters in Mad Max is hysterical. I love it.

I really can't stand Breakfast of Champions. I personally would recommend his short stories-Welcome to the Monkey House, or Bagombo Snuff Box as a close second. I think you get an adequate taste of his main concerns. I also find his style a little grating, so the short stories are the perfect dose for me.

That's a good point. I read SH5 in high school English and was sort of meh on it (probably because of the jackasses who thought they were deep for putting "So it goes" on their lockers). Took a WWII class in college, and had to read SH5 again. Taken in that context, especially looking at it as Vonnegut's way of…

I always loved his short stories the best and recommend Welcome to the Monkey House as a Vonnegut primer (and then Bagombo Snuff Box, first book of his I enjoyed). There's something about Vonnegut's style-I like what he has to say, but I prefer him in small doses.

I never thought of Vonnegut as a Boomer thing. I guess the Boomers were coming of age when Vonnegut was publishing his best work, though. Maybe you're an older Gen Xer and I'm a younger Xer, I dunno. I know my father the Boomer was always a huge Vonnegut fan and (slowly got me into him). Hell, my mom was the tail end…

This makes a lot more sense. It seems bizarre to call him Ultron, given the vastly different circumstances of his creation in the movie. I guess his purpose is largely the same, but I think Samantha Nelson is correct to point out that this different creation story does have quite an impact on how you read the…

De gustibus and all that. I like it because I know just enough about British politics to understand what's going on, but not enough to notice any obvious flaws or oversimplification. That's what ruins Veep for me. It's a really distractingly facile look at American politics. I want to say that Ianucci doesn't really…

How could I have forgotten about The Matrix?

Yeah, I think the weakness in Fight Club is Palahniuk's, not Fincher's. It was a great movie for its time, and I think it was a fine end of century capstone. I still think the 90s were the Golden Age of Gen X cinema-this probably calls for a long long comment, but the short of it is, I'd probably say in that respect…

Battle of the anecdata time! First woman I ever dated, in high school, was very into Fight Club. Possibly more so than I was. And this was not long after it came out-from what I recall, the movie took a few years to really gain its cult following, so that makes it all the more impressive to me. I understand that the…

Alpha House is solid. Nothing tops The Thick of It for political comedy, but it's solid. Bosch is worth it just to see Titus Welliver get a leading role.

Don't quit your gay job

"I don't think expecting Betty to do most of the childrearing is eyebrow-worthy."

Quarterbacks are relatively coddled in the NFL when it comes to hits, so he probably has most of the cognitive function he started with (whatever that may be). Linebackers, on the other hand…

How have other teams' coaches/owners responded to this? Because I think you can tell a lot about the prevalence of this kind of stuff in the league based on that. If most of them are tightlipped, that tells you that this type of stuff is common and they don't want to press their luck/draw too much attention to…

I'd move to Wichita if it meant being with Alison Brie. Shit, I'd leave every earthly possession behind, buy an overpriced last minute plane ticket, and race over to JFK and be there ASAP.

They did an interview with Stanley during "Mad Men Week" a few weeks ago. Never thought much about his character, but he seemed like a good guy, made me wish they had given him a little more to do.

So much better than VDW

I think that might be the last we see of Joan. As a fan of her character, it sucks. But from a storytelling perspective, a solid ending.

I believe that, until at least the early or mid 1970s, a married woman needed her husband's permission to get a credit card. The criminalization of marital rape didn't *begin* until the 1970s. So yeah, I definitely believe that. When it comes to sexism, there's very little I won't believe.