"Zooey Deschanel"
That is one of the sexiest sequences of letters (and phonemes!) that I know of. The only name more stimulating from a synaesthetic point of view is Doualy Xaykaothao.

Yeah 'Jonathan Creek' is hardly gritty—"I solve mysteries using the technology and skills of a professional magician!"

The British may be inefficient at the real thing, but they are especially good at TV Crime—I just watched the 'Red Riding Trilogy' and it was incredible. 'Waking the Dead' was everything 'Cold Case' and the 'CSI' franchise wishes it were. Watching Mystery Mondays and other police procedurals on BBC America ('Wire in…

Going back to 'The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover':

I think some of the criticism is an accident—fallout from the interviews Spike Lee was giving early on in his career. There was some question about why 'School Daze', 'Mo Better Blues', or 'She's Gotta Have it' don't feature more developed White characters (or for that matter, concern themselves with winning a White…

Or just to watch him die ?

There's also the point about what is said and accepted vs. what is thought and kept to one's self. Making racist comments nowadays reveals two things at once—First how racist one is, and then how stupid one is for not hiding it better.

"Don kills himself"

Homie, I wondered why they went with that particular Simon & Garfunkel song and I think you've got it. I was thinking it was a very New York song from them, and an early example of Paul Simon's better songwriting, and it has a general air of wistfulness—but why that one? And elsewhere I was talking about musical…

"Comedy Central in HD"

YOU SUNOFABITCH! YOU LEFT THE BODIES DINTCHA!?
I was hoping that a new DVD release of 'Prime Suspect' would mean that it would turn up on netflix streaming. No such luck yet, but that would certainly take care of my viewing plans for a month or more. I have them all on my reglar queue but there's something about…

Futurechimp and Martian—That opening was the first thing I thought of too—in my family it was usually accompanied by the smell of popcorn made on the stove top, and the message was clear: This was not TV, this was a TV SPECIAL (cue ad for McDonalds gift certificates).

"something that shitty lasted for as long as it did"

I'll admit "humbly" and "gracefully" are not quite the right words—what I meant was that Britain recognized its time was up when it could no longer hold it together and bowed out—like a boxer who retires before racking up too much brain damage.

The funny thing Adolph and unicyclistperiscopes, is that there's no way America wants to accept that it will ever be anything but the biggest kid on the block, so nobody of consequence (like, I dunno, Obama who I suspect gets it) can right come out and say what needs to be said, which is "let's step down humbly and…

Oh definitely check out Japan—it will shock you how much of Duran Duran's early work is similar. But I should warn you—It's all good, but it's not all of the same New Romantic stripe (although it's all really good). The one album that does that most is 'The Quiet Life' from 1979, although the compilation 'Assemblage'…

'1941' is an understandable hiccup because although it was competently directed it was a total misfire in terms of comedy. But it was only Spielberg's 4th feature film and his first outright comedy (and in a way, his last) so it's reasonable to expect that he just bit off more than he could chew in an area that was…

"one hot album every ten year average"

"a pretty great album"

A lot of really good R&B artists were marginalized instantly by the quasi-racist Disco Sucks movement—and found sanctuary in the shelter of Adult Contemporary (check out the Pointer Sisters prior to their 'I'm So Excited' days: http://www.youtube.com/watc… ), but Lionel Ritchie more than the others really has himself…