Eistein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. How many times before making the same lame joke over and over moves from mere insanity to all out idiocy—especially when I'm not going anywhere? I could play along, act like it bothers me more or less than it actually…

'Rubicon' never had a chance. I'm surprised it was allowed to finish a whole season. You can't build an audience for a conspiracy drama that accumulates details so relentlessly and humorlessly—even if the overall effect is worthwhile in retrospect (and I say this as someone who admired the show and despises AMC).…

I hope to God Darryl isn't the stereotype his brother is. I know when I used to fantasize about the apolocolypse back in Jr. High, I was getting crossbow for sure. Not only for the advantages previously outlined (noise, coolness) but also because the ammo is reusable and the technology is sustaining (which is why they…

I liked 'Zombieland' and I don't care who knows it.

I kind of feel bad for Shane. He was a bit of a pig in the prologue, but on the whole he's like anyone else, making the best of a bad situation. He may have even been able to rationalize with himself that taking care of Rick's wife and son was a noble, honorable thing to do under the circumstances. And so he may be…

Easy Pickin's
I don't know if I like how the three characters we are being asked not to like are all apparently signifiers of Poor White Southern culture (and while I don't know if the show has been explicit about their pre-apocolyptic economic status, you'd be hard pressed to make the case they come from money). It…

'The Player' is my textbook example of the meta-narrative because it's not just a movie about movie-making (like, I dunno, 'Under the Rainbow') but a movie in which every decision, every turn the film itself makes has implications for its own message about film-making—the extent that you have to ask yourself in the…

Okay—so is this the thread about what constitutes criticism as apposed to meta-narrative? You could make the case, you know, that any film (or work of art) in the choices it makes, in what it includes or omits, is a kind of implied criticism of all that informed it—whether the artist is aware or not. This is the kind…

Do I have to add 'Millenium Actress'? Actually that's only the most explicit of Satoshi Kon's films as film commentary. Even 'Paranoia Agent' is about fantasy, the role of escapism and revised personal narrative (which, as it happens, just called to my mind the work of Terry Gilliam) which for all of us are informed…

Don't think of elephants, Toots.

I watched both versions of 'Funny Games' on consecutive nights of a single weekend—starting with the original. I was impressed with Naomi Watts in the latter, but there's something weird about how it suffers for its cast being known Hollywood quantities. I don't know how "famous" the cast in the original would be to…

Blaxploitation soundtrack records are often better than the movies they were made for. There was a period where every Funk act worth paying attention to had at least one soundtrack album to its credit, and the corollary was that a lot of the Funk records of that era had extended cinematic jazzy instrumental "mood"…

i and 1—I always like the Eurythmics score myself, but there's some what say there's a different score to that movie that's even better. I never heard it myself, but for what it's worth people whose opinions I respect make that claim.

Speaking of Funk—how many great Funk records are soundtracks to Blaxploitation films? 'Shaft in Africa', 'Willie Dynamite', 'Cleopatra Jones' etc. A lot of those records are better than the movies they come from.

Hang up your chick habit…

To get past the original version's extranneous reprises, Mango released a two disc deluxe edition of 'The Harder They Come' soundtrack a while back—the second disc is not actually music from the film, but just a selection of Reggae from around the same time. It's a pretty good complement though.

I spent a summer playing Intellivision's Burgertime while listening to The Cult's 'Electric'. Now the two are inextricably linked in my mind.

I got it through Napster—but I'm pretty sure it was recorded from the DVD and not an actual release. And the song 'Beat City' by the Flowerpot Men that plays behind the garage guys joyride is also pretty hard to find.

'Sixteen Candles'
Whatever you think of John Hughes and his teen films (and 'She's Having a Baby'), they always made pretty good music choices—at least until 'Some Kind of Wonderful'. This has not always been reflected on the actual releases of the soundtracks on record—for example, 'Pretty in Pink' includes a few…

It's back! And without the slightest hint of originality!