I get the same reaction from the phrase "no-brainer" or when people say I complain too much about the mindlessness of TV or movies. Why should we celebrate how unchallenged we are?

Well at any rate, guys, thanks for the conversation—this is what the AVC should be.

He said "Bantha Tracks"—I'd forgotten all about that. But I do recall knowing pretty early on ('Empire' era at least) much of the basic substance of the prequels—Anakin falling in a pit of lava and all that—as well as a large chunks of the Han Solo back story, which I probably got from the novels. Alan Dean Foster's…

"Part of the problem is, as has been mentioned, O'Neal"

Hedy Lamarr—she was fucking genius:

I recognize that there is a scholarly consensus for the temporal and geographic limits on Noir and I'm not disputing that consensus as much as interrogating it. I have heard the period described as the era of "Classic Noir" a term that has the dubious distinction of bringing to mind both Classic Rock (itself a moving…

"Doesn't Puffy own the rights to that book or something"

While Dylan Thomas is British (as opposed to English), wouldn't he have rather said Welsh? I don't know his politics. I'm pretty sure Robbie Burns never called himself a Brit.

Lobsters, you have entered into some kind of baroque phase of commenting that I quite like. Keep it up!

So what you're saying, Pookah, is that bad-mouthing Ryan O'Neal gives you cancer? I'll watch what I say, then.

I was thinking about this kind of thing when Gang of Four's new album came out—that reunions of that sort are bound to disappoint. Either you pick up where you left off and make the exact kind and caliber of music you used to—as if no intervening time had past—and disappoint for not moving forward (See also Blondie)…

Forget that—I want to hear an album from a collaboration called "Morrissey & Mould".

And yet, if 'Jedi' is any indication, they were not going to maintain the quality for long. I maintain that, as a trilogy, 'Star Wars' was two and a half great films and one half of an OK one. But if you add to it three? no six! more—even if they are all as good as the lesser half of 'Jedi' (as some of the prequels…

That's the second call for 'Streets of Fire' related material. I had no idea so many people had even seen it.

Yeah, but it's not like anyone's pummelling her, is it?

"best British poet"

I liked it and I watched it but 'Rubicon' was doomed from the start. It didn't help that it was positioned before its sophisticated audience switched channels to watch 'Mad Men' (as opposed to catching them afterward on its coattails), or that in turn it often followed such AMC "New Classics" as 'Cat Woman' or 'Gone…

That's not a movie, that's a Rock & Roll Fable.

Iman as Storm? Blecch.

Stipe on that Indigo Girls track was really only an added harmonic texture—I think it works, but mainly because he wasn't out front. But when I saw them in '87 the opener was 10,000 Maniacs—back before they had broken out on 120 Minutes. Since nobody knew them, they were playing to a pretty indifferent crowd at the…