I somehow relate The Artist to Slumdog Millionaire as a best picture winner. Like, they both don't do anything too ambitious film-wise, or story-wise, or ethically. But they are just so damn fun and sort of unique in their time and place in the cultural landscape, that it's hard to deny them.

I agree, those plots seem weak, or just too much. But they tie those plots up nicely I think, better than I ever thought they'd turn out. Sad you were spoiled on Omar, that blew my mind.

Something great about RULES OF THE GAME is the precision staging and shooting. The last half or third of the movie, when they're all running around the house and one group leaves the frame as another is coming in from another area. It would have been so difficult to shoot, more complex than almost everything that came…

Wow.wowowoowow.

I find the two Reznor and Ross soundtracks are the very best for background music while studying or working.

A lot of people think 4 is the best and yeah 5 looks sort of weak in comparison. 
But hot damn episodes 8, 9 and 10 of season 5 can stand beside any other great episode in the series. Those three episodes are as good as the series got.

I'm reading Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem. Anyone read it or any other Lethem and have thoughts?

You can't love to hate Kenard though. He's a fucking kid! I hate to hate Kenard.

McNulty's shittiness as a father and friend was NECESSARY. Imagine if he was a great father and social person, that would round out the whole package and essentially make him a saint. And how unrealistic and unappetizing would that be, to have your primary protagonist as a saintly independent fighter of crime, almost…

Truth be told geoffzilla. Jimmy needs more love.

Yeah the worst thing about Carcetti is that I actually believed him for a little while.

The Greek and Vondas. Clay Davis. Herc. Ziggy was a good one already mentioned. 
Worst of all perhaps: Morris Levy.

You could make an argument for any character in It's Always Sunny but at the top of the list would have to be the McPoyles.  those gross fucks.

No. Please no. :-(

Very good point about McNulty. The season does do that, and I always loved where he ends up at the end of the season.

Imagine if any one else other than Woody Allen made that movie. It would have never got a meeting or a read through, let alone a lucrative deal with big stars and a goddamn Oscar. It's a kids movie, in a way. As much as I liked it, I think the Oscar was given based on Allen still being alive, and Hemingway's funny…

I also saw ACT OF VALOR with my father in law. And holy shit it was so bad it made me angry. There was zero stakes. SEALS might be some of the most interesting people in the world, with the most dangerous jobs in the world. But the film reduced their work to a mere video game style shoot em up, with characters so thin…

i also watched Midnight in Paris. I liked it, but yes, mostly for its charm and "cuteness". Marion Cotillard is so adorable I felt I may explode. And Owen Wilson's Woody Allen impression is kinda cute and funny.

Re-watched most of season 3 of the Wire. Season 3 hasn't been impressing me as much as it did the first time through, when I thought it was almost perfect. Maybe because it seems less complex than season 2? Once you know the twists and turns of the Barksdale organization's fate, that's the best part of the season.…

No one tells me to go out and get fresh air……