I agree that Jerri and Parvati probably kept Russell around knowing that he would not do well with the jury. Sandra just never had the leverage to boot him. I do wonder how the vote would have gone with Jerri around instead of Sandra. As petty and ridiculous as the Heroes proved to be with their votes, I have to…

Glad someone else recommended Murakami! I think I brought it up last time around and I loved Sputnik Sweetheart. Would be interested in people's thoughts on Kafka on the Shore too.

I'm going to join in the love for this feature. I always get a lot of interesting insights on the books and I typically enjoy the read. Thanks!

Yeah, was surprised by all the confusion by the normally more perceptive than myself folks around here. The Rose at the end is Violet.

Provolone - I see your point about Leonard's article though he said that The Beatles were on the high end of the productivity scale at the time and Animal Collective is average for its time. Certainly better examples could have been brought to bear, but I think the writer wanted to put us in his mindset and this was…

The Penny/Leonard problem
I have to say that I am in complete agreement on the love for the Sheldon/Raj plot for all the reasons outlined above. Moving on, the focus on Penny and Leonard was a problem for me. I guess I feel the opposite of you Todd. When they accept the pairing as a fact and just roll with it, I…

Embarrassing, but I agree with the sentiment. I liked The Autograph Man, but I still haven't gotten further than one third of the way through On Beauty. I've tried at least four times. Still, the brilliance of White Teeth will keep me hopeful.

If that was mostly a response to me Sunglasses, I was mostly referring to later posters who didn't include anything substantive and didn't seem to be attempting humor.

Great response Diagnosed and my thoughts exactly. I generally have been enjoying the civil tone taken (for the most part) on the AV Club boards I read. There are some light-hearted takedowns but it saddens me to see people posting pointless things like "Fuck You Onion". First of all, do people walk into ESPN Zones…

1234 and robinm - I don't think that Leonard was saying that The Office is necessarily better or worse than in the early seasons - just that it would not be as good as it is now if it hadn't strengthened its bench.

I asked the same thing re: private investors for the show. Any super-rich benefactors out there willing to give Whedon some more leash?

Back when it came out I would recommend High Tension but tell people to turn it off about five to ten minutes before the end. Do that and you have a near perfect update of the slasher film.

I agree that Season 3 was great with only a few off episodes, but am intrigued by Todd's points here. The lack of character depth does seem like it could become problematic. For example, Kenneth grated for all of S3. I've felt that the key problem has been a different Will and Grace parallel - the guest stars. …

I can't believe that after all the love shown Phoenix's new album in the best album of the first six months of 2009, no one mentioned it here. When I need to put on the afterburners to finish a workout I look to Lisztomania and 1901.

How about San Diego? Maybe a new branch of Decider?

I will admit that I was a bit disappointed through most of the book (I loved K&C, but thought Final Solution and Yiddish Policeman's got too bogged down in genre), but still felt strangely touched by the final chapter. The whole novel was a bit like a fire that could never really get started. There were sparks here…

I recently watched Marnie and was extremely disappointed by it for a lot of the complaints that Noel had above. After Connery marries Hedren my interest in the movie nosedived. Her character was not that interesting and now she and everyone else were not doing anything particularly interesting. This is another…

My thoughts exactly ElDan. I remember watching Curb season 4 on DVD and being slightly disappointed. Then season 5 was even rougher, and I thought to myself, oh well, at least we'll always have those first three seasons. Then we met The Blacks.

I never got any kind of suicide vibe from August (though in retrospect I can see where it comes from). Since Grandfather Trout was introduced before the August story and then we got a couple of pages of the Trout vaguely recalling a human existence, it seemed to me that when August abandons the car and takes off with…

First, I don't think that it was really in Smoky's or Auberon's natures to push that hard. Asking too insistently would only have revealed how truly ignorant they themselves were. Second, we know from passages from Alice's perspectives that it wouldn't have helped if he had pushed harder. She wants to explain it to…