I can totally grok why the reviewer would say "Cracking Up" is set in a "cartoon world that is unremittingly cruel and difficult." That most definitely describes the experience of watching the clip.

I would agree, but maybe it doesn't qualify as under-appreciated. Little seen, probably, but not forgotten or ignored.

I personally doubt Murnau or German Expressionism was much on Allen's mind. Whenever the Woodman is at a loss for inspiration, he always goes back to the Bergman well, which is what he did here. The movie is a lame riff on "Sawdust and Tinsel," a powerful early Bergman film set in the world of a down and out circus.…

While I quite like Tony Fletcher's biography of The Smiths, it typifies in at least one regard a problem I have with almost all rock biographies — the assumption that telling the whole story means getting down to the business end of things, which is always the least interesting part. Managers, promoters, accountants,…

"Gaucho," is one of Steely Dan's great songs: an etched-in-acid, curiously tender Tinseltown story that brings to mind the novels of Bruce Wagner. It employs an unusual perspective. Just who is talking here? To me, it seems like the speaker is a Hollywood agent, telling his client that he's doing lasting professional…

Ever heard of a band called X?
They were really great. They were the face of West Coast punk in the 1970s. They wrote a number of songs that would, occasionally, fit one of your list. "Johny Hit and Run Paulene," for example, is a kind of obvious choice here.

Never herard that Eagles of Death Metal Song, but the lyrics sounds as if they were nicked from Hank, Sr.'s Move It On Over":

Hell even the African-Americans stole from the African-Americans.

Thumbs way up for Steven Hyden's passionate defense of the one and only Elvis Presley: "No other rock singer touched on as many different styles."

Somewhere, Bunuel is laughing…
…and thinking to himself: "You call THAT controversial?"

Was that the Aykroyd sketch where…
he says to his wife that the last time they were making love, Lawrence Welk was on TV "and while I was putting it to you I was fantasizing that i was putting it to all four of the Lennon Sisters"? Thirty years down the road and that line still sticks with me.

I think you're right. As I recall, it wasn't all that much of a stretch for SNL to book the McGarrigle Sisters, because they had a record out at the time ("Dancer With Bruised Knees") and they were getting a fair amount of press in Rolling Stone and other mags: they were the duo whose "Heart Like a Wheel" became a big…