I can't say that any song gives me goosebumps every time–it's got a lot to do with the mood I'm in when I'm listening–but the huge final verse and chorus of 'Ansaphone,' a Pulp b-side from circa 1995, usually gets me. When I lived in Pittsburgh, and I was on the bus coming back from the airport to the city, I'd try to…

Well, sure, but practice makes perfect. I'm not saying it would be original. But there would be endless one-take tracking shots.

Even based solely on the trailers I can't help but wish Fincher (I know, it's not a new opinion) or any other director with a shred of personal style had gotten to direct this. Not that the material is necessarily any good, but that's never stopped great directors, or just amazing directorial stylists (Adrian Lyne,…

This takes me back to my very angry, gothy, adolescence when I'd watch NBK, rewind it, and then watch it again, back to back. At the time it felt incantatory; honestly, I can't even bring myself to watch it now. Partly because Stone's hyperactive, "hey, look at me!" style has aged about as poorly as a can of OK Cola,…

He's got the Philosopher's Stone, right? Will American audiences even know what a philosopher is?

They just might not have enough money for the effects to do Grodd justice. I mean, I guess he could be a shadowy, gorilla-sized lump, like one of those giant teddy bears they sell at Costco. But that would be lame.

It's time for this show to branch out a little beyond the "Hey look, another dark Flash analogue" template. Pitting Barry against speedster after speedster, where their confrontation always boils down to some sort of competition over who's the fastest, has gotten old.

I can ask, but I doubt there's a satisfying answer at the end of that phone call. I've always suspected there's a built-in tension between the somewhat more restrained and nuanced character/family drama the show started out as, and the Walking Dead brand, that just wants gasp-worthy moments and "unexpected" character…

Yeah, these are just taking up space on my DVR at this point. One of my friends writes for it and I still don't ever feel like sitting down and watching.

You're right, it does make sense. I guess I'm just anxious waiting around for the show to twist the format in some way that I'm looking for holes in everything.

It's probably a worthless thing to focus on, considering how generally "freewheeling" AHS tends to be with storytelling, but there's a weird nesting doll quality to the re-enactments that drives me nuts. Like, we're supposed to believe that Sarah Paulson, et al, are actors dramatizing the events being related by Lily…

Even at the end, when he "unmasks" Albert, and Katherine, his biological mom, is all "very nice Val," it's as if his sudden good behavior is supposed to make up for everything he's put his family through.

We are, but we're also supposed to understand the reasons why he decides to go along with the plan. And it's hard to reconcile his pride with his acquiescence. Basically the movie is trying to have it both ways and it really can't.

Thank you. I get that they're trying to set up a farce, and that they weren't thinking about the realism or maintenance of such a huge piece of trickery, but the whole enterprise is just unnecessary, retrograde, and cruel.

I'd say the whole Talking Heads album discography is pretty essential, even Naked, which is a lot better than its reputation would indicate. Remain in Light and Speaking in Tongues are probably the ones I reach for the most, though.

I got a Newfoundland. Which I thought was oddly specific.

While it was incredibly satisfying that both Alyssa and Tatianna chose Phi Phi to go home, I would have been fine if Roxxxy had gotten the boot too. She flopped so hard onstage that I'm surprised she didn't crack the fiberglass of the runway.

Yeah, this is one of those movies that could have fallen totally flat without such a great lead performance. There's nothing overwhelmingly innovative going on with the plot, or the scares, really, but Jill Larson is so committed and sweet in her lucid moments that she really makes the audience care about her fate,…

Sure, it's muddled and overstuffed, but as far as AHS goes, it's practically restrained. Most of the supernatural elements are all threaded together in a way that mostly makes sense. Even the Giggly Murder Nurses sort of work thematically, if you believe that whatever happened in the past is acting as a beacon for…

The cold open features a dude being drugged and dumped into some kind of radioactive swamp that's adjacent to the hospital, along with the Halloween costume that his murderer was wearing at the time. So… maybe both?