Some time ago, a reader wrote into Rolling Stone complaining that they had panned Zeppelin's albums when released but were now lauding praise on them. The editors retorted that they had given four of the albums positive reviews, three mixed reviews and one negative one. I haven't gone back and checked on this, but…

As long as the breath is saying "Queen, while a good band, was never as good as Led Zeppelin," I don't disagree either. Zeppelin never had a Hot Space in their catalog.

I'm sorry, when did these rules get written down? And why is the sentence "And no one played synths," found in the liner notes of the first album, the equivalent of "written in stone"? The Game is a good album, but for fuck's sake, can we talk about the quality of the music without having to invent putative rules the…

Those of us with birthdays in February are particularly screwed by this: you can forget having a dinner-and-movie treat to celebrate because there's fuck-all to see.

One reason the film studios Paramount was reluctant to greenlight Anchorman 2 is that Ferrell's films have made barely a dent in foreign markets — Anchorman grossed like $5 million, Talladega Nights $15 million, Blades of Glory $27 million (which is not the one I'd have thought would do the best). For some reason,…

Because L.A. Confidential is Chinatown's paste-eating cousin — we don't need to keep dumbing down the seedy-L.A.-history genre.

A few years a go I TAed for a class on television history and the professor showed the first episode of Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. After it was done, the professor dismissed the class early but said he wanted to watch another episode himself; if the students wanted to stay, they were more than welcome to. About…

For three or so years now, students have been listing Hook and Space Jam as their favorite movies. As a teacher, I have to sound supportive; as a human being, I feel my soul dying a bit.

Meh. His Esquire stuff was okay, but his Scenic Route essays here have generally been unbearable. And it was not just his opinion on Children of Men — it was his arrogant insistence that his ideas of "real cinema" were better than anyone else's and his complete misunderstanding of film theory that were the real…

Wait, I thought the D'Angelo was when, over the course of the review or article, it becomes clear that the writer has no idea what he or she is talking about.

This film was really disappointing. It "borrows" from a lot of past horror films (including Insidious) but never manages to establish a tone of its own — a mishmash of haunted house tropes, demonic possession tripe and family melodrama cliches. But maybe that's meant to reflect the Warrens themselves, who never met a…

Hologram whiskey, eh? I think vodka was Bonham's drink of choice…

Tell her a monster came and took him to daddy heaven.

And Paul Rudd. And boobs.

I'm more comfortable with doctoral-level deconstruction of anything, including that which is felt at a visceral level. The guy is obnoxious in his presentation, but I don't begrudge him the attempt or desire to analyze black metal or to transform it.

I don't think I'd call it pretentious either… douchebaggy, maybe? Is that a word? Arrogant for sure. But he's young and an artist. It kinda goes with the territory.

I deal with the meaning of the text as I see it; if I can find information about the motivations of the artist, I include that in my analysis as necessary.

@avclub-920530cb8744c679e3a2ece84f1d5ce4:disqus , there is indeed some overlap in the fan bases of Led Zeppelin and Kid Rock. Many, many others of us in the Zeppelin fan base cringed with horror when Kid Rock came out during the Kennedy Center show. If you don't like the group, fine, but there is absolutely no reason…

Might in private, but I doubt it, if for not other reason than "dumb as balls" isn't a particularly defensible analytic. I've written about films I don't particularly care for, but that's a private opinion separate from the analysis.

I don't call music, films, people, etc. pretentious; nor do I try to assume I can intuit why someone did something based on the result of that effort.