I read the first story and was really dumbfounded about the praise—thought it was pretty goofy. Does it get better?

A Serious Man and Barton Fink are the ones I chew on in my mind the most. Every Coen film has some kind of surreal or ambiguous element I can't quite put my finger on, but those are especially haunting…

Oh, it was so cool. I wish the students had been entirely made up of AV Club commenters because a lot of those kids were way lame.

Fucking awesome movie.

My favorites from that collection are Pop Art, My Father's Mask, and Bobby Conroy Comes Back from the Dead. All three of them were just so moving and strange. I guess that says I'm not a huge fan of straight-up horror. I thought I would love Locust (The Metamorphosis is maybe my favorite piece of writing ever), but I…

Any Trouble's "Second Best" is the best "Second Best."

They're triple-platinum, are you?

Fair enough. Maybe it does all come down to taste, since "Mr. November" is an absolute favorite of mine.

Also, this definitely is not the same old story of a band getting older and toning things down. One of the best things about The National is how they've progressed with each album while still retaining their distinctive core elements. They're not dialing back their intensity, but relying on it less and less to craft…

Three listens are enough for you to absorb and pronounce judgment on the new album from your favorite band?

I dug this movie a lot, but not House of Mirth so much. It does okay by the period, but I feel like if you're going to adapt Wharton you really have to stick the landing since that's where she places the crucial emotional culmination of all that's come before.

I think it's misreading the film to call Pfeiffer's character a femme fatale. It's not like she's trying to ensnare Day-Lewis or anything like that. She's a good person and they share a genuine bond; the tragedy of the story is they can't (or won't) act on it.

Those Who Can't sounds pretty one-note, which is disappointing.

Popless is reference-level awesome. Anytime I'm looking into a new band, I always check to see if Noel wrote about them in his column.

Are you the kid from Updike's "A&P"?

There is actually a literary criticism movement called "ecocriticism." And yeah, that's basically what it does.

Just hit a fire hydrant, but I survived. #Unbreakable #What’sMrGlassuptothesedays #Whynosequel

The idea behind this feature is a good one, but it seems ridiculous to say something like Tegan and Sara's seventh album is essential listening while ignoring that one of the most significant and influential bands of indie music released its first album in 21 years.

Noel is my favorite music writer on this site, but I can't understand his resistance to Grizzly Bear. Shields isn't sloppy, hookless, or dissonant. In fact, the thing that sets "Sleeping Ute" apart from the rest of the album is its sound. Structurally, it's not different from "The Hunt" or "Half Gate."

Noel is my favorite music writer on this site, but I can't understand his resistance to Grizzly Bear. Shields isn't sloppy, hookless, or dissonant. In fact, the thing that sets "Sleeping Ute" apart from the rest of the album is its sound. Structurally, it's not different from "The Hunt" or "Half Gate."