I would argue that American Beauty, whatever one thinks of its story or how it's aged, was very artfully made. That Conrad Hall cinematography was great. And the Thomas Newman music (together with its close cousin, his music for Pay It Forward) remains influential. And I cannot think of a movie that was better cast,…

When I was 9 or 10, I used to tape TV audio (theme songs primarily, such as Mr. Terrific and Captain Nice) using my dad's Webcor reel-to-reel tape recorder. For some reason I taped Dionne Warwick singing "The Way You Look Tonight" on The Ed Sullivan Show - it must have been 1967 or so - and that was the only version I…

Paula Devicq.

As far as I know, she retired after doing L.A. Law; perhaps she'd already planned to retire, and therefore encouraged the writers to write Rosalind to be as nasty as possible. She was great in convincingly being a love interest for Leland (Richard Dysart) at the same time. I was a big Muldaur fan as early as her two St…

I saw that - the best thing about it was that they brought back Dann Florek as Dave Meyer, the Susan Ruttan character's suitor. He was hilarious, as before. Now that Dann has finally left SVU, I hope someone casts him again in a comic role - he's so good at it.

Excuse me, but NBC first started looking "incredibly desperate" in 1980 or so, when an hour-long Best of Saturday Night Live was part of its prime-time lineup. This is nothing new, and of course it's the result of my (and thousands of other 12-year-olds') placing a curse on the network in early 1969 when it announced…

Not scandalized so much as gratified. Our local top-40 station when I was a pre-teen played "The Ballad of John and Yoko" with each "Christ" snipped out; that is, each verse skipped a beat (two 8th-notes, I guess) and went directly into "You know it ain't easy…" Until a few weeks later when I bought the single, I…

Why's that? I'm ashamed to admit I've never read any of the Dortmunder novels, and will remedy that within the next 5 years or so - but I liked The Hot Rock as it was, with no prior reference points.

Ellison was himself credited as 'creative consultant' on the Twilight Zone reboot during its 1985-86 season.

Please, AV Club, do not trust Deadline to get it right. The actual title of the story is "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman" (the last as one word, and the first two words as a quote).

I've been a huge Prisoner fan for more than 20 years but would never be able to watch them all within a few days; my brain would overload long before reaching the finale, "Fall Out." To recommend binge-watching the series to a newcomer is, shall we say, "unmutual."

Actually, it was Jerry (Jerome Irving) Rodale, not James.

Why even bother to call it Endless Love - and pay to do so - more than three decades later, when all you're saving from the first movie (which itself wasn't very faithful to the Scott Spencer novel) is the title and several first names of characters?

The guest was J. I. Rodale (of Rodale Press fame). Some of his ideas may have been worthwhile, but he was an anti-fluoridation activist and therefore persona non grata in my family - of course my dad was a dentist.

Not mentioned was that Stevie Wonder's “ 'funky' take on 'We Can Work It Out' ” (as the review puts it) was simply a very good copy of the arrangement on his 1970 cover version. He can still sing.

What is "together"? I would note (as Weide did) that Allen and Farrow maintained separate residences the entire length of their relationship, across Central Park from each other, and that Allen never even spent the night with Mia and the kids (and the presumably live-in nannies). Why there was a custody battle when he…

…stressing Mark’s dedication to emergency medicine (he’s just been promoted)…

I'd be OK with about 10 minutes in Blake Edwards' The Party or about 20 in the Aussie film Don's Party.

I'd be satisfied with Fish: The Next Generation.

The long-held fourth-, third-, and second-last notes heard in the score (during the end credits) are a quote of a motif Herrmann used in Psycho: low G, up minor seventh to F, then down a 9th to E below the G. Ominous indeed.