Catwoman, Bane, Ra's Al Ghul's kid, Joseph Gordon Levitt as Guy Fieri…
I'm afraid this is shaping up to be one of those superhero clusterfucks with too many villains, like Spider-Man 3, X-Men 3, and the Schumacher Batmans. Nolan's track record as a filmmaker is the only assurance we have that that isn't the case.

Casey Barteau. My new Twitter background. Beautiful.

Meanwhile, in Music That Isn't Terrible:
M83: Saturdays = Youth
Portishead: Third
Rising Down: The Roots
Santogold: Santigold
Nouns: No Age
Lay It Down: Al Green
Fleet Foxes: Fleet Foxes
Evil Urges: My Morning Jacket
At Mount Zoomer: Wolf Parade
Modern Guilt: Beck
Untitled: Nas
Pro Tools: GZA

Her?!
Have Best Coast's and Dum Dum Girls' albums aged that well? Both seemed thin last year, like modestly delightful novelties. That either should have made an A record is surprising, to say the least.

It looks TERRIBLE. But honestly, I didn't much care for any of the original film. The banter feels off, as the cast hasn't got the wit or the timing to sell it. The monster is laughable. The characters are so thin they're just archetypes. The pace is too slow to build any real suspense. The Thing from Another World is…

"Ice" was a direct tribute to The Thing. One of the first great episodes of The X-Files, too. They learned from the best.

"Sideshow Bob Roberts" picks up this episode's brilliant satire of the entire American political system and runs with it.

It was similar framing, but the field in "Over There" was in Massachusetts, while the field in "Subject 13" is in Florida.

Zero Sum
This is probably my favorite episode of The X-Files that isn't written by Darin Morgan. Kim Manners does probably his best directorial work here, suffusing the episode with terrible dread and sadness. Spotnitz & Gordon's screenplay is spare enough to allow the direction to set the episode's tone, but still…

Well, thanks everyone. I could never have done it… without this briefcase full of cocaine.

That's what it was announced as a few months ago. I guess they changed the title in post-production. I was hoping that the next one would be "6 Months Later," following the events of last week's episode.

Exactly. Occasionally the writing isn't so hot (well, mostly just in "Concentrate and Ask Again"), but the long road to healing Olivia has been on is MUCH truer to life than most television. Actual people vacillate; they hedge; they obsess; they act in ways that aren't immediately dramatically satisfying. Fringe isn't…

The white tulip signified a miracle for Walter. However, the image of the tulip was sent by a man who bent the laws of reality to put it there; it was an imagined act, a willed act, a human act. Thus the white tulip signified for the audience that in the universe of Fringe, man IS God, with the power of imagination…

According to Pinker's Twitter feed, the hazy look was achieved by using pantyhose as a filter, like Henri Alekan did for Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast and for Wings of Desire.

Second the love for The Carnival. I regretted not mentioning it before.

Holy crap, this was a great year. Of course, I was listening to Third Eye Blind and generally sucking at the time, but hindsight is relatively crisper vision anyway.

1. In Rainbows - A+
2. OK Computer - A+
3. Kid A - A+
4. The Bends - A
5. Amnesiac - A-
6. Hail to the Thief - A-
7. The King of Limbs - B-
8. Pablo Honey - B-

GLEE SHOULD WIN ALL THE GRAMMIES!
ALL THE GRAMMIES! EVERY LAST ONE!

If Tobey Maguire was born to do anything, it was to play Nick Carraway. He's a cipher. Carraway is a cipher. Perfect casting!

What's sad is that Luhrmann is squandering what might be the best possible cast for this movie on his 3D Garishcolor shenanigoats.