But the filmmakers do frame the movie in a way that leads viewers in one direction and then the tone and focus of the movie changes sharply as the story develops.

I think you're totally right @avclub-af0b3f7f8672d108ac2c5683aafa3371:disqus .  I think Season 1 is great; I love the sense of style, the frame of reference and the wavelength the show was on.  But, even though I think it's a lot of fun and smartly done, it's charms can often boil down to "Hey, they're riffing on Johnn…

This is a great example; it goes from bittersweet love letter for a friend to just an emotionally wrenching, punch-in-the-gut procedural.  I knew going in that there was some kind of emotional gear-shift moment to the story (without knowing what the whole story was) and even that didn't prepare me for the experience…

Ok, I guess I could see that, @alice20c:disqus . Thanks.

That's a great Billy Bob story, @avclub-b750f74544cb00c138079607276995e9:disqus . He was on Norm Macdonald Live just the other week and he was talking about how The Man Who Wasn't There was maybe his favorite role as an actor there too.

Film Review - Erased

I tend to not agree with his conclusions and am not always sure where he's coming from (that Toy Story 3 doesn't ,"reflect human experience" and "besides, Transformers 2 already explored the same plot to greater thrill and opulence", to cite one infamous example) but I have to admit that his reviews tend to be very…

But are those results reproducible, like @avclub-754537075c5105c55477db49c94d584f:disqus 's?

He and Baumbach have a bit of a history…

I've had just about enough of your Vassar bashing, @avclub-45d15693cb729fefc030a41d117da9c1:disqus !

That is a pretty funny bit but I prefer Gaffigan's take on the phrase, "It's McDonalds".

Ah, I see; let me try it…

Have you not met Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, yet?

Unearned neediness? Versus earned neediness?  I'm not sure I understand the distinction here…

This isn't necessarily "basic knowledge that a grown man should know" but I found his ignorance of who Mary Lynn Rajskub is in his talk with Paul F. Tompkins really off-putting.  It was more the way he handled it than the fact that he didn't know who she was.  PFT was telling a story about her and Pete started making…

"how low the stakes were relative to all the mess" is a great way to put it, @bcfred:disqus . That's one of the things I find so funny about Burn After Reading and I see the same thing in The Big Lebowski.

I really like CQ; it's definitely not a perfect movie but I think there is a bunch of interesting stuff going on and, like you say, it looks awesome. I like the way it plays with themes of "art-imitating-life-imitating-art" and "artificiality vs. authenticity"; I think it would make a good double-feature with Adaptatio…

That's an interesting comparison, @avclub-0f0d67e214f9fef69b278e3d08114da9:disqus . I've always linked Burn After Reading with The Big Lebowski in my mind, in that they're both stories where everything the characters go through and all the plot mechanics amount to much ado about nothing (well, except for the…

I never thought of The Man Who Wasn't There as a comedy until I watched it with the commentary; the Coens and Billy Bob are cracking up the whole time.

"direct, and not sensationalist" is how I would describe Chance's approach to the subject of Chicago violence on the album, too.  He has some nice verses on the topic on the second half of "Pusha Man" (it's sort of two songs with different beats put together).