Surprised there's no mention of him in Taxi Driver. Wizard didn't make a huge impression on me, but I remember my Mom (a politically left Chicagoan) point him out to me as we watched it and say that it was impossible watching the movies then (mid-80s) to understand what Peter Boyle meant to people like her in the 70s.

Radio Days is fun but in a more autobiographical, less dramatic way. It feels kind of like Hemmingway's Moveable Feast, William S. Burroughs' Junky, or JG Ballard's Empire Of The Sun, a story about how he came to be who he is rather than about how he sees the world.  Very enjoyable but I don't get lost in it as I do…

Back off Craig. @avclub-33807fbc68d335db8080d3c10cb78822:disqus is one of the JEUNEST people I know!

Thinking about that joke & Midnight In Paris shows how long an idea can rattle around inside a person's brain before being finally (and very profitably) realized. 

So I hit the coffee maker. And it felt good hitting it. And…I…well I beat the crap out of it, really.

"Pardon me…I'll put Mr. Allen on the phone."

@avclub-cfc0f51c3e5d754e57558f4d79ca1637:disqus : Agreed on Love and Death, though my favorite part is Diane Keaton's super-fast monologues, and in particular the one about whether she should pity-marry Woody before he dies.  Something like…

And why is he doing a bad ventriloquism of interviewing himself? That's a very Jonesy "absurd and funny but not really building anything" touch.

And create some new ones.

For a moment I read that as "two days after the final episode of SMASH" and was afraid I had instantly lost 20 years.

But were you a sequel? Perhaps with a roman numeral in your name?

10-year-old me would sharply disagree. But it's been decades so I'll let it lie.

Wow, I can totally picture him in This World Then The Fireworks, getting blackmailed by Billy Zane. Great job being believable but also in the spirit of that extremely CRAZY movie.

A vest jacket.

Come for the curly fries, leave with the runs.

@avclub-e5c9a9b84b65dfc5ba62c677aefc5d4a:disqus  I think _Spartacus_ (the Kubrick movie) gives a very nice capsule idea of pre-Imperial Rome. It's fictionalized and made into an America allegory, but even so it catches you up on the demogogues vs. the aristocrats, how command of armies would get given out for complex…

@avclub-274e6fcf4a583de4a81c6376f17673e7:disqus Am reading it myself, and having a great time. I think he's called into question a lot as far as the personal behavior / motives of the individual emperors, but still good on a lot of larger events. Plus he gives a nice idea of the flow, so that when you learn differing…

I'm now wondering something that should have occurred to me long ago, which is whether _Charmed_ began life as a Samantha & Jeanie team-up fan fic.

@avclub-2a50e3b61d7da907adce74114394ccc3:disqus  @avclub-6ef36c8de89f58253dbbd5f338837bf1:disqus Agreed, but I now realize that since they do have "no stars" as an option, 2 stars is more like 3/6 than 2/5. So roughly a C- maybe?

They write her character out so fast I was pretty shocked (I hadn't read the comic, so I don't know if they're just following it). Weird to waste one of their few developed characters (and really one of only two substantial female characters) for basically nothing.