MacGuyvers of Suicide
Is my new band name.

Paxton wins for the bar scene in Near Dark. Tell me that Bill Pullman has something that awesome in his back catalog. Come on, I'm waiting.

Langston Hughes = overrated.

1-10: Neil Young
Honorable mention: Neil Young
Lifetime achievement award: Neil Young

Ham on Rye would be more Portrait-esque, but it completely denies Hank any kind of epiphany - which is far more realistic, and beautiful in its own way.

Writers
Nobody mentioned Thomas Pynchon yet. Lots of love for Kerouac, but I'll throw Burroughs in there as well. Mark Twain. Truman Capote. Ray Bradbury. Tennessee Williams.

And the conversation with Richard Nixon in the limo about football. And pretty much every incisive sentence of that motherfucker.

That's not to imply that TFAD isn't affecting it, which he most certainly is.

They read vaguely like the letters of serial killers who leave out random articles or have numerous errors in plurals or possessives. Can grammar be creepy? Yes, yes it can.

My Big Fat American Ego
My Big Fat Swiss Neutrality
My Big Fat Mexican Drug Cartel
My Big Fat English Muffin

Sure, but the childhood-to-young-adulthood arc of that one and Hank's setbacks, disillusionment and discovery of how few options there really are out there just jumped out at me in terms of Americana. It's like a super-cynical Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

My avatar agrees with you wholeheartedly.

Ham on Rye = American as fuck.

The Fogerty warble and the Creedence choogle mean driving all day with the windows down here in the good old US of A.

Hunter S. Thompson
HST's patriotism is, for me, real patriotism - caring enough about your country to point out with great articulation and venom its biggest failings and hypocrisies.

But Levon Helm is that essential keystone that sells their rootsiness. That man's Arkansas upbringing brings the soul that sells songs like "King Harvest."

Settle down now, they're both equally incomprehensible. Both great movies as well, in my opinion. I kinda prefer Lost Highway though, simply for the dread factor which is just through the fucking roof.

Somehow I feel like the "Revenge of the Plants" scenario and the "Jesus-y Aliens Pull the Old Testament Wrath and Recycle Bit" scenario were born out of the same brainstorming session.

Zodiac does indeed rule. The DV distracted me at a couple of points, but for the most part I agree, that movie looked great.

Silence of the Lambs is an excellent film. I could MAYBE see one arguing that it's overrated (I would respectfully disagree) but to say that it is subpar compared to "most films," why that's madness.