Sign of the digital times: I can't even say "retweets are retweets" once without getting my tongue twisted.

Critics like Dowd should just be happy they still have jobs, because the world is passing them by? Kind of how Cincinnati should just be happy it still gets to be a city?

"Mandelbaum! Mandelbaum! Mandelbaum!"

Exactly. A hack job is one done by a hack (a mediocre-to-poor talent hired to do drudgery, and who performs the task with no enthusiasm or conception that craftsmanship in the job even exists). A hatchet job is incendiary, ruthless criticism designed to affront an artist or writer so strongly that he or she might even…

[comment removed because, of course, someone had already made the exact same joke — you people are clever and fast!]

You've identified a great need we all face. What you should do is set out to get all the great clips on YouTube. Fire up the DVDs and record them by pointing your iPhone video camera at your TV screen. No need for a tripod. And bonus style points if the volume is inaudible and half the TV screen wanders out of frame.

That underscores how critic-proof horror movies are.

Is that where Todd Van Der Wurff is these days?

"An Open Letter to Philly's Best, Who Screwed Up the Lunch Order for the Whole Office"

It explains why non-movie-critic Larry King was always getting his opinion on a film slapped onto its poster and print ads.

Nat X was so wonderful. I would love a weekly show, for the full 15 minutes!

For every tiger-parented kid who goes on to be successful, I wonder how many kids there are who end up successful after a lot of love and support. My guess is they're at least equal, so why not be a loving and supporting parent? Hugs don't cost one goddamned penny.

[ahem]

With the mention of the Avengers, Thor has already been invoked.

Well, I'd be asking "whatabotulism," too. It's serious business! Never eat food out of a can that is visibly swollen.

"Hay bails"? The last farmers in my family were starved out of Ireland in the 1840s, but even I know that's wrong.

Actually, since the film played a role in the resurgence of the KKK in the 1910s and 1920s, it's social message was less out-of-date than ahead-of-its-time.

Possible responses:

Christina Ricci and Ellen Page as sisters. Annette Benning is their mother who is dying of cancer. The two sisters have to figure out how to split up the family heirlooms. I don't know if it's a drama or a comedy.

That was the one that played out like the robbery in Heat, right? With the guys in body armor and high-caliber weapons? That shit was wild! I was really unnerved by that in a way I wasn't by the Oklahoma City bombing or even 9/11 — probably because it seemed like the sort of thing that could have become commonplace.…