if you have aversions to prog and metal but still like mastodon, then i'd recommend checking out Black Mountain if you haven't done so yet. especially their newest album, "In the Future".

Isis is fucking amazing. I saw them at an art gallery in Pittsburgh right after Oceanic came out and it was the single loudest show I've ever seen. The bass and drums were so loud that my insides felt like they were beating along. It was intense. My metal/punk aficionado roommate at the time had to go stand…

on the downside, Mastodon makes some of the worst music videos I've ever seen. what was with the clown in the Blood and Thunder video?

I couldn't believe that no one else in metal had ever thought to make a concept album out of Moby Dick. If any book was ever begging to be made into a beastly, brutal, thrashy metal album, it was Moby Dick. I was so pumped when I heard about that idea, because I was such a big fan of Remission and Lifesblood, as…

i dunno, i thought the wintry swedish landscape and the total silence of some parts did as much to establish oskar's oppressive isolation as any plot point or character development could have. in that sense, this film reminds me a bit of Fargo in how perfectly it plays it's desolate winter setting for affect.

Funny you say that the American version should stick closer to the book. I was thinking about the American remake and I thought that there was absolutely no way that an American company would let a director be that unflinching with material that dark and disturbing…and that's just from what is apparently a sanitized…

the shot of the legs swiftly dragging through the water and the head and arm being cut off while oskar is totally unaware of what's going on is one of the most badass things i've seen in a long while in a movie. it looks fucking awesome. i also love the kid just quietly sobbing in the corner of the frame after it's…

i think my netflix had a default of dub, but i did watch it in swedish with english subtitles.

i think the ending really works well either way. it's unbelievably cruel and biting if oskar is just her next catch and it's also very sweet and moving if they stay together forever as children. i hadn't given the ending much thought before, because i was so disturbed by the rest of the film, but now that i'm…

I just watched this yesterday
And even the apparently softened film is deeply unsettling. In fact, this movie was probably one of the more disturbing films I've ever watched. I think you can sense a lot of the darker, more graphic elements of the book even in the movie. I couldn't help but notice the long,…

braying, seal-clapping hillbilly

I think that's one of the best posts I've read on an AV Club comment board. Bravo.

Skinner: "Milhouse, tell me about your country's achievements!"

i'm convinced that Toby Keith is a surreal genius who has, for years, been pursuing a subtly brilliant riff on American jingoism and patriotism. Like the C.S. Lewis Jr. character on Mr. Show. he really does come off like a cool guy on the Colbert Report.

This oughta hold the little S.O.B.s.

actually, the more i read about this guy…i'm fascinated by the idea of this. the descriptions of the dummies make me laugh out loud, but not in the way that jeff dunham intended me to laugh. i kind of want to see at least a little bit of this show (particularly with Achmed the Dead Terrorist dummy) just out of pure…

this guy makes me think of that Mr. Show skit with the puppet wars where the ventriloquist dummies from the East and West coasts start murdering each other and sales of ventriloquism cds go through the roof. i figured that was about the only way in which ventriloquism would ever actually be popular, but, here we are.

blasphemy. season 4 had a couple of less than amazing episodes, because the fry-leela love story became a bit hamfisted, but i'd put futurama second to the simpsons on the scale of great animated comedies.

jeez. homer should have done his eenie, meenie, miney, mo trick to prevent that meltdown.

the clunkers from seasons 3 through 8 or so are very few and far between. almost all of them are either clips shows or shows involving the past. practically all of the present day, non clip show episodes from that era fall somewhere between "excellent" and "none better".