I wouldn't have known how to review this episode, since I really enjoyed the B-story but was infuriated by the A-story, for all the reasons you point out. It's really tough to be a MacFarlane apologist when he does shows like this with such rampant misogyny. I could do a whole essay about how Family Guy loves the…

I started wondering when De Niro basically decided to become a self-parody and whore himself out to mediocre-to-bad comedies and occasional forgettable thrillers. He'd been doing interesting, challenging, and risky films through the '90s. His Clinton-era resume is pretty solid, in fact. The pivotal film was Analyze…

You say Parks is starting to "spin its wheels." Okay, fair enough, but… do you really want or need a lot of forward momentum from this particular series? I was reminded of John Lennon's "Watching the Wheels," which is about the joys of not getting that much accomplished. ("I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go…

Yeah. It's credited to "The Delegates," and the b-side is a funk instrumental (no kidding) called"Booty Butt."

Noel, I don't know how much research you did for this, but you're completely on the wrong track by including "Mr. Jaws" in this article on the medley age. It belongs to another tradition entirely — that of the "break-in" records, which go back to the 1950s when Dickie Goodman was half of a duo called Buchanan &…

The photos on the AVC front page tend to change rapidly, so I wanted to preserve this moment of synchronicity.

Holy shit! I just had a for-real idea for a TV show: Splosh. It would just be a half hour a week of celebrities either sploshing or getting sploshed. No commentary other than minimalist opening credits. Executive producer: Vernon Chatman.

You're flailing, O'Neal. Badly. Maybe take a nap and try again.

There's a much, much bigger problem here, and it has to do with the "For Our Consideration" feature on the AV Club. I've said it before, but it bears repeating: this series of articles seems to be an excuse for AVC writers to worry themselves into anemia over incredibly trivial things that ultimately don't matter…

Sometimes, I wish movies went out with no opening or closing credits whatsoever and that critics had no idea who directed, wrote, or produced them. I think we'd get more honest critiques that way. As it stands, we're much too focused on what I'd call a movie's "outer life" — the reputation of its director, where it…

My thoughts here are many:

The shot of Andy — the classic "unpretentious regular guy" — snoozing through the movie sent a pretty clear message, in my opinion, as did the snobby, elitist attitude of the Jason Schwartzman character, who acted like one of those "liberal straw men" who seemed to show up every week on King of the Hill.

There was a lot to like in this episode, but it got on my bad side right away with its depiction of Paths of Glory as some kind of unwatchable art film, which it really isn't at all. I hate that pop culture conditions the public to hate art, and I resent the message that "anti-intellectual" somehow equals "genuine."…

In this version, though, the slave owners are the good guys, and the title translates as The Disobedient Moor.

Here's an idea for a "For Your Consideration" piece: "Is the AV Club freaking out over increasingly minor issues?"

Spare observations:

The first sentence of your review exactly sums up my thoughts while watching the show. Imagine you're an SNL writer. You come up with what you think is a funny idea for a skit (let's say the girl from Beasts of the Southern Wild becomes the new Pope or maybe some guy is unreasonably afraid of a stuffed horse), so you…

I knew way in advance what the AVC's review of this was going to be, since you've all been blubbering about it like it was the end of the goddamned world for a fucking week. All I  can say is what I've said before: you're whining and freaking out for no good reason. This is bordering on insanity. When it comes to…

"Come one, come all!" the ads implore us.
See sombreros! Caps! Fedoras!
Each one owned by Dr. Seuss!
Why, here's one made from pfeffernusse!

As animated specials go, The Cat in the Hat is odd indeed. Almost all of it takes place in one room, and very little actually happens during the 25-minute running time. Two cipher-like children, who seem much too young to be home alone, are nevertheless left by their vacuous and irresponsible mother unsupervised in a…