You would get a kick out of Paul Hindemith, I'm thinking. He was a 20th century composer who tried to integrate chromaticism into more classical/Baroque textures. The Kammermusik pieces and the Ludus Tonalis are much fun.

Oh excellent. I'll start practicing my karate moves.

Opera is a genre I am sllllllowly getting into; probably Glass' Satyagraha is my favorite; it's melodic and singable in a way nothing else he's ever written is.

Although I'm not that much into Jameson straight up, for some reason it is the best thing to add to a Coke. Something about the slight muddiness pairs with the acidity perfectly.

A Phil Spector-produced version of The Nightman Cometh would be something like the…I honestly can't come up with a metaphor for this level of awesome crazy.

Is it going to be "The Nightman Cometh" episode or the one where we first hear the song? And whose face will you be shoving this in?

If you want to see how good Walton Goggins is, and how well The Shield integrates performance and story, go back to Aceveda grilling him in "Our Gang."  Goggins turns the whole story on a single inflection—the way he says "No!", in anguish instead of anger, is what tips Aceveda off to what really happened.

Once you finish the series, you should go back and watch seasons 3, 4, and 2 in that order (if you're not into the whole continuity thing).  The Shield's strong three-act structure requires that the later seasons be different from the earlier ones in tone and incident.  It's true that the writers were still figuring…

Thanks! The quote is from the I Watched This on Purpose article on Law Abiding Citizen; it's stuck with me as a great way to make the distinction between lesser and greater ownage.

When you compare it to Breaking Bad, you really see the advantage of the three-act structure of The Shield. Breaking Bad is incredibly powerful, but it's all in one direction, as Walter gains power and loses humanity. It's a supervillain's origin story, not a tragedy. More on this (hopefully) next week.

It's good, but Warren Ellis wins for coming up with the name Miranda Zero. ("That's your real name?" "It's the only one you're getting.")

SOPRANOS SPOILER

Another great, devastating moment of violent ownage was

SPOILERS FOR NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN AS IF EVERYONE WHO WATCHES THIS SHOW HASN'T SEEN IT AND A MINOR LATE SEASON SPOILER FOR THE SHIELD

I really like this, your comment below, and from last week.  The law of drama isn't "every action has an equal and opposite reaction," it's that every action has a greater reaction, because the action goes into the world, affects others, and comes back on you.  @Unregistered4Life:disqus notes how smart Vic is, how he…

It's not so much "good in one atypical role" as "good when used properly."  Collateral, Magnolia and Tropic Thunder were all great Cruise performances (because they play on the professional or insane aspects of his persona), and JJ Abrams got a pretty good performance out of him in Mission: Impossible 3 (still the…

On the Traffic commentary, Soderbergh discusses what a huge influence this film was, both in specifics (the news bulletins in voiceover) and in the general feel.

There's a nice touch where you can see some blood on Kern's shirt, and he has a slightly zonked expression on his face coming out.  For some reason, it reminded me of the opening of Casino Royale—"made you feel it, did he?" (Again, every act of ownage here has weight to it.)

Glad I'm staying current with this.

My favorite supplement on the Criterion package is one of the original American posters, with a closeup of a paratrooper (with mirrored sunglasses) and the taglines