I know you're making a joke, but it makes me think of the frustrating way that many non-Americans view us (I myself, unlike Giles, am American)… Just like we often make ridiculous blanket-statement generalizations about "Europeans" or "the French" or "Arabs" or whatever, those folks often do the same to us, as if…

Oh yes, that's right — he said exterminator, not carnival. Thanks. I don't want to besmirch Todd VanderWerff, who did a lot of really great stuff for AVC, honestly, but that was indeed an eye-roll moment.

For my generation of late-80s/early-90s music-geek teens, our obsessive phase was Les Mis and Phantom which utterly dominated Broadway for awhile; later we realized how overrated they were (as music & lyrics, not as theatrical spectacle). Then the younger kids went gaga when Rent arrived, and we knew that passion…

Seinfeld is comedically timeless because Jerry's observational style and Larry David's bottomless well of niggling minutiae have wide appeal. But it sure *looks* like the '90s!

First season of the original Law & Order was 1990-91, and it feels very '80s. Partly because cops & prosecutors don't have new cars or wear new fashions, and work in dated offices; also because it's pre-internet. It's one of few shows from c.1990 that still plays in reruns now, and the contrast with the later,…

I can't see one of those inflatable rats without laughing, remembering the scene on The Sopranos where the union brings one to the construction site — and the AV Club reviewer cluelessly thought the drivers were also working at a children's carnival or something.

They at least deserve credit, which the article above does not quite give them, for playing each other … It's not just that each gets to play Castor, but that each plays a version of the other actor's performance from the early part of the film, while "impersonating" his own. Travolta, in particular, was very…

Your 12-year-old brother loved the action, but possibly he also enjoyed Dominique Swain in her panties.

I hadn't seen John Woo movies before Face/Off, so didn't know what to expect; that never-ending boat chase was the most hilarious thing I'd ever seen.

I thought it only "defined the decade" by being one of the 90s' best films and a landmark event for us who saw its release, and by cementing Tarantino's personal style. But its characters and music and stories were all drawn from the past; they were out of their own time. Tarantino set the film more-or-less…

[ says nothing about Fight Club ]

Why does the clue phrasing "This Fox News host…" require that she still be employed there, either now or at taping time? If I wrote a clue "This CBS anchor…" referring to Cronkite, would it be unacceptable just because I didn't say "former"?

I would say that this FJ should not have been used as written, because a proper name being "the same in Latin and in English" is not really a clearly defined concept. We know what they mean, since we don't alter Pope Pius in English use, but it's a weak clue.

Rhys Darby's birthday — present!

Well, the reason for that is probably different at a kids' movie, like Lego Batman, than it is at, say, Beauty And The Beast.

a massive 2.5-inch-by-1-inch model

"Famous head"? I guess the Weather Channel is joking. Google Translate on kohl behrt gives "carbonated". (Or separating the words, "cabbage, of course".)

This neu-Bush bullshit, where he's just a dotty painter who quips on late-night shows, is very disturbing.

When the Futurama writers created their version of Nixon's preserved head, I wonder if they ever imagined that this terrible tyrant would actually appear preferable to a real president within our lifetime. Maybe after 2001 they thought so, but now we're truly through the looking-glass.

My god has a bigger dick than your god.