Well that's the thing. Hair metal and its excesses sparked a huge backlash, leading to the mentality that costuming and ornamentation are fundamentally bad things to be avoided, meaning the image of your average rock band is just a bunch of dudes in black Ts. Pop and hip hop subsequently move into the vacant space of…

I've been working on a theory that the change to sensible and minimalist clothing has been a player in rock's decline. I can't prove anything yet but I think the pattern is there.

Okay the best part of Saints Row 2 is that sometimes your Boss will sing along with the music on the radio, and they did this without giving the voice actors any lyric sheets or other guidance, so it's adorable. I have actually driven in circles and passed up some good looking vehicles just to hear my character mumble…

The Space Pants sketch may well be Dinklage's finest work as an actor.

This was a shock. Cul-de-Sac was SO damn good and it was so sad that it had to end while so much mediocrity dominates the comics page. I had always held out hope that he'd do something more with the characters.

Eh, don't jinx it.

That's one issue I have with the current Marvel trades- I get that they're as thin as they are to keep the price point attractive and encourage people to sample the new titles, but it does mean that just the first volume doesn't give you much of the story. I did go ahead and get vols. 1 & 2 for Squirrel Girl so that…

The King's Peace by Jo Walton is a fantasy novel that's set in an analog of Arthurian Britain, and is told from the perspective of a female soldier who becomes a trusted associate of the King. It's pretty strong, with a nice sense of authenticity even with all the analogues. (There's a religion that's clearly…

This was around the early eighties (may have been the infamous Jean Douminian season), Pleasance was in the Halloween films so it kinda sorta made sense. And like I said, FEAR because it's Halloween!

For some reason this reminds me of when SNL booked the punk band Fear as musical guests on a Halloween episode (hosted by Donald Pleasance). The result was an honest-to-God mosh pit in the front rows, complete with roadies beating back people who were trying to rush the stage. It was a glorious disaster.

This would make an interesting Inventory, the shows that replaced famous cancelled shows. I remember Arrested Development was replaced by The War At Home, which was an absolute disaster.

This review makes it sound like one of the less good Sonic games. Character who's Gotta Go Fast but the game gates this off to pad the running time? Well there you go.

As much as TNA is kind of a dead promotion walking, this is one case of them embracing the dumbness in a good way.

I'm surprised GOT is airing on Memorial Day Weekend seeing as they stopped doing so after Blackwater's ratings were subpar.

The Nice Guys is a really fun movie. I like how the filmmakers worked out that Ryan Gosling can play an absolute fuckup and still be sympathetic enough that we don't reject the whole thing- he and Crowe do a great job, even if the girl playing the daughter comes close to stealing the show.

Midnight Special was clearly a microbudgeted film with clever use of what resources it had (note the small cast, fairly common locations that are easy to get clearances for, etc. ) This strikes me as actually being the kind of mid budget movie that Hollywood doesn't make much of anymore, and I appreciate that the…

What I've heard is that Adam Reed is trying to find a way to do it in a way that'll be respectful and fit with everything going forward.

I saw the Archer animators panel at KC Comicon and they broke that. Pretty much nobody had figured it out, despite it being a room full of geeks.

One of these days a Doctor Who season premiere should open with the KLF's Stand by the Jams/Justified and Ancient.

They had Devo on back when they were still kind of obscure and performance-arty.