I'll basically agree that some perfectly good movies exist if you excise everything related to the Anakin/Amidala romance (and everything related to Jar-Jar). That's supposed to be the emotional spine of the trilogy, though, and since that fails, the whole thing fails.

It's a triumph of direction and acting elevating a mediocre script (which is why I don't begrudge any of its Oscar nominations, even if it beat some better stuff in the individual categories). It should not be as effective as it is, and you cannot think about any of its elements for more than 5 minutes, but I still…

Even though it was never a great show, I always thought it was a pretty good one as stand-up led 90s sitcoms go, and it holds up so much better than something like Will & Grace. Which seems more and more like a weird cultural artifact with each passing year.

I probably watched every episode of "Ellen." I didn't love it, but I do remember it being an OK show that really got invigorated during the season when she had the character come out. The fifth season was kind of a mess, albeit an admirable mess (I really hated the bookstore going away). The storyline about her…

I know, right? The average Friends episode looks insanely stunning now, compared to even high-rated stuff like Big Bang Theory and Walking Dead.

You'll certainly be able to get it on DVD eventually. Probably next year, alas, but all things come in time.

I'm bummed I missed The Prophet. I think it played in one indie theater in my city for like two days. Going to try to catch it when it's rentable, somewhere.

I can get through the songs about his son's death without too many problems, but "Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story" absolutely destroys me. I almost started bawling at my desk when I made the mistake of listening to the whole thing at work, when it got to the part about founding the orphanage. Tearing up now…

So much sex.

I LOVE all the Jefferson numbers. They're so charmingly smug.

I do really like how "1776" handles the slavery debate ("Molasses and Rum" is absolutely chilling). Though I still think it lionizes Jefferson and softens his views on the issue (albeit less than a lot of actual American history does). "Hamilton," I think, does a decent job of portraying the contradictions baked…

I basically agree the play over-states Hamilton's abolitionist views. But I also think the fact that his opinion on it was relatively mainstream at the time is important, and often elided by American history. Like thinking slavery wasn't awesome is an idea that magically appeared 100 years later, and America wasn't…

Oh, yeah, I definitely agree there's a Jefferson bias. And a tendency to down-play the anti-slavery views some of the Founding Fathers held (I'm embarrassed that the play is the first time I'd heard of John Laurens) because the Southerners ultimately forced so many compromises on that, and I guess why point out that…

The album is streaming pretty much everywhere, so you waste nothing but time if you don't like it.

Has he been villainized? His contributions are certainly overlooked, but I feel like that's mostly because he's the most prominent Founding Father who never became president. Back in high school I definitely remember learning about his role in creating our monetary system, writing the Federalist papers, and in the…

"Yorktown (The World Turned Upside Down)" is probably the one I repeat most. Especially at work. It's insanely rousing.

No way to understand where we are without facing where we've been.

Wow, the rare F rating.

Oh gosh, those Hostages recaps. Those were things of beauty.

I was thinking about this when reading the early reviews for Spectre. It has a positive rating on sites like Rotten Tomatoes, but the critics who hate it, HATE it. Like DAD, I think it'll age really, really badly, but it seems like nobody trashes a Bond film out of the gate. They all deliver what you want, on a…