'on the planet' is definitely a stretch. Here in the uk I don't get the sense that many people give a fuck.

Avatar in particular sometimes suffered from the opposite problem, which is that long distance shots sometimes made the characters and vehicles look like little toys.

The weird thing is, they had an episode in season 2 that was basically one big set up for the unreleased Busdriver's Song, and then they didn't put the song in the episode!

In time I think people will reappraise the post-Berry era and realise that they produced a bunch of great songs, four albums that are at worst pretty good, and a fantastic retrospective live album.

The thing about Toy Story 3 is it most likely would've been every bit as effective if it had been about 30 minutes long and just had Andy giving away the toys and going to college. The emotion is built on the back of the first two more than on anything that happens in the movie itself.

Sports games get boring if you don't care whether the side you're supposed to be cheering on wins or not.

On my second viewing I became painfully aware of just how much the movie drags to a halt for the sake of setting up quirky battle after quirky battle.

I wanted to like WTWTA but it was so formless and full of mopey angst that I'm not convinced many kids that age really feel. They somehow managed to make this amazing world of exotic characters joyless and dull. Tree Of Life did a much better job of evoking childhood, which is weird considering Malick's about twice…

If you treat Dio Sabbath as an entirely separate band, they were a good separate band.

The first Discworld adventure game was very well put together, but might be the single most punishingly obtuse adventure game ever made (which is saying something).

YES. Friends is one of their loveliest. Brian was still on top form there. Sad that it was his last hurrah for quite a long time.

You mean like he did here?

Yeah if Superheavy had been… k'now, *good*, people might have been a bit kinder on him.

Love and Theft was full of all sorts of music styles he'd never done before, and his ruined voice sort of necessitated a change in approach. I don't think his stuff from 97 on sounds particularly derivative of his part work. As late period records go I'd put Dylan's run from Time Out Of Mine to Modern Times up there…

One of my favourites! I don't really like the last two tracks, but the rest of it they just sound like a good 70's pop rock band. Sail On Sailor, The Trader and Leaving This Town are some of my favourite post-Pet Sounds songs, and I like how they were still pushing the nautical/california themes in different ways even…

I'll stick up for Wild Honey. It's ridiculously short and only has a couple of real standouts, but it's just really tuneful and entertaining. Love that piano sound as well. It's the sort of back to basics thing I could imagine them doing even if Smile had gone to plan.

Even when Brian was thematically infantile the compositions tended to be pretty mature and elaborate. I can't think of many pop songs with chord sequences as complex but perfect as Don't Talk Put Your Head On My Shoulder.

The run from Wild Honey to Holland is pretty solid. And interesting the way it shows Brian gradually fading out of the picture and the rest of them turning into a decent band in their own right. Shame they became shit almost immediately after that point.

Smiley Smile is easier to like now that Smile is out in just about every possible version* and you can just treat it as just another part of the long strange tale. Nowadays I find it quite cool hearing those songs in such oddball minimalist versions, and the new songs are pretty good as well.

I don't think the knee jerk Burton hate has ever been quite so stupid as here though. I'm not quite sure what parade balloon design he could've come up with that wouldn't make people angry.