Akira. What would Japanese movies have been like if it weren't for the bomb? It seems as if half of all Japanese prestige works are about it. I'm not complaining, though. It was a good movie.

Jimmy Buffett is a phenomenal songwriter, and he shouldn't abandon the topics that work for him (they're all escapism, whether tropical, science fiction, or global travel), but if he could be convinced to sing rather than to chant along with a crowd of Parrotheads (among which I have often been included), he could…

There were a few even just sticking to rulers of France. Napoleon III lost the Franco-Prussian War.

This installment's "strangest fact" is actually the most well-known fact of the bunch to me. As a grad student in history, Gibbons' book is just one of those foundational texts you hear about here and there even if Rome isn't at all what your focus is.

I think it's tongue-in-cheek.

Everybody is so great in that flick.

I thought of another one for me (it's probably been mentioned by others): Chief Brody, one of fiction's greatest American heroes. The ground he occupies between the off-the-deep-end Quint and the morally-detached, corruptible Hooper is the ground you want to stand on. A solid family man who speaks truth to power and…

And with the bone spurs to prove it. Or perhaps not. Did fishermen get bone spurs? Or were they only for the Major Leagues? Did DiMaggio ever fish? Santiago wasn't sure.

While I can't quite abide the cheese level in that movie, I support the Lancaster pick on that and career-long grounds.

I considered him. Consistently noble and wise, self-effacing, but willing to wear the burden of a king. The way he refuses to openly enter Gondor until the war is won is a detail that escaped me as a kid, but that I now realize is crucial.

I don't believe in masculinity, but were I to answer this, it would be hard for the answer to be other than Rick from Casablanca. He does it all: rescues refugees in distress, runs guns for the anti-fascists in Spain, holds the line against Nazism, falls in love in Paris, and does the stand-up thing even when it…

Actually, I re-add it.

I was going to add to this, but the thing I was going to add had already been said and I merely overlooked it. Kudos.

FINALLY got it. Look, I read newspaper headlines all the time, I can break "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" down for you easy, but you have to understand when it's not working and needs a re-write.

I can't make head nor tails of this headline.

That's a damn good pick.

“And the ship went out into the High Sea and passed into the West, until at last on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver…

The Hustler really is unimpressive to me, aside from the opening game.

I read it as a non-joke, too. Why? I guess because the sentence that led into it was a non-joke, and the transition "but then again" prepared me for an explanation of said non-joke, not sudden irony. Also, the sentence lacks the obvious signs of sarcasm that AVC writers usually employ. Usually they go for over-the-top…

I'd also like to say something about the grainy, flat, desaturated color of this film. I love the look. Maybe it was the film stock, but I think there's something distinctive about it, something slightly different, slightly more antique than non-Japanese color films of the era.