Donnie really stepped up his game in season two. His telling the annoying cop lady whose name escapes me and Victor to fuck off was legit badass. I just DVRed the latest episode and can't wait to watch where the show goes from here.

I always thought The Search for Spock felt like a feature-length retcon. You kill off a beloved character, then bring him back in the very next movie. You create this amazing Genesis thing, then have that turn out to be unstable. Besides the amusement of seeing Doc Brown as a Klingon warrior, I didn't get much out of…

Yeah, Roger Delgado could have made for a great Bond villain. Or Moriarty, for that matter. The Mind of Evil is probably the best storyline in which he appears.

People criticize Chaplin for being maudlin and melodramatic, but I wonder if that says more about the cynical age we live in than the man himself. I hated Limelight when I first saw it, but it's been a few years, and I'm wondering if I should give it another look. The thing about Chaplin is that he was so ferociously…

I saw They Might Be Giants in Brooklyn back in 2013. Moon Hooch opened for them. Anyone who hasn't listened to Moon Hooch needs to head on over to Spotify and remedy that right now. They were the best opening act I've ever seen. And then there's TMBG. It's impossible to be in a bad mood when you're listening to them.

Is The Life of Birds a good starting place for Attenborough? I notice it's on YouTube.

I'm not sure if Unfriended is a particularly good movie, but it does seem to at least try to use its technique as more than a gimmick, but a means to actually say something about cyberbullying and the internet age and stuff. I'll probably watch it some Friday night if I see it on Netflix.

I work in a bookstore, and the two books that have been flying off the shelves lately are The Girl on the Train and All the Light We Cannot See. Now that I know the former is good, maybe I'll check it out.

Eventful week. I had my Doctor Who thingie on Friday. I made ginger cookies and we (by which I mean, the one high school friend who showed up and I) watched "The Mind of Evil". Not bad. I went to the gym several times, bought a tajine from the kitchenware store I work at (now I can try some Moroccan dishes), and spent…

She deserves much better roles. So much of what she does boils down to "look at the obnoxious fat woman". I found her really funny in Bridesmaids, though.

I watched Dead End years ago at a friend's place. I remember being amused that Bogey was front and center on the DVD cover even though Joel McCrea's part is much bigger. But of course, he's Bogey, so the main reason people remember the film is because he's in it. It's a good movie, the kind of thing that could only…

Keanu Reeves is great at playing affectless and/or perpetually stoned people. His best performance is probably in My Own Private Idaho, but I'd put Bill & Ted and I Love You to Death immediately after it.

"Enervating" is kind of Antonioni's default mood. I liked L'Avventura, but you have to be in the right mood for that one. Basically, a rich girl goes missing, and her rich friends sort of wander around not giving a shit for two hours. I had a similar feeling watching Au Hasard Balthasar. On one hand, it's a subtle,…

Not the most exciting week. I was supposed to go out with a friend for his birthday tonight or something, but it didn't come together. Fittingly, I just watched Aziz Ansari's new special, where he talks about how flaky Millenials are and how difficult it is to get anyone to show up for anything in this day and age.…

Yup.

I might be in the minority, but I still prefer physical copies of my media to the electronic variety. When I got my laptop, I had to order a disc drive separately, then download a program that could play DVDs. Didn't that used to come standard? I still buy CDs and DVDs and prefer physical books to E-books. I'm not…

I feel like Tarantino is repeating himself with all of these revenge fantasies. Does anyone else think he's been giving only 80% since Jackie Brown got a relatively lukewarm reception? That's a pretty underrated film, in my less-than-humble opinion. Phenomenal dialogue and acting, along with nicely restrained…

I agree. Listmaking is inherently arbitrary, but I'll definitely check out some of these films. Of the ones I have seen, I'm a bit surprised The Grand Budapest Hotel ranked higher than Moonrise Kingdom, but that's a minor gripe, as it's still Wes Anderson, and he's a cool dude. Whiplash and Inside Llewyn Davis just…

Except Kubrick didn't make any other films in the 90s. I agree that Full Metal Jacket is a much better film (at least for the first half), however.

I didn't like Eyes Wide Shut, but arguing about it is difficult because it's one of those cases where the thing I didn't like about it is what makes it, in the eyes of its admirers, that much more brilliant. That is to say, I found it rambling and pointless, but to Scobias (among others), that just means I don't get…