at first i read Dowd's "Austenland" writeup as suggesting Keri Russel was visibly drunk throughout the movie, which would make it an instant watch

oh, christ, Halo 4, you sure tried hard didn't you, and you failed so completely. if i were still in college when it came out i would have sought out the critics calling it the best of the series to cop their connect for what were surely the best drugs known to man

totally agree. "Reach" might be the most moving action game i've ever played, somehow underrated despite its perfect review scores

"MT-S" is not even kind of a thriller. a faithful movie version would be like "Short Cuts on Mars" or something. i'm not usually that "they're gonna ruin this" guy about movie announcements but… they're going to ruin this

From the January, 1981 Playboy (with Barbara Bach on the cover, coincidentally to marry Ringo Starr a couple months later). David Sheff, the previous September, had gotten Lennon to loosen up extensively and was at this point simply prompting him for juicy reminiscences with old song titles. On "Getting Better":

what about "Getting Better"? "i used to be mean to my woman, i beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved, man i was mean but i'm changing my scene"? oh, changing your scene, no worries then mate

those mid-80s ones are so good: Full Moon in Paris, The Green Ray, Boyfriends and Girlfriends, etc. most of Rohmer is so thematically similar it's hard to see even a label as discerning as Criterion giving them all the deluxe treatment but they should be widely available

How is "Acid Rap" "a mixtape through and through" rather than an album? The guidelines that segregate the two have gotten so blurred (and I think stuff like Danny Brown's "XXX" and "Run the Jewels" have thoroughly shut down the idea that a rap full-length can't be considered a legitimate "record" in the classic sense…

i've wasted much of my life with "Grey's" after being sucked into it in '06 in, of all places, a high school French class (we had to kill a lot of time that year) and i don't know if i agree that there's some wealth of quality hidden under the veil of trashy soap material. at the beginning it was great fun to watch as…

Calling the stiff, humorless "Tell Me…" "remarkable" is beyond generous. Its only major redeeming quality is that it just BARELY transcends the eyerolling softcore sleaze of most cable TV sex depiction. I remember the creator saying the network abandoned the second season over creative differences, I wonder if they…

his "apology" for 3 Ninjas KU in Entertainment Weekly is gold:
http://www.ew.com/ew/articl…

Would have loved to see your take on Dark City (for the cult of which Ebert was head cheerleader) but congratulations on capping your body of work here. Will read wherever you turn up next.

I don't know if it exactly follows the premise of the Inventory, but in its third season Felicity notably swapped out the underclassman years' grating Lilith-Fair-warble theme song, replete with totes 90s b&w stills of the characters looking pensive around NYC, with a more upbeat montage featuring the unbelievably…

Scott, your parenthetical comment about how "To The Wonder"'s reception was "off-base and appallingly disrespectful" has stuck in my head for a couple days. Obviously, I haven't seen the film so I don't know how much you can clarify but: "off-base" I would get as a critical comment, even if I disagreed, but what does…

Scott, your parenthetical comment about how "To The Wonder"'s reception was "off-base and appallingly disrespectful" has stuck in my head for a couple days. Obviously, I haven't seen the film so I don't know how much you can clarify but: "off-base" I would get as a critical comment, even if I disagreed, but what does…