Bill Murray's cameo in Zombieland was a hoot, and I like liked Hyde Park on the Hudson a lot better than most people, but yeah he's been phoning it in all too many times lately. Especially Saint Vincent, where everybody was pretty good EXCEPT him. In all fairness, though, Bill Murray's finest performance lately was in…

I completely agree. I love how Palindromes is just a series of Worst Case Scenarios for EVERYBODY. The Mama Sunshine sequences are my favorite ("We almost got on the 500 Club!"- delivered without a trace of irony my fave). My second favorite is Life During Wartime, especially for Charlotte Rampling's lacerating,…

"Southwest Asia" in this case. The train traveled from Paris to Istanbul, which is "east" (oriental) for Europeans

You should definitely see Climates. It would have my vote, even though it's slightly less good than Ceylan's previous Distant, or his later Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, both masterpieces. Climates is "only" a near-masterpiece. And The Wind That Shakes the Barley, while clearly partisan, is more nuanced than many of…

Next to Chubby Checker (don't get me started) the refusal of the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame to even consider the Monkees for admission is proof positive of its lack of legitimacy. Mickey Dolenz is simply one of the greatest rock/pop vocalists of all time.

The Dardennes Brothers may be the greatest filmmakers now working. (I'd say they are THE greatest but who knows what a handful of others, e.g., Farhadi or Kar-Wai will bring us next) But that said, The Child may be my least favorite - it's still very good, but I think it flirts with conventionality too much. And…

Too bad I've gotten old and wussy, this place sounds like a wet (nyuck nyuck) dream of my 12-year-old self! I have relatives in New Jersey and spent a lot of my childhood there. And I missed it!! This place needs Federal protection as a national landmark!

I'm with you. And I've seen more than 30 of them and have spent a lifetime defending my minority position. "Mildly entertaining" and "Passable" are how I'd describe about half a dozen. The rest are pretty worthless. If it's any consolation, we have Katharine Hepburn for company who said she had "zero tolerance" for…

The quote was from David Byrne (and he approved!). Maybe it was just a phase. After all, there are four remakes on Emancipation. But his music sure did start sounding stale in the early nineties.

Yes, I read a quote where he said he only listened to his own music. Unfortunately, it started sounding that way after awhile. Too much was sounding like third-generation copies of copies of stuff he did before. It sounded like he needed to open a window and let in some fresh air. He was without a doubt the greatest…

Weird Al Yankovic has always stated that, while Michael Jackson would give him permission for his parody videos, Prince never would. He did have a sense of humor but it did not extend to laughing at himself, apparently.

OMG! WTF!

Yes, Another Year (not a "minor" film by any standard) and The Housemaid are outstanding and deserved to win. The Princess of Montpensier and Poetry, while not quite in their class, are also excellent.

How much did she pay for it?

I was going to mention that too. If they hadn't been continually referring to that character as fat it wouldn't have occurred to me. I found the whole thing downright offensive

The worst offenders in this area are the Bridget Jones movies. We're told over and over again that Bridget is fat. How fat? Why Renee Zellweger must have put on at least 15 pounds for the role! She's not even as zaftig as Amy Schumer. Who I totally agree is NOT fat. Or maybe my idea of "fat" is out of synch with…

B- was my rating too

No

You could have pointed out that these four albums, along with the Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club soundtrack induced the RIAA to change the way they certify albums gold or platinum. The joke at the time was that these albums "shipped gold and returned platinum". After this, there was a waiting period before an album…

This episode was a solid A for me. Thank God for the double elimination — two weeks of boring lip synchs cannot go unremedied.