Quirky Comedies
I've noticed something in this site's discussion that I find curious. In the context of movies, the label "indie quirkfest" is usually trotted out with a sneer. I'm actually kind of baffled at the amount of hate from the comments section for films that get that label. But I very seldom see that same…

Cemetery Man is great. I don't think it's particularly scary at all (except in a kind of existential way), but it's a must-see.

Nature vs. Nurture (after a fashion)
There's plenty of hand-wringing about how schools and teachers are failing the students, and how school administration and pedagogy need reform, but what about the role our general culture plays in setting up students for success or failure? We have a pronounced anti-intellectual…

Also: "umph"? I do believe you mean "oomph."

Well, it has dead babies (actually, a murdered baby), which is generally taboo. It suggests that a multiple amputee is being held captive and raped (even if it turns out later that it's consensual incest). Incest itself remains taboo. And the actual scene in which the cop and his wife have their home invaded and are…

The pattern you're describing may not be common to modern novels, but it's a perfectly ancient approach. It's the basic pattern of the romance — it's the pattern you see in Arthurian stories (series of mostly self-contained adventures that nonetheless contribute to a larger master story-line), and of the picaresque…

Why assume a conspiracy?
Renner's full quote (from the PlayList link) shifts the emphasis, I think: "It really kind of stalled because when we were rehearsing — Phil, Paul and myself — we kept coming up against a wall that we couldn't overcome. Or at least Paul couldn't overcome."

"Mockumentary"
I realize that Wikipedia and probably emerging critical practice differ from my preference, but I really hate "mockumentary" being used to mean *any* fictional (or, it seems, even quasi-fictional) use of documentary format or documentary conventions. It's come up in this usage now both in reference to…

And yet when you're telling a story about something that happened to you to friends, what's one of the most common points of view?

I never pictured the Mustardayonnaise as "Lincoln" — I always assumed he was more a version of Uncle Sam (though I expect Uncle Sam owes some of his costume to Lincoln's iconography).

Alternative Dylan selection
I would have picked Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" over "Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)." Supreme kiss-off line:

Anna Kendrick has a penis? That news should change the tone of some of the other threads…

He seems to have some dif-fickle-lty with getting the salt…

Sexy Librarian
Trivia: that librarian was Ashley Gardner, a.k.a. the voice of Nancy Hicks Gribble.

So…
TNT = "We know drama."
USA = "Characters welcome."
AMC = "Story matters here."

Murakami
The first story I thought of when I saw the Inception trailer was Haruki Murakami's "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World."

Metaphorical?
"…where packs of wild, vicious (and yes, metaphorical) dogs hold sway."

"Billed where? Last week's promo had no music, and in interviews, the FRINGE cast and creators (at least what I read) only said that the episode would have some singing. I think the idea that this episode was a "musical" was more a fan presumption than an actual promise." —Noel Murry (this week's comments)

"…at what point do we stop admiring the work itself, and start admiring the process of understanding the work more?"

This episode lost points with me because of some dumb writers' shortcuts that piled up right at the beginning. One, stoned or not, what teenager goes off exploring in the abandoned warehouse district after something smashes on their car? (*Maybe* I can accept that the stoned kid might poke the completely unearthly…