One of my friends in junior high and high school had a stop-motion camera (I don't know if it was a video camera or if his parents were actually transferring film to video - his dad was maybe the world's perfect nerd, so it wouldn't surprise me if they went whole-hog). Anyway, he would make stop-motion films as class…

IIRC the original plan had been to use his stop-motion process for Jurassic Park with some computer enhancement for the motion blur, but then those damn nerds had to go and show Kathleen Kennedy a CG dinosaur.

I think demographically a lot of people on this site got into Lynch based on Lost Highway, since folks in the 14-21 age group (now in their 30s/40s and posting on the avclub) when it was released would have been too young for Twin Peaks and just the right age to have their love of Lynch consolidated by Mulholland Dr a…

When I was about 16 my dad came in while I was watching the Evil Dead, about 15minutes before the "tree rape" scene. At first he pulled the whole "what the hell are you watching?" but then got sucked in by the atmosphere and sat down next to me on the couch. I sat there with my skin crawling wondering how I could…

It's weird to think, but my friends and I became obsessed with Lost Highway when we were about 14 - it definitely turned up on her radar because of the soundtrack, but we watched the movie at least 4 or 5 times over a year. I rewatched part of it a few weeks ago (with a baby I don't have the energy to get through an…

I remember looking for a place to get my brakes inspected and being drawn into a 1,500-word account of a young woman's anxiety around her car (which she called the "(Her first name)mobile") breaking down because she's broke, and how the mechanics at this garage were so nice to her and reassured her that she'd be able…

There's a vocal Holocaust denier teaching a Northwestern University who hasn't been fired because his personal beliefs are considered separate from his teaching. So yeah, hopefully "shitty classist Yelp reviews" doesn't trump "writing a book denying the Holocaust" on the List of Things College Professors Get Fired…

You walk into a party where one person went to Yale, one went to Stanford, and one went to Notre Dame. How can you tell which one's which?

"Wow, I can't believe you found a movie theater that's still showing Collateral Beauty. I think it's already in the bargain bin at Target. Also, what part of town are we in? Wait, is that a cornfield? I have a bad feeling about this…"

Yeah, I'm sure I've been in a movie theater where someone was texting, but since I can't think of a specific incident I'm assuming it's never bothered me.

To be fair, the mayor and police sound like they did the decent thing instead of vacillating about whether the Constitution protects racist mobs.

All we're getting is a partial and interested accounting of this whole story, but it's not really a person's obligation to reimburse their share of a date if the date goes poorly. Given the nature of this whole story, I think it's safe to say that the date went poorly, and I feel quite comfortable giving the…

Texting during a movie is an annoying thing to do; if a friend is going through a bad breakup and you want to be there for her, going on a date and then spending the whole date texting seems like an odd way to do it.

I've had enough people tell me that I sound like Sheldon on the Big Bang Theory that the last time somebody said, "Shoot, you remind me of a guy on TV, but I don't remember who," I asked him, "Is is Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory?" and he said, "That's it!"

As long as the Confederate flag on your tshirt is big enough, you can walk past any number of immigrants unscathed.

It's important to note that impeachement is a legislative procedure, not a criminal one. Which is to say that (to my knowledge) Congress is never obligated to impeach the president, even if they are presented with evidence that he should be impeached.

Fargo is a terrific movie. I also have a soft spot for it because it was one of my late mother's favorite movies - she was a devoutly Catholic woman who never cursed or took the Lord's name in vain, but she had a soft spot for the Coen Brothers in general and Fargo in particular. Also, while it fits thematically…

When I want to be casually titillated by nudity the first place I look is a Lars Von Trier movie.

The first twenty or so minutes of Spider-Man 3 are spectacular - it's like a decompressed montage rolling from one subplot to another. But the plot was slapped together with so many screenwriting cheats (Harry using MJ as bait, a previously unseen butler revealing the truth about Norman Osborne's death, Sandman…

And Marie Antoinette.