You make some good points. Still, again, if Malcolm X had been Denzel Washington's first significant role, and if he'd then spent several years in small supporting roles before finally getting a second shot at a lead with American Gangster, I think comparing those two films would seem less arbitrary. Ramírez is far…

He was also in Che. That's a historical biopic about charismatic leaders.

I'm still not sure what part of "they're both historical biopics about charismatic leaders" you guys are failing to understand.

It's a little more specific than that. In both films Ramírez is playing a charismatic leader (one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist) in a historical biopic. And I felt the difference between them—the director's vision, or lack thereof in this case—was illustrative. One actually could compare them even…

That too.

I phrased it that way because the word "week" was already in the sentence (and unavoidable in that spot, being part of the title).

I'm 46, for the record. (But I had nothing to do with devising the conceit, so you may still have a point.)

As one of the writers of this list, here's my explanation: I didn't suggest it when we were brainstorming the topic because I've never seen it and know little about it. Can't speak for the others, though.

Exactly. It's not painful in any way. Just relentlessly mediocre.

I think you'll find that the absent film writers for whom you pine are also generally Huckabees fans. I know for sure that two of them are.

That's exactly right. Well done.

The point is that the content of the TV news story is essential to the design of the scene.

He gets another point for having directed Black Christmas and Deathdream. But then he loses 80 points for having directed Baby Geniuses.

Lighten up, Francis.

I disagree. The emphasis on the opening line in particular is on the exception, not on the rule.

That's a joke, son. You're too short; the good ones fly right over your head.

I don't write the headlines, for the record.

Whoa. I didn't even consciously notice that. It would have been obvious in a theater, but the bars appeared instantaneously on the online screener I was given, in the space of a cut, and I guess I was overly distracted/irritated by the fact that the dream thing was happening at all.

I saw the original stage production of House of Yes at the SoHo Rep in NYC—it starred Alison Janney, who was all but unknown at the time (this was around 1995), and Chris Eigeman—and loved it. Couldn't tolerate the film version at all. Faithful adaptation. The material just doesn't work unless it's performed live.

The film came out in 1976, a couple of years after Nixon's resignation so, yeah, everyone watching the film knew that Bernstein and Woodward had triumphed. Oh, and there was that whole typewriter coda at the film's end, saying the same thing.