Curtis Mayfield & The Impressions - It’s Alright
The Blue Nile - Seven A.M.
Sufjan Stevens - Should Have Known Better
The Mountain Goats - The Legend of Chavo Guerrero
King Sunny Ade - Ibanuje Mon Iwon
Waxahatchee - Air
Van Morrison - Rave On, John Donne
Sam Cooke - Cupid
Rolling Stones - Hand of Fate
D’Angelo - The Charade

wha… what… What?! What's going on?!… Oh, sorry. Just fell asleep there reading that headline.

Why is that a good way to do that?

I don't know, it's hard for me not to feel that that's a rationalization of a failed experiment. It certainly came off that way in the interview I mentioned. Oppenheimer was suggesting Indonesia as a whole should have a cultural reckoning with their history, but the one he tried to concoct for Anwar was useless, and…

Glad to see The Tree of Life near the top (thought To the Wonder was at least as good), but I have to take serious issue with The Act of Killing. Where it was useful was in shedding light on an unknown US-sponsored massacre, as well as the continued, disturbing high-level support accorded the Pancasila Youth by the…

Well I think some people probably feel the same about "The Tree of Life". I thought there was something big and important going on so I didn't find it random in the way you did, I guess.

I'd include To the Wonder (of Malick's) as well. Even more so, actually.

Giant schmaltz fest is kind of Spielberg's thing a good part of the time.

He didn't know women had pubic hair. Give the guy a break!

Do you think that somehow constitutes a reductio? He is a war criminal.

In terms of the general movie-going public? Yes, very. But that's not even the point, really. I appreciate Ruskin's work a lot, but I have zero interest in a film from Gray's perspective.

Ruskin is obscure enough that it would have been wise to just make a film about him, rather than one about his wife, who's notable for no other reason than that she was married to him and Millais. To care in the least about her, you'd have to really care about him, and that's a very small number of people.

And he's right every time!

I'm afraid you're probably right.

I guess so. I'd have thought those would weaken with age regardless, but I couldn't say.

The plight of wealthy female actresses isn't something I've thought (or care) much about, but you may have a point, I don't know. I've never given any consideration to Pfeiffer's talents or lack thereof one way or another. I would say that, apart from the transcendently gorgeous Mirren, I can think of less comely…

I feel there's been scant attention paid to the fact that Jill Biden is kinda cute.

I've heard that said, and I'm willing to believe it, but I don't understand the physics behind it.

You did, but you have to ask whether it was effective or not. I'm not a skilled leveller of your mom jokes, but I know a few things.

The sad thing about that was that, even though Palin is dumb as a box of rocks, even she probably knows the names of a few newspapers. What's sad is that she couldn't admit she reads any, lest they be politically unpalatable to her mouth-breathing constituency.