@avclub-cc0d9865e5284b52347fc0417b99b0c8:disqus : oh, the volcano!  That reminds me of another of my favorite moments… When Jaden can't get good reception on his bat-signal, the screenplay calls for him to go towards the volcano, because we all know that nothing says "clearer reception" like the tons of material being…

@mattepntr Whoa, thanks for the insight!  Sorry to give you flak over that waterfall scene, but now that makes a whole lot of sense now.

Oh god, yeah, the eagle thing was the worst… Although [CONTINUING STUPID MINOR SPOILER] how sad/funny/awful(?) is it that the eagle turns out to be a better parent to Jaden's character than Will Smith does?

No matter what she does, I will always see Busy Phillips banging on the dashboard of her car: "IT'S MY CAR! MINE! MINE!" as her mom and stepdad shout at her from their house, while Lindsey crouches in fear in the passenger side.

The show started airing the year before I moved to Michigan.  It was fate!

You should go to your reunion.

Nah, you'll just be sanctioned and put on probation for a few years.

Yes, that is definitely the one.

That's a great moment, but the episode overall just didn't work for me very well.  It's one of the few times when Cardellini is so obviously capital-A Acting that it takes me out of the ep every time.

No worries: he's not to everyone's taste.  And even most of his fans don't like all his books (Vineland takes a lot of heat, in particular.) Me, I can't stand The Crying of Lot 49, which is his most-loved book.

At least in more mainstream-y American cinema, unless we extend it to Lynch (at times).  Outside the U.S., among active directors I'd add people like Carax, Kiarostami, Apichatpong, and when he's not lazily rehashing tricks, Godard.  Anything bolder than these never gets distribution.

Don't like or don't appreciate?  Two different things.  No one needs to like anything.  It's a good habit to appreciate why others do, though.

I dunno, I thought The Master was a pretty straightforward platonic love story between two damaged men whose needs happen to coincide, for better and worse.  I loved it.

Have you read the book?  It's generically a noir, but Pynchon's going for something with more era/region specificity.  He gets a lot of mileage out of clashing the tone of a traditional noir with the "end of the 60s" malaise.

P. T. Anderson's The Smurfs begins with a fifteen-minute tracking shot through Smurf Village and ends with a coked-out Gargamel throwing firecrakers at Azrael.

I prefer Yojimbo as a movie, but the Mifune of Rashomon has the sad puppy face that I can't help falling for.

I agree… and it makes our contemporary messes like Cloud Atlas seem a lot less glorious and more conventional by comparison.  I only wish the Wachoswkis were that insane.

Before Midnight, twice.  That's all I needed.

For what it's worth, I disliked every Haneke I'd seen until The White Ribbon, which I loved.

Detour.  Oh god, when Ann Savage wakes up in the car while hitching the ride from Tom Neal…. and she lays there with her eyes open, then springs up and snaps "Where did you leave his body?!"  Christ.  Such an amazingly weird movie.