For me, this was part of the appeal. I like a story where you go in with a certain set of narrative expectations, only to have them completely confounded - and instead find yourself being taken down a path you could not have imagined. There are any number of classic films that pull off this maneuver very deftly -…

In the early films, empathy. Characters you cared about. They are not cold or bitter or pure exercises in style, as his later works were. It could be argued that you feel for the characters in his later films, but not in a good way. The audience may like Alex in A Clockwork Orange when he's at his very worst — they…

If there were "comforting messages" in The Killing, Paths of Glory, Lolita or Dr. Strange love, I must have missed them.

Oh I don't doubt he "honed his craft." No one will doubt that there are purely technical marvels in 2001 or in the candle-lighting of Barry Lyndon or the sound mixing of The Shining. But there's a cold, chilly, remote forbidding personality behind the camera in those films, and I don't like it. The earlier Stanley was…

Oh I don't doubt he "honed his craft." No one will doubt that there are purely technical marvels in 2001 or in the candle-lighting of Barry Lyndon or the sound mixing of The Shining. But there's a cold, chilly, remote forbidding personality behind the camera in those films, and I don't like it. The earlier Stanley was…

I prefer Kubrick's comic version to Lyne's bookish one. The casting is far better, and the script is truer to the author's puckish spirit. This is not because Nabokov wrote it because, as you rightly point it, he didn't. (Nabokov's own published script is a good read, but it wouldn't have made a very good film.) But…

Good choices. For me, the funniest, gets-me-every-time scene is the "Zoo Animals on Wheels" episode from Chris Eliott's short-lived early 1990s show "Get a Life!" That's where Chris the Paper Boy gets the starring role in the most cringe-inducing local musical production imaginable. I don't think there is a funnier…

The first time I ever heard of her was when I was a kid, watching the movie "Young Dillinger." The title character was played by the dead-too-soon Nick Adams, and Mobley played his moll. The name always stuck with me, maybe because she became a ubiquitous TV presence.

I'm totally on board with these opinions here regarding the drop in quality of The Last Roundup trilogy, the general excellence of both Paddy Clarke and the fine novels about Paula Spencer. I loved The Barrytown Trilogy as well. One thing the author of the review does not mention is that there has already been a…

It's also possible that your prospective partner has better tits than taste.

You got the "Jerry Maguire" scene a little wrong. Remember, as Chad hands the tape to Jerry, he says "I put some Mingus on there too." It is Mingus' "Haitian Fight Song" (which also goes by the title "II BS") that Jerry is playing when he says "What is this music?" To me, it's the low point of the movie. I've always…

I didn't know John Waters was gay until he "came out," so to speak, on The Simpsons. I always assumed he was asexual, because he seemed to me too cynical to have a relationship with anyone. I couldn't imagine him taking anyone seriously on an emotional level. I kind of imagined him breaking into gales of laughter if…

I didn't know John Waters was gay until he "came out," so to speak, on The Simpsons. I always assumed he was asexual, because he seemed to me too cynical to have a relationship with anyone. I couldn't imagine him taking anyone seriously on an emotional level. I kind of imagined him breaking into gales of laughter if…