He guested as the demon Balthazar on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, on the episode "Bad Girls", and gets one of my favorite lines of all time from the show. "A trade. Intriguing…no, wait, boring."

Veronica Mars has an episode - "Return of the Kane" - where the election of student body president gets rigged by Madison (switching the ballots around so the poor kids are voting for Duncan even if they'd rather vote for Wanda, the opposing candidate). Of course, when they set up another vote, Duncan wins again, it…

I was just coming to mention that, as McGinty votes for the mayor 37 times (true, it's because he's being paid $2 per vote, but still).

I don't love the movie - I don't think Kasdan was entirely suited for black comedy, though it was a good try - but I love that scene.

That's my favorite line not spoken by Otto in the entire movie.

Start again!

Still slogging through War and Peace, though I'm due to get Trouble Boys from the library soon (I have it on hold), and very much looking forward to that, since the Replacements are one of my favorite bands.

Careless Love is very good as well, though obviously more depressing.

Rosanne Cash does a good cover of "River" as well.

Actually, my impression is that more critics preferred this version than to Hoffman's, which always baffled me (though I agree with Mike this opening scene is terrific). The only thing I think is better in this version of the movie is Daniel Craig's performance as Smith; Clifton Collins Jr. isn't bad as Smith, but…

Other films in competition that year aside from the ones mentioned above (like Marie Antoinette, Pan's Labyrinth, Volver, and yes, even Southland Tales a lot, liked Wind Shakes the Barley with reservations - the political stuff was stronger for me than the brother conflict, which I thought was cliched - had mixed…

He was not. That was Andrew Fleming (director), Nat Mauldin and Ed Solomon (co-writers).

Flynn also directed The Outfit, one of the better adaptations of Donald A. Westlake's Parker novels.

Me, I'm still going to be slogging through War & Peace, though after that, I'm not sure. Maybe I'll read Dune, since I've never read it.

If you can track it down, Ursula Le Guin's novel The Beginning Place would fit your criteria.

This article is a perfect demonstration of why so-called "think pieces" like this drive me crazy. Klosterman makes the legitimate argument that disco deserves better than the critics then and now gave it, and then he reduces punk to four British guys swearing at a TV host? And while using what he seems to think are…

Sorry I'm a little late with this; I didn't read this until just now. Other films in competition that year besides the ones mentioned:

Remember the brou-ha-ha over Bull Durham, when there was going to be a 15th anniversary celebration of it at Cooperstown but Dale Petroskey, the baseball Hall of Fame president, canceled it because of Tim Robbins' opposition to the Iraq War at the time? According to Robbins, Eastwood was one of the few people from…

Well, Medved and a few others also took him to task for A Perfect World, which I never really understood.

Thank you! As with Confirmation, no reviewer has mentioned that this story was filmed previously on cable, and I'm glad to see someone mention it.