Kansas City, KS can be more interesting than Kansas City, MO. (That's not saying much.) But the suburban sprawl that extends into Kansas—Olathe, Overland Park, etc.—does indeed not matter.

As a KC resident, I can confirm: he has a point.

I live in Kansas City too. What I love most about his KC routine is how angry it makes people here. Kansas City is indeed a shithole. But people living here have such an inferiority complex that they will only grudgingly acknowledge that other cities exist. (Forget about the fact that those cities might, perhaps, be…

I quit all streaming services except for the filet o' fish.

Yeah but—despite its politically tricky conceit—this year's "Remember" was a killer theatrical experience and one of the most overlooked movies of the year so far.

Counterpoint: "The Thin Red Line"

Yeah, but for working-class folks trying to break into the middle class, everything is expensive. Prewar, the cities at least offered jobs and opportunity whereas the suburbs were basically desolate. Levittowns and their ilk were downright lavish compared to cities' cramped tenements. They may have been tacky, prefab…

Not quite. White flight began after GI's came home from the war and grew through the '50s as they settled down, started families, and moved to the suburbs. The Interstate Act didn't help either. (Not to mention redistricting and desegregation.)

Considering that movie's dread-locked, jungle-dwelling "predator," I've always gotten a crypto-racist vibe from it. Never even weighed the Lovecraft angle…

I have a feeling that, no matter what was in the script, Pacino would've delivered the same performance.

Look, this has nothing to do with me. I'm terribly sorry.

[opens mouth, closes mouth, rolls eyes, scoots backward, gestures]

Textbook Eastwood.

I like it a lot too. But it's a little goofy in its complete lack of anything resembling a sense of humor.

I could've sworn we already knew about this—that it was in the script and dropped or something.

I still remember the outcry when Phipps relented to industry pressure to include a ranked, star-system with reviews. Of course he didn't have a choice—Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic made sure of that—but the conversation about retaining nuance in thumbs-up-thumbs-down criticism and Internet influence was long and…

Here's the thing: after the end of the Cold War, Bond's whole thing was an anachronism. The Brosnan run was tried (and failed) to adapt because it could never figure out the right blend of zeitgeist nodding and winking parody. Meanwhile, the Austin Powers series was making a killing.

This is a shame. My parents celebrated their wedding here in the late '70s. Dining at the Parthenon became a tradition for the family whenever in or near Chicago. I don't have the heart to even break the news to them.

Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I don't think it's a coincidence that that song shows up in a very self-aware "Star Trek" movie.

If that's true, it explains a lot. But that writer was always more of a free agent. Anyway, you're onto something about the conspicuous absence of "$100,000 Pyramid" coverage. And one day, we'll get the Shakespearean oral history of the AVC we deserve.