Totino's party pizzas. and (when I'm not in Texas) McDonald's chicken sandwiches off the dollar menu.

the thing I love about Deathly Hallows pt 1 is how it almost reads as a deconstruction of the entire series up to that point, as if the writers are saying, "All along we've been feeding you a fantasy about how it would feel to be chosen and a hero, but here's the reality. it's bleak and mundane and terrible."

not only is it the best Harry Potter film, it's one of my favorite films period. Newell perfectly captures the tension and paranoia of a classic British mystery, but sweetens it with just enough teenage angst and longing that the gut punch at the ending hits even harder. I can't even watch the scene at the end of the…

I've said this before, but these films ended up being better than we had any reason to expect them to be. We take their success for granted today, but there was a time in the Columbus era when it looked like they were just going to be reliably faithful regurgitations of the books. But the excellence of the post-Cuaron…

Aimee Mann's "Can't You Tell," easily. she manages to wring empathy out of a figure the rest of us would be inclined to revile.

The Exorcist, even as a Catholic. it's just so glacially paced.

Zodiac! the black Cadillac. the Hurdy-Gurdy Man. scariest opening scene ever.

The Silkworm, by "Robert Galbraith"! I just finished it last week and it was incredibly grim and disturbing in parts, but has some of the most vivid and beautiful descriptions of London in any of Rowling's books. She knows how to write perfect stories, and I agree that her non-Harry Potter mysteries are equally as…

yeah, I think he must have merit systems on the brain. or be intending to implement one, or something.

the merits system in Nosedive also reminded me, perhaps not coincidentally, of The Good Place.

this looks amazing! I really want to see it.

Belle and Sebastian is my favorite band but I usually wait and pull out their albums in the early fall, along with most of my indie collection.

I actually found the opening chapters of the book really fascinating. It helps if you read it as a primer on the power of persuasion or storytelling, though its power lies not so much in what he says on the page as in how he spins the story, weaving a colorful fabric of hyperbole and exaggeration. There are a couple…

yes! that exact line.

songs that give me chills:

"You can do better than that! POUR OUT YOUR BOWLS OF WRATH UPON THE EARTH! BRRIIIIIIING IT ONNNNN!"

"I COULD kill you, but… who will I rule over if all of you are dead?"

The Omega Code movies are still some of the best end-times films ever made. The screenwriter tried to lend the script some gravitas by having Michael York (the Antichrist) quote Shakespeare at intervals. I think at some point York realized the kind of movie he was in and decided to play his character as preposterously…

definitely the one between Eric and Tami and Julia on Friday Night Lights. and Boyhood - aside from the coincidence of both being set in central Texas, there's a realism to the relationships that's rare for a work in any medium.

a couple of weeks ago Vulture did a ranking of all 314 songs recorded by Springsteen. I concur with most of it, and the top ten is solid, though I would have ranked Tenth-Avenue Freezeout and Backstreets slightly higher.