For years I’ve said Citizen Kane is my favorite, but after watching Casablanca for the upteen-teenth time, I realized I really love it just as much, especially now that I’ve realized that all the women in it sleep around to get their way.

The correct answer, for everybody, is opera. Opera is always parodied, but not seen often. My first was probably on The Odd Couple, but Looney Tunes was early on.

It’s so upsetting because that is exactly what death is, for all of us. Nothing. It’s hard to handle. Brilliant.

Years ago, my brother and I went to MassMOCA, a modern art museum in an old factory in North Adams, MA. Their profile is raised every year when they hold a festival, frequently headlined by Wilco. It made contemporary art a friendly, often funny thing. Their largest space is about the size of a small airplane hanger.…

Somebody hasn’t listened to Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited in a while. It ends like this: Highway 61 Revisited, Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues, and Desolation Row.  Three homers in a row.

Cecily Strong’s pronunciation of “horse” in the last verse deserves an Emmy.

At AFI’s Clooney tribute the nipple stayed beneath her shirt, a loosely-woven white shirt which became quite revealing under bright lights and determined eyes.

He shoulda stuck to ragtime!

I saw the Beach Boys in, I think, 1980, when Brian was brought out for a few songs and waved to the fans.

Good call on “This Whole World.” There are plenty of tracks from the later years which were strong.

There have been times in, uh, private moments when I’ve had to suppress a giggle because I remember this:

I like how Segel says, “I would separate them, but not in the way you mean.” He turns a question about whether we need to like the artist into whether art should be explained. Obviously, it’s been on his mind.

I believe Martin Scorsese said during the promotion for The Age of Innocence that the inter-personal dynamics in that sort of fiction are like a mob movie.

Here’s where I confess that the one part of F For Fake that really annoyed me was the Kodar’s constant parading. It went from “look at this beautiful woman” to “we’re testing the boundaries of what’s acceptable in movies” to “check out the chick I’m f**king.”

Fantastic article, Iggy.

And she wasn’t talking ABOUT Catherine Keener, she was describing Ben Mendelsohn.

Well, I was there, finishing up my freshman year in college. I read about “The Message,” heard Weird Al, and heard all those crappy top songs for the year. Even “Starting Over,” from my late hero John, was a bit thin and wimpy - the voice connected, as it always does, but Double Fantasy showed him dangerously…

See also “Fleetwood Mac.”

As pretty as that is, the version she recorded later tears it to bits. It was one of the two songs she produced for the ultra-trendy Who’s Zoomin’ Who album. The original vinyl release of that album had a tribute to her recently departed father on the liner notes, and she remakes “Sweet Bitter Love,” a song she…

The piano announces itself! I just saw Aretha and Stevie play it together, and of course he uses the piano lick - it’s perfect. The whole song unfolds from beginning to end - when the flutes come in at the end, it doesn’t at all feel like something tagged on.