I always thought it was a CBC show. No CBC show would ever sweep the Emmys. Okay, I need to watch this show. 

I probably haven’t seen it in 20 years, but I still remember how brutal Hopper’s ending felt for a kid’s movie. That and how the brightly-coloured German accordion slugs look when you find them under a couch in Tennessee. Yuck.

Semi-literate? Who’s crazy now?

I wanted Howard to win, but partly because I was so impressed with the callback to the broken buzz-lock door at his jewelry store after such a frenetic pace of horrifying decisions. The dumb, crazy luck of this guy. Why not keep it going?

Also, the suspense must be at least somewhat better-suited to people like me who…

This has come up a few times as well, and I was thinking I might actually rewatch it, until I saw the trailer again. Not doing that again. 

I’ve seen pretty polarized reactions to No Country as well (one of my favourite movies), which frankly confuse me, since I didn’t find it very gratuitous, and I’m usually bothered or annoyed enough by that in movies to the point of not enjoying them. I find there’s a difference between depicting cruelty to be…

I first saw The Usual Suspects in college around 2006, and blame my expectations. As a child, I remember hearing some endorsement of, “If you can solve this one, we’ve got a job for you down at the local precinct!” which I never took literally, but always took seriously for the challenge of solving it. It’s no secret t…

I remember being able to see it in full on YouTube, at least then. It’s definitely worth a watch. Sad, of course, but it isn’t the kind of wrenching, soul-blackening fare that I’ve heard described as ‘misery porn’, etc. It’s interesting seeing Japanese animation in the 1980s and how it compares to its American…

I believe I first heard about Grave of the Fireflies in the comments here, marketed to me as the ‘saddest animated movie ever’ or thereabouts. I thought I’d be my own judge of that, and sure enough, yeah, pretty much. 

No, you’re right, and I apologize. It was flippant, when your point wasn’t ‘the show sucks’. I do think it’s a bit reaching, though, to say “the family was really only black by virtue of Smith not fitting into a white family.” I understand you’re paraphrasing a bit, but the logic seems like ‘a highly successful TV…

Counter-point: Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was a really good show.

This is a bit separate to your point, which I agree with, but I’ve never understood this contract of dignity that formerly famous people are supposed to have with the public to remain famous forever. Not so much the “D-Listers”, per se - people famous for being famous - but the people who either see the reach of their…

“Party in the USA” came on at work the other day, and it occurred to me that the line is a lot less pronounced in the original version than I thought it was. I was helping out in the nightclub part of a restaurant I was working at when this song was at its peak, and the DJ seemed to play this hook incessantly. It…

Oh, I completely agree that it’s a good song. To me, it’s the Incubus version of something like “No Quarter” by Led Zeppelin, or “Pyramid Song” by Radiohead. All of that helps make the line so much more comically jarring to me, I guess. I didn’t personally enjoy Crow Left of the Murder as much as the two before it,…

I don’t know if it’s so much the sentimental plot than it is the reward of seeing his plan laid out.

It’s in rank of irritation, really. I like Fred Durst as a person. The Education of Charlie Banks was a good movie with mid-fame Jesse Eisenberg that he directed. People grow. It’s just such a stupid song.

Strangely enough, that makes it one syllable better.

I have three, in increasing order:

3) Here In My Room, Incubus: Already a song explicitly about Brandon Boyd boning, still comes to a grinding halt with the line, “Pink tractor beam into your incision”. It seemed like it was the exact moment where he was like, fuck it, I can and will sing anything.

2) My Way, Limp…

Oh, is Train Canadian? Jesus.

It’s interesting to me that a guy like Paul Lieberstein wouldn’t seem to share the same interest. I get that he’s an offbeat Handy-esque kind of writer, but maybe his famous camera-shyness led him to dislike the character? I’m still curious what role BJ Novak played. I always found kind of fitting the story of the…