Absolutely, Scott Tobias is the best. I was trying to figure out if any cuts of Bad Lieutenant still have Signifying Rapper on the soundtrack and came across it.

Completely agree that he's an awesome writer, but between this and TWD you can see he's really burned out. The spot on B+ grade was followed by a review describing a C/C- show. Kind of reminds me of Tasha Robinson criticizing The Dark Knight for not being original enough. He's a great writer who needs a break from…

I just thought it was me, but Zack does seem to be in a bit of a hate-watching rut. Someone in the comments aptly pointed out last week that The Well almost felt like it was from a different show and it's very telling that's the only episode he's liked this season.

They do that a bit, but the real uncertainty comes from the huge number of 3rd party voters this year. All of the really thoughtful people have been locked in a long time ago and the election is riding on a bunch of myopic people in a handful of states who are easily swayed by propaganda. Good luck prognosticating…

I was going to say redskins. Stupid racist Scrabble.

That's an awesome anecdote- thanks! One of my favorite memories of being a suburban punk was having the lead singer of Agent Orange come up to me out of genuine concern when I got hit in the face and a bloody nose during the opening act (Doggy Style). Such a nice guy and had no idea who he was until they took the…

I totally agree that it's just a deliberately assholic persona that was developed to mesh with his show. I like your Colbert analogy, although there's probably also a bit of Andrew Dice Clay/Archie Bunker in how he adapted to cater to fans who didn't get the irony. If you ever get a chance to see the Live at Gotham…

The whole thing pisses me off and I doubt I'll read it, but I wouldn't judge it on that principle alone. A huge amount of Franz Kafka's work would have been lost if his friend hadn't disobeyed a request to burn everything after Kafka died.

It's interesting and I still liked them, but to me the Chainsaw EP was probably their peak. That was a near perfect crossover between what I think of as more pure but rather hard to listen to industrial like SPK and Throbbing Gristle with the later, far more accessible dance industrial like My Life With The Thrill…

That's a really interesting take on them- thanks. I had the opposite reaction and only like the early stuff prior to Too Dark Park, which I thought was mediocre at best. I think their collaboration with Ministry was the turning point. It took Skinny Puppy in a direction that I didn't care for, although I really…

That's awesome- I drove down to Trenton to see them on that tour. I remember thinking it was strange that the entire Nine Inch Nails "band" was just a guy playing along with a couple backing reel-to-reels. My friends and I made fun of him for how many time he said "buy my 12 inch after the show", but it turns out…

Yeah, that was getting way too time consuming.  Keith Phipps has written a couple really good articles for other sites since leaving, but tracking them down is a pain.

Exactly- it's all of my favorite writers too!  First thing I thought when I read the blurb about Tasha leaving was that if Rabin leaves I'm going to delete my AVClub bookmark.  Now I'm genuinely excited to see the band come back together, plus I respect the class of how this site has handled the disbanding and I'm…

You're probably right, but I'm a big Cronenberg fan and love that conventional wisdom now holds that his Crash is far superior to this one.

Already listened to a couple (my commute sucks) and it's a lot of fun so far.  I really enjoyed the AVClub movie review podcast when they had it and this seems like it might be like that but even better.  Thanks for the roundabout recommendation!

Me too for HDTGM and I'll have to go check out Down in Front if you say it's equally entertaining.  Reading through the comments here I'm baffled at how many of the people posting are familiar with the podcast and hate it.  Why on earth would you waste your time listening to something you didn't like and then on top…

I didn't mind the Kevin Smith one, but it didn't feel like a HDTGM episode.  Kind of unfortunate since WWW is such a perfect movie for their podcast.

I completely agree and think it's somewhat unfortunate that he keeps pushing the comedy.
 He's at best a journeyman comedian, but has exceptional talent as an
interviewer and with some work could probably be the next Charlie Rose.
 All of the things that undercut his comedy and make it seem generic and
forced play in…

Why aren't the movie titles links to the AVClub reviews?  Maybe I'm just lazy, but it would be nice to have a convenient way to check out the reviews being referenced.

Why aren't the movie titles links to the AVClub reviews?  Maybe I'm just lazy, but it would be nice to have a convenient way to check out the reviews being referenced.