No, they weren't those additional scenes, which I know well (used to be a pretty neat bonus when the networks would run some of your raunchier comedies in commercial prime time - BLAZING SADDLES, I remember, lost so much material that they had to reinstate something like 30 minutes of deleted scenes when it debuted on…

That's great. I get most of my comedy hyper-fandom from my Dad as well. Except for me, being a bit older than you it would seem, the movies he took me to see Airplane!, Stripes, Neighbors, Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl, Time Bandits, The Meaning of Life, National Lampoon's Vacation, Dead Men Don't Wear…

I thought that was how Steve Jones learned guitar - black beauties, "Raw Power," and an amp kiped from the Spiders From Mars' final gig. I don't think Sid had quite that level of discipline, even on speed, but he contributed to the art of the bass all the same - he took one look at Tina Weymouth's cracked and…

Garrett said it was The Wiz in the book, but what he really meant was the monkey he played in the Canadian Wizard of Oz parody ("The Incredible Man") during the fifth season of SNL, which did look pretty humiliating - one of those cases where they felt they had to shoehorn him and Laraine Newman into an…

"Oh the snot has caked against my pants/It has turned into crystal/There's a bluebird sitting on a branch/I think I'll take my pistol/I've got it in my hand/Because he's on my land" inane? Au contraire. Arthur Lee's (best) lyrics are gold-standard psych, especially if you realize they're less "-edelic" than "-otic."

(walks past, whispers in BP 2.0's ear)

I like that comparison very much; never occurred to me, but that seems about right. Pidgeon's stilted diction was a pretty major distraction in The Spanish Prisoner (as was Lindsay Crouse's in House of Games - directors cast their wives, y'know, what can you do?), but it goes down just fine here. The Lady Eve…

Some beautiful timing there, seeing as it hit theaters right in the middle of that whole recount mishegas. Almost as perfect as Wag the Dog arriving just as the Lewinsky scandal broke. And Glengarry Glen Ross appearing the same weekend as the Great Chicago Brass Ball Avalanche. And The Spanish Prisoner going into…

Agreed. One of my favorite lines of dialogue in cinema history comes from this pic: "So…that happened."

I think Schrader was (admirably) owning up to some serious character flaws in himself during an especially dark period in his life through the medium of Travis - fear and loathing of the black man may or may not have been one of them, but if it is, good on him for not flinching from it. (And he certainly did right by…

Yes. De Niro's recent work (in cookie-cutter comedies, mostly) is basically pretty sad - like Pacino and Nicholson, he's reduced himself to doing caricatured paycheck work in dreck with the occasional reminder that he's still got the goods when he cares to try, which of course makes the shit-work even more…

And Jane Lynch, if we want to be technical (not that her sexuality was brought up at all, just being needlessly pedantic).

He's written his share of dogs in recent years, but State and Main is grrreat. Even his wife, the Squab, does a good job in it. And it has one of my favorite lines from anything, ever: "So… that happened."

Yes, do this. Average Gem runs about 20 minutes or so, and it's a great way to dip your toe into the roaring rapids of Scharplingia. (Most are Wurster calls, but some of my favorites are just Tom venting his spleen about pop-culture phenomena he loathes [see: 1/25/10 - "Tom vs. Billy Crystal" or 9/21/09 - "The…

No coincidence, either: guess which phenomenally unfunny duo made their "writing" debut with that film?

Speaking of whom, am I the only one who hopes/wishes next week's Best Show finale climaxes with a Martin-and-Lewis-on-the-Labor-Day-Telethon-style reunion/fence-mending 'twixt PFT and Tom (engineered by either Zachary Brimstead, Esq. or Timmy Von Trimble)?

And yet he's the one Python who doesn't seem able to do much apart from coasting on past glories. Which is fine when he's responsible for "official" Python projects/product (Monty Python Live!, which he edited, is handsomely put together for what's essentially another repackage of old material), but when it comes to…

Wow, nice obscure Python-quoting there. Nerd of the Day award on its way.

…as he counts his money from whoring out his legacy and short-changing his former colleagues. (As with A Liar's Autobiography, he was approached, but declined to participate. Which would be fine if it weren't obvious that there were considerations other than artistic integrity that played into his decision.)

That's my second-favorite track on The Whitefish Album, after "You Want We Should Do It In The Road?"