I was looking forward to watching it tonight, but, even though the DVD came out today, apparently it's not in Redbox yet. Booo!!!

I liked but didn't love The Conjuring, but seeing it on opening night in a large theater was absolutely the most fun theatrical experience I had this year. People were jumping out of their seats, screaming in horror, and the guy next to me was so nervous he was shaking the entire time. It was a total blast.

Best revival screening for me is a tie between The Cloud-Capped Star and Lawrence of Arabia in 70mm. Most traumatic revival screening goes to Mary Poppins because the print was awful.

I'll throw my list up here for shits and giggles. (A few of these probably don't qualify as "2013," but they're close enough, I say):

It glosses over large portions of the Republican primaries. Cain, Perry, Bachmann, and (especially) Paul barely rate mentions. There's a bit more on Santorum and Gingrich but nothing particularly interesting. The Romney and Obama campaigns are as dull as you'd probably expect.

I have mixed feelings on someone like Beck. Wright does a great job of showing how growing up inside a totalistic religion can mean that rejecting that religion may mean that your family and friends will completely disown you and shut you out. I don't know enough about Beck's situation, but it seems like at the very…

Yeah, it definitely changed my view of, say, Tom Cruise from "Oh, he believes some wacky but basically harmless stuff" to "He is complicit in and profiting from a corrupt enterprise."

I haven't read Bolano, unfortunately, so I couldn't comment on that.

I just searched, and it looks like she mentioned it in one of the mid-year AVQ&A things, but there was no review. That's why the titles aren't hyperlinked in that section.

Ok, that would make a lot more sense. Kind of an odd way to phrase it, though.

I asked for The Unwinding for Christmas. Really looking forward to it.

Thanks, I really hope you like it then!

According to Amazon, This Town and The Columnist are "frequently bought together," so it definitely sounds up my alley (and the bowtie made out of a dollar certainly looks like it's aiming for Will, who's a soft but worthy target).

I didn't read enough new stuff to make a real list, but I did enjoy the following:

And The Childhood of Jesus is hardly under the radar either, though maaaaybe that one could be justified as being underrated in comparison to past Coetzee books.

In what way are Life After Life and The Unwinding "unsung"? Those were two of the most popular and well-reviewed books of the year. The latter even won the National Book Award!

I generally like Payne, but I kind of hate Citizen Ruth. A great character/performance plopped down in the middle of a shrill, unfunny caricature of the abortion debate.

Now you know … part of the story.  Good day!

"Why You Never Became a Dancer" by Whitehouse, which, as I understand it, is about Tracey Emin.

My understanding — I wasn't alive in '83, so grain of salt and all that — is that Kill 'Em All was pretty hotly anticipated among a certain group of Bay Area metalheads and ravenous tape traders because of the No Life 'Til Leather demo, which had been circulating for about a year at that point. (And there were…