"The dream Bell recounts at the film’s close suggest he feels lost in the morally ambiguous modern world and feels nostalgia for the time of his father, a time when good guys were good and bad guys were bad."
But don't forget the talk he has with Ellis which is as important: https://www.youtube.com/wat…
He points out…

Let me just say as a Montanan who spent a year in Ottumwa, IA and witnessed first-hand this perplexingly un-novel novelty, I pray with all my heart that it was NOT invented by a fellow Montanan. This ridiculously bizarre culinary phenomena belongs to the Midwest and I want no part of it touching my state or any other…

You're grading Spoon on a reverse curve?

Slow day at AV Club today.

Would die if the AV Club wrote about "Cadillac Man" from The Jesters.

Don't forget the end lyric: "Take your fast car and keep on driving."

Is that all you have to say about this tune?

But I ride by night and I travel in fear
That in this darkness I will disappear

Also, that song HAD to be influenced by the Monte Hellman classic "Two Lane Blacktop."

This is my favorite point in that discussion: "Somehow, I got a '69 Chevy with a 396 / semi-hemispherical heads and an after-market gearshift on the floor doesn't quite trip off the tongue the same way…:

Agreed. The way the song slowly builds and gathers anger and despair into a tempest with him blaring "Give me one reason not to do it". There's nothing like it. I'd say it's an even more defining song off that album than the (beautiful) "Twilight."

I just don't get the fascination with trying to unearth the personal issues that any artist is going through when they make good art. The interest in Blood on the Tracks for me isn't what was going on in Bob Dylan's personal life - it's about the album itself. The myriad of possible interpretations of a song like…

Oh, man, you said it. It's NOT good fiction at all. The author just wanted to show that he could explain to you how a person could live on Mars alone for several months if they are resourceful. And, oh my god, the dialogue of the NASA scientists. I will say it since no one else wants to: the book sucked.

So it means dads want to appropriate childhood for themselves and superglue it to the floor (metaphorically speaking) so it doesn't go anywhere?

Can you stop saying the movie is "poignant" and has emotional depth. The heart of the story is Will Ferrell's grown manchild that owns probably $100,000 worth of Legos and he wants to have them all crazyglued together while his son just wants to free-build. Is that really emotionally resonating with anyone? Fathers…

Her up for best motion picture is great but obviously no chance to win since Spike didn't get a director nod (which is ridiculous).
Also, how does it NOT get a cinematography nomination? I haven't seen all the movies that did get one, but "Her" was one of the most beautiful looking films I've seen this year.