Beltmann

My view is that no terrific movie is ever truly depressing. Even if the subject matter is difficult, you're still experiencing good art, and that's always uplifting. As for Diving Bell, the tone is often surprisingly resilient and good-humored. Really great.

The Naked City is one of the great police procedural flicks, partially because it turns actual New York City locations--the bustling denizens, the architecture, the caverns of civilization--into major characters in the story. Plus, there is memorable banter between deceitful witness Howard Duff and detective Barry Fitzgerald, an urban lawman deeply skilled at tricking others into underestimating him.

Awesome news, Derek! (Stacy and I both miss the band terribly. Would you believe that when I opened this email, we actually had the Broken Hearted Dreams EP playing?)

So this is what it feels like to be traumatized.

It's not a good movie, true, but I have to admit I found its sheer lunacy rather appealing.

That pretty much describes Mark Oliver Everett's memoir Things the Grandchildren Should Know, which I recently finished. One of the best books about a musician I've ever read.

There are few things in sports more awesome than a pitcher hitting a home run. Or even going 3-3.

I don't think the analogy holds. Movie stories are cobbled together through a far more complex and intricate process, which therefore makes occasional "mistakes" like continuity errors forgivable. Writing and editing copy, though, is not a complex and intricate process. (Which is why it requires only a single dedicated soul, as opposed to the army working, often at cross purposes, on a movie.) If we want to keep the movie analogy, the equivalent error might be misspelling Tom Cruise's name in the opening credits or having boom mikes visible in every scene. That kind of error is, indeed, i

I'm with you. It's a sign of professionalism as well as credibility. I'm the faculty adviser for our high school newspaper, and even though we're just a dinky 12-page paper that publishes six times a year, our staff would be horrified to let something like that go to print. One of the last things we do before sending it off to the printer is scour each page multiple times for typos, errors, and misspelled names. (We actually check each printed name against the student database just to be sure.) There's really no excuse for lousy editing, especially not for publications that want to be tak

Stacy and I saw The National tonight in Milwaukee, and both the preshow and aftershow music featured "Bull Black Nova." There was a Son Volt poster in the lobby, which prompted a woman in line near us to say, "Hey, that's that group with the other singer from that band, Uncle something..." Later, the couple sitting directly in front of us turned out to be big Wilco fans, which led to some good conversation about Jay Bennett and Summerteeth.

I've been to 10 shows (7 full band, 3 Tweedy solo). All were in Milwaukee or Madison or Chicago. First one was July 2003, last one was April 2009. Best one? Probably May 6, 2005 at the Vic, which was recorded for the KT live CD.

Where does Food, Inc. rank among exposes of modern food industries? Better (and slicker) than The Real Dirt on Farmer John and King Corn, but below the great, poetic Our Daily Bread. (It's also a better adaptation of Schlosser's "Fast Food Nation" than, um, Fast Food Nation.)

"Handshake Drugs" is up there, but number one is probably "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart."

The Friends of Eddie Coyle. Classic Mitchum.

Definitely.

After the great one-two punch of Old Joy and Wendy and Lucy, is it fair to say Kelly Reichardt ranks among the best American directors currently working? (I'm leaning towards yes.)

Waltz with Bashir is thoughtful, powerful, and engrossing. Loved it.

Son Volt played Letterman for both Okemah ("Afterglow 61", sounded great) and The Search ("The Picture," marred by way too many horns).

Yippee-ki-yay, melon farmer!

7th Heaven / Frank Borzage / 1927

Let's not overlook the role of exaggeration to make points about SBS and its place in the Wilco canon. I think nearly everybody on this board that has ever criticized SBS (including me) would agree that it's still better than most records released in the last few years.

I love that one, too! It's a great one-two punch.

I remember those days. Then I got a career, and then I got kids. Totally agree about Transformers 2. That was a chore to sit through--easily the worst movie I've seen this year (and I kinda liked the first one).

I haven't seen the trailer. But I'd say it's possible that the movie might only appeal to a narrow base--you have to be willing to forgive some of Allen's late-period tics.

But when they get things wrong, it only proves that they aren't one of those librul elitists who value contemptible things like book learnin'.