I don't know what keeps Stephanie Z. going, but it sure isn't the appreciation of her readers. I've never seen so much meanness directed at a film critic. Jeez, folks...

Anyway, I've seen the movie and it is truly awful. Like "No Country For Old Men," it has a literary quality and so people who know little about literature rave because they think it'll make aesthetes out of them. Both movies are pointless, but "TWBB" is doubly pointless and painful in a way SZ barely mentions: the score is impossible to listen to; it seems as if it were written for another movie entirely and even if it was a fit it would still be hard on the ears. I even checked my screener to see if perhaps there was another music track that was being played by mistake. Pure hell, truly awful.

It's hard to imagine a group of people deciding to finance and film this script, which is so obviously devoid of anything but a couple of chances to chew scenery -- which DDL does with relish. Yechhh.

And hey, lay off Stephanie, everyone. If you don't like her reviews, don't read 'em.

If it had, they'd be showing it to us, along with evidence of the plots and acts of terror that were thereby disrupted or prevented. Proudly. But they're not.

Why can't Dodd be President? Everyone seems to take it as received wisdom, a priori fact, that Dodd can't win. Why the hell not??

It makes me nervous when Glenn talks about this victory we just won. It was at most a skirmish in a much bigger battle in a far larger war.

I did GreenDimes, ProQuo, the other free site and the DMA. Now I sit back and wait...for nothing. I love it. Thank you.

Is that post your idea of spreading cheer? Piss off!

Those two neologism-jokes have been circulating (along with many far funnier ones) on the internet for years.

Fair enough.

You've seen the movie?

Andrew, I know it's your job to criticize and all that. But in addition to the numerous boxes you have to check before you're ready to publish a review (Visible Plot Devices? Check. Too Many Camera Moves? Check. Too Much Music? Check. Complexity Where Simplicity Would Work Better? Check. Overacting? Check. Underacting? Check. Not As Good As That Coen Brothers Movie? Check. Etcetera) shouldn't there be a box that monitors, "Enjoyability For the Average Non-Anal-Cinephile Viewer"? Your condescending tone ("...no-doubt-well-intentioned attempt..."; "...earnest, leaden picture...") is yours and you're welcome to it, even if it shows you as rather out of touch with the hard work and high-juggling art of putting a live-action movie on the wall (you can still find fault, but to be back-of-the-hand dismissive is beyond inappropriate). Isn't your job also to let people know if, when they take time out of their day or night to crawl into a dark room and hope to be transported out of their reality into someone else's and be entertained for a couple of hours, there's any likelihood of that happening? We don't all sit there nit-picking a movie to death as you clearly do. Sometimes we just want to be taken away, perhaps to share an intense experience with the person in the next seat so we can talk about it over banana splits afterward. Film is a collaborative art wherein hundreds of people, working against the clock, the weather, the budget, try to capture lightning in a bottle and no, they don't always succeed brilliantly. But each effort should be judged, if necessary, by what it tried to accomplish and what means it had at its disposal, not by what someone else did under other circumstances. And when an effort comes as close as "The Kite Runner" does to being an entertaining -- even thoughtful -- experience, shouldn't there be room in a review to say at least, "Many people will enjoy this film"? Because many people will.

Rental/fleet cars don't get care. I'm not saying Japanese cars aren't better, but it's possible a Taurus, properly maintained, couldn't get 150K.

Notice how all the ads these days are about horsepower? Zero-to-sixty times? It's a flame-out. The more we know this is bad, the more we're fascinated by it. Mileage is hardly ever mentioned.

Why is a move to cut greenhouse gases seen as a defeat for the automobile industry? Don't the people who make up The Automobile Industry have grandchildren, too?

It's Rubens-esque. Or Rubensesque. Guy's name was Rubens.

No sane Republican wants to run for President this cycle. Any Rebublican with smarts, spine, a track record of consistent beliefs is going to put him or herself through the grinder when defeat is so clearly going to be the outcome. So, we get the lineup of unelectable nutballs, losers and tin-foil-hat fantasists (pace, Ron Paul, you're unelectable) we see before us. The Dems are able to field a lineup of candidates of substance and strength because there, there really is a race.

Too bad Russert didn't toss into the conversation that Michael Bloomberg's GF, all spectacular nearly six feet of her, walks down NY streets alone and takes the subway to work.

He promised the Military Industrial Complex a dandy new missile shield project and now the NIE and Putin are conspiring to shut it down. Those big boys don't like to see money evaporate before their eyes. Li'l George gots some 'splainin' to do.

He came off dreadful. He was nervous, not very articulate -- about as presidential as an over-caffeinated schoolgirl. Too bad so many Red State Republicans don't watch MTP, Rudy would be finished for good, right now.

Nicely put, Nick Ray -- and true.

Personally, I didn't like the book because I didn't like the writing. But the movie worked very well, IMO.

“J.F.K.’s speech was to reassure Americans that he wasn’t a religious fanatic. Mitt’s was to tell evangelical Christians, ‘I’m a religious fanatic just like you.’”