The challenges were also quite uninspired and unchallenging this season--lot's of "make a pretty dress" and not enough "here's some fiberglass insulation, turn it into couture." Irina was talented and so full of herself, but also very banal. She was Cruella deVille in knit.

If the murder took place in 1975, the events leading up to it and the subjects involved, all could have happened and lived through the 60s to the 70s. Makes sense.

Stephanie's review really makes me want to see this movie now! The movie's title makes me laugh. It has a knowing, winky obviousness without beating you over the head with how clever it is. In the trailer it looks like Mary Woronov is channeling Karen Black circa "Burnt Offerings". I'm there. I can always count on Stephanie to get me excited about going to the movies whether it's an entertaining low-brow picture or an entertaining high-brow one. Thanks.

Like Carole Lombard, Katherine Hepburn, Irene Dunne, Goldie Hawn, Lucille Ball, Mary Tyler Moore, Diane Keaton...I could go on and on. What was he thinking? BTW, I was looking forward to seeing Michaela Watson this year on SNL.

I second Diemday's opinion about La Streep. She has all the technical ability of a good actress, but she rarely seems to connect emotionally with the characters she plays. To paraphrase something Pauline Kael said about another actress, Ms. Streep always seems to come across like some fine lady who wants you to know that she's just playacting. She always seems to be...acting! Imagine Annette Bening or Judy Davis in "The Devil Wears Prada". Now THAT would have been F-U-N. I'd like to see Allison Janney, Celia Weston or Margo Martindale have a go at playing Julia Child. Streep's good performances always seem to happen despite herself--just watch "Plenty" or "A Cry in the Dark", two films that play off her tendency to be a bit removed and remote. Heck, she worked laboriously to get laughs in "Death Becomes Her" while Goldie Hawn just shrugged her shoulders and bit her lip and the audience was in stitches. Let's get over this Meryl Streep thing.

How cute is Jonathan Lethem?

This review reminded me of a disastrous reading I went to here in Boston. Jhumpa Lahiri was reading from her latest collection of short stories. Following the reading she took questions from the audience. A good number of questions were about how she was capable of being a mother and a writer. How do you balance motherhood and writing? Where are your children when you're writing? Do you write less now that you're a mother? Oh brother!!! Where were these people coming from? Tobias Wolf was scheduled at the same venue the following week (I didn't attend) but I'm sure NO ONE asked him about his kids.

Shows such as Project Runway and Top Design are fun places to watch gay men having fun and being creative. Where else on TV can you see a character like Wisset, the super-femmy, decorator/counter-tenor and Capote sound-a-like? Or watch the two queens Eddie and Nathan nervously put-down Preston of the plunging neckline for being too pretty and body-conscious? No one is going to write these characters into a night time drama or comedy (maybe Will and Grace tried, but not really). I revel in them. Stereotypes be damned. They exist for a reason.

The problem I have with TD is this: Who can really live with these designs? Where would I put all my books, my family pictures, and the tchotchkes I got in Turkey?

Will someone talk about how HOT everyone on this show is? As well as talented!

I can't believe Eastwood is taken seriously as a director. His movies are slogs. They seep. I hope he retires soon.

This isn't news. I've read this before plenty of times.

"I'm not big on those Pauline Kael-style encomiums to great actors in mediocre material..."

Wow, but you fall into it so easily. Why DO you go to the movies?

Why does Renée Zellweger glavanize people's opinions the way that it does? I'm so glad that Stephanie Zacharek gets her. I think Zellweger is a genius. I still think back fondly on the big speech she gives at the end of "Down With Love" which no other actress in her peer group could have matched in delivery and skill. The speech is preposterously long and reveals the multiple lies and disguises she's perpetrated throughout the movie. The miscast Ewan McGregor can't find an expression to match what's going on in front of him. Her wistful perfomance in "White Oleander" was heartbreaking with touches of Marilyn and Jean Seberg. Too bad these movies weren't as good as she was in them.

I'm glad she didn't have to write about the movies reviewed to day. She deserves better.

I [heart] Stephanie.

How can anyone justify stating that the flash forward was a "probable" future. It just wasn't structured that way. It wasn't Jack's dream or one of Desmond's visions. The flash forward was structured just like one of the flashbacks with the accompanying auditory "swoosh" and crossfade. There was no indication that this was a "probable" ending for Jack. Have any of the flashbacks been "probable" flashbacks to a probable past? Narratively, why would the writers give us some miserable future for it's main character? I'm with the reader who thinks it's actually a middle that the story will work toward and then work out of to a different ending.

Gosh, I really miss the first season when the trees would shake and ghastly noises would freak everyone out. The show seemed so much more about fairy tales, legends, myths, ghost stories...as if the island were the terminus for every shipping tale and urban legend ever written.