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I disagree! It is my least favorite of the official canon (most people leave BR out.) As has been said below, while Royal Tenenbaums is pretty much in everyone's top 3, the Anderson-Fan diaspora can be divided into Life Aquatic people and Rushmore people. If you love one you probably don't love the other. I prefer Life Aquatic because it's the Anderson outlier. The MOST Anderson-y of his films. Maybe a little much, but possessing a higher concentration of all the qualities I love in his films: A complete, three-dimensional, meticulously crafted jewel-box universe, absurd humor, bizarre characters, and meditation on Anderson's usual catalog of psychological hang ups (broken families, fathers and sons, middle-aged regret, professional stagnation) I don't dislike Rushmore, but I find the main character intensely hateable (as opposed to Steve Zissou, who, while also hatable, is a deeply sympathetic character, at least to me.)

LOVE Life Aquatic. But I love most of Anderson's movies. I rank them thusly: 1. The Royal Tenenbaums 2. The Darjeeling Limited 3. The Life Aquatic 4. Fantastic Mr. Fox 5. Moonrise Kingdom 6. Rushmore 7. Bottle Rocket

To be fair, the acting and cinematography on "Glee" ARE brilliant.

WHO'S TO SAY SHE DIDN'T?

I hear that. The only time I've ever openly wept at this show is the moment in "The Suitcase". You know the one I'm talking about. Where Don, at his most bedraggled and haggard, has the hardest phone conversation of his life, while believing Peggy to be passed out on the couch. He lowers his eyes and then lifts them- to see a fully conscious Peggy burning holes through him with her all seeing eyes. Exposed and raw, he crumples. I lost it. The Don/Peggy dynamic is the most potent strain in this show. I hope to God we're not losing it entirely.

I feel like maybe you're not talking enough about how great The Lord is? Like, all the time? Who's this great all the time in response to pretty much everything?

Bizarre Moobs with Andrew Zimmern

These recaps are going to get me fired. I'm a giggling mess.

I think Obama is intentionally ratcheting up his "blackness" in an effort to bait the GOP candidates into giving in to their white resentment and saying something awful and racist. He's totally daring them to pander to the 0.5 percent of US voters that make up the Republican Primary electorate and lament the downgrading of white privilege and the loss of "dignity" (whiteness) in the White House. Lets watch tonight!

Say, put a metal case in your butt Say, put her face in your butt Say, put a frown in your butt Say, put a clown in your butt Say, sit on down in your butt Say, put a boat in your butt Say, put a moat in your butt Put a mink coat in your butt Put everything in your butt Just start to sing about your butt Feels real good when you sing about your butt

I JUST blew threw seasons 1 and 2 this past long weekend. Reading this recap was great. Please do this for all of the episodes. Very funny.

yeah, 'cause he totally has NOT been working crazy hard. C'mon. The things you're complaining about- the Kardashian answer, the White House Halloween party- those are all totally harmless, obligatory things that have nothing to do with his record of governance- which, even if you don't agree with his policies, has been prolific in three years. Especially if you compare him with his predecessor- but even if you don't- Obama has been a damned serious president. Pretty sure his singing one bar of Al Green at a fundraiser did not reroute the crucial mental energy that otherwise would have been devoted to "solutions". I guess it's fine if you don't think he's "the best person for the job"- although I disagree. I think he is. But you seem like an intelligent fellow- do you think that Mitt f'ing Romney or Newt Gingrich are better suited to occupy the White House? Think about it.

I also realize the temerity of using the word "lazy" several times in spite of the fact that I'm myself too-lazy to rattle off a list of the Obama White House's greatest hits. My intention- just to be pre-emptive- was not to accuse YOU of laziness, but rather to cite the intellectual laziness of a lot of conventional wisdom about Obama, the fundamentals of the American character, and a few of the historical precedents you cite.

Not my intention to come across as nasty- I don't think that I did. Furthermore, it's a little narcissistic to assume that my comment was directed specifically at you, somehow. I don't think it's a galloping leap to characterize the ideological temperament of the average Videogum devotee as "progressive". My invocation of Fox News was perhaps a clumsy attempt at Irony, as you would not expect a generally left-of-center audience to spout Fox News talking points, as several people have. You have every right to deviate from the Videogum crowd politically, and to make your voice heard, but I did not accuse YOU of anything- if you're a conservative, a libertarian, a (you don't identify yourself with a specific ideology- but your exuberantly prideful declaration at not owning a TV fairly reeks of Ron Paul support despite your denial of libertarianism) I am not surprised that you are no fan of our current president. My beef, as stated, is with "disaffected liberals" who don't know a good thing when they see it. And GOD but I hate flame wars.... at the risk of wasting company time, I will be as brief as possible: -Carter was most assuredly a "progressive" president, and Obama has already lapped his list of accomplishments several times over. Clinton WANTED to be a progressive president, but ended up not being one (though he was effective at what he ended up pursuing.) Lyndon Johnson was the last true progressive that Obama can be said to be competing with, and he's so far on pace, with two terms, to eclipse LBJ and move right up behind FDR. -I think it's lazy and false to assert, as you implicitly do, that America is a "right-of-center" nation. That has not always been so. Since Reagan struck his resonant chord with the US in 1980 and remade US politics in his own image, our "center" has indeed been far to the right of most developed nations. But I don't think there's anything implicitly "conservative" about the American character. People may site individualism, optimism and entrepreneurial spirit as proof of such, but I don't personally see any of those qualities as essentially conservative, particularly as currently practiced, or, more to the point, I don't see those American characteristics at odds with progressivism as currently understood. -The ACA ("Obamacare" for the lazy-minded) IS A FREE MARKET APPROACH. It's a set of regulations and rules governing a fully capitalistic and free market healthcare system. There is no "public option", as the "disaffected liberals" to which I alluded earlier will be glad to remind you of. Glad to know you agree that the government has a role to play. Pray tell, what more LIMITED role could the government possibly play than as described in the ACA? The answer is, of course, NO role, as we've had all along. Hasn't worked out so well. As for the mandate which you reference, which is a free market idea pioneered by conservatives in the '90's, if you disallow insurance companies from barring people with pre-existing conditions from having insurance, the trade off is that you need to make sure everyone is insured. The companies lose money by insuring demonstrably sick people, but gain money from having thousands more healthy people paying premiums on their rolls. It puts the onus on the individual not to be able to game the system. Just like car insurance- you can't drive without it, nor should you be able to walk around in the US without some form of health insurance. It's a pragmatic, centrist idea. I honestly don't have time to respond to your glib refusal to acknowledge the tonnage of accomplishments achieved by this white house. In principal, I understand your unwillingness to respond to a non-argument. But we're not in debate class here- I respect your news-reading and internet-browsing skills enough to take for granted that I don't have to PROVE to you something that is plainly obvious. You may think, as I do with Reagan, that Obama's acheivements are dangerous and damaging, but don't try to pretend they don't exist. I find it frankly childish, and I have to assume you're more fair-minded then that. But I will provide a few links for your education: http://obamaachievements.org/list http://whatthefuckhasobamadonesofar.com/ Andrew Sullivan Extra Credit: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/01/15/andrew-sullivan-how-obama-s-long-game-will-outsmart-his-critics.html And listen, while I have to roll my eyes at the weepy idol-worship and twisted revisionist recollection of Reagan, I will absolutely give him credit for being an effective conservative president. I disagree with just about every domestic initiative he accomplished while in office and think he has blood on his hands for a number of reasons, but what president doesn't- Certainly Obama does. But he was the defining leader of his era and remade the political landscape out of sheer will and clarity of message. A magnificent politician. However, he expanded the size of government, raised taxes and exploded the debt and deficit. He may have had reasons for doing those things, but the Norquistbots in the current Republican congress have a totally deluded hallucination of a memory of the man's record. I'm not gonna argue about FDR, WWII and the depression. Maybe another time. As you say, there's a huge body of scholarly work on the subject. You really just make ad-hominem attacks on Wilson, whose version of "progressivism", anyway, is not in any way recognizable as anything like today's version. It's like an inverted version of the current GOP claiming Lincoln. Laughable. Finally, and not to psychoanalyze, but your refusal to identify your preferred ideology necessitates it- I would bet, with your TR-loving, Federalist Papers citing and relatively educated sounding screed, that you fancy yourself a pragmatic, reality-based centrist. If I'm right, then you should freaking LOVE Obama. He's certainly a progressive at heart, and has pursued progressive goals. But his defining characteristic has been his willingness to play the long game, accept limitations, adhere to reality and take incremental, gradual gains. He's not a pie-in-the-sky liberal, and he's not a demagogue. As said earlier, he's chipping away at the Reagan monolith, and if he wins a second term, may get enough reps in to permanently remake the country, as Reagan did, in his own ideological image. To me, considering the catastrophic long term effects of Reaganism, a shift to Obamaism would be welcome.

I call big, healthy, tightly coiled BULLSHIT on anybody saying that a.) Obama has spent his first three years in office running for re-election, or b.) that he "can't run on his record". Thems some straight-from-Fox-News talking points, and i 'm disappointed to see them here. I'm not gonna spend time enumerating a list of the man's accomplishments- if you've been paying attention, you know them full well, and besides, you have the internet. What nobody can possibly deny is that Obama, in three years, is already, by far, the most accomplished progressive leader in 50 years. He has governed with a centrist temperament toward progressive domestic goals and practical foreign policy goals. But goddamn it, you wouldn't be liberal activists (or, alternatively, self-styled contrarian "independents") if you ever gave a progressive leader CREDIT for anything, would you? Just jump from one malcontented, hand-wringing episode to the next. Your natural state is one of perpetual disaffected disappointment. This is why the Right Wing nutbars win so often- they stand behind the people who are pursuing their interests. Not saying we should give O a free pass- but lets also stand up for the guy. He's earned it.

As a white man and lover of enormous asses, I object to your insensitive generalization. I am that *white boy* Sir Mixalot spoke about, who, despite my racial handicap, nonetheless had to shout. I will go toe-to-toe with any person of color over large-posterior appreciation any day.

Uuh... those booty-facsimiles are kind of flat, no? I mean, if we're going to go around designing and productionalizing "Booty Pillows", shouldn't we at least do so to ideal specifications? More stuffing, please. Round that thing out.

Best comment.

He once claimed "I am God" during a deposition.

RIGHT??

This looks like the video intro to God's keynote address at the Republican convention.