nothing thoughtful, no characters worth caring about, just a bunch of dumb shit from the ‘oh my god, something creepy is going to pop out of nowhere at any minute now’ school of suspense.

I saw it in a real theater! It was an 11 PM showing at the local indie cinema because they had a new print of the film or something?

It was weird and exciting, and it was probably the most memorable sound experience I’ve ever had in a theater—the mass of swirling, grinding, hissing industrial noise throughout the film is astounding.

Otherwise, well, I’m not really sure you can say you’ve consumed this after one viewing, can you?

It doesn’t feel like I fully “consumed” this as much as I listened to it a bunch of times—it was a library cd and I had to return it, but I certainly liked it and plan to seek out “A Series of Sneaks” and work my way through Spoon’s catalogue from there.

I love the long sequences of dialogue that mainly comprise the book, but the descriptions of all these streets in Paris and locations our characters walk by drive me up the wall—I have no idea whatsoever what these places are or what they look like, and kind of feel like I need a tour book or something.

I loved the Marx Brothers so much as a kid, and my general impression had been that I’d probably find them even funnier as a teenager, and, for the most part, I think I was right. Honestly, I had even kind of forgotten that there were Marx Brothers other than Groucho, or at least, that they were pretty much on par with his comedic skills, as much as he seems thrust towards the center of the stage.

Some consider this the best Marx Bros. movie. I don’t think this is the case (I’m pretty sure that would be Duck Soup), but this is still a hilarious movie.

The problem is that after the Marx Brothers moved to Paramount (following Duck Soup), they insisted on injecting a romantic subplot that sort of drags. If it weren’t for the two non-Marx main characters who never really manage to be amusing on any level and their occasionally extended moments of song, this would probably be five stars.

As it is, it’s certainly worth seeing!

It starts off as an intriguing mystery, seems to tip its hand a bit too soon in revealing the villain, and then wanders off to become a powerful lesson about the soul crushing void that is rape!

There were three years between the publication of the first and second half of the book, but unless Kevin Smith was making everything up as he went along, that doesn’t really excuse anything.

The art’s reasonably pretty, I guess.

The first few songs I listened to put me off, then after listening through the whole thing I warmed to it, but for a while after that I just wasn’t in the mood for the discordant noise-rock the album is comprised of, and then I had to return it to the library. I plan to return to it, but I almost wonder if this is actually the best entry point to The Flaming Lips’ catalogue.

It had its ups and downs, sure, but the highs, as usual, compensated reasonably well.

Not that the seasons aren’t a bit sloppy for my liking still.

Of course, there was also the wtf-inducing season closer, so I’m looking forward to finding out where exactly the show is going after that one in, uh, seven months.

(Sorry, I’d actually back up my points here, but I’ve spent way too much time discussing it with friends and I don’t want to type out my gripes and likes all over again.)

Admittedly, I broke one of my rules here. I didn’t even get through the entire album. I started with In Regards to Myself, and once I finished Salamarnir, I turned it off. While I listened to a few of the tracks over again, I never listened to anything after that.

I like ‘In Regards to Myself’ quite a bit, mainly because I find ‘Wake up!’ being screamed over and over to be rather an interesting hook, and ‘Salamarnir’ is okay, even if I’m not totally sure what it’s supposed to mean in the context of the album.

It was what was in between that turned me off, e.g. the utterly serious delivery of such lines as “Do you want to see me disappear? Well so do I!” Do lyrics get any more unintentionally funny? I’m not sure they do.

And after a while, it’s just noise to me - admittedly, I’m a fan of pop music, structure and an overly appealing sound - but it’s not like this is too hardcore for me. I can listen to it—I just find it dull and boring.

So, what’s the appeal? What’s good about this? Explain.

- Amy Lee is sometimes a good singer, but often a horrible oversinger.

- I found the production (Weight of the World’s tinkling toy pianos, anyone?) more interesting than the actual songs.

- I read that Amy Lee wrote ‘Snow White Queen’ about a stalker. That is because she is a celebrity. She gets stalkers and that is both creepy and awesome and would never happen to you, because you are not an awesome poser goth. I find this incredibly pretentious and just stupid and it pisses me off.

- It’s okay if you want to write all the songs on your album about the same thing, but if the perspective of every song of your break-up obsessed album consists of ‘You are holding me down’ and/or ‘The best you can do is to let go of me’, that is probably an issue. Not to mention that those perspectives are sort of excessively egotistical, and more than a little troubling.

- I realized that Evanescence seem to be stuck in perpetual break-up obsessed adolescence, and that really is not my thing.