Baseball

“I wrote 63 songs this year. They’re all about Jeter.” Just kidding. The game we love, the players we hate, and more.

Culture and Criticism

From Norman Mailer to Wendy Pepper — everything on film, TV, books, music, and snacks (shut up, raisins), plus the Girls’ Bike Club.

Donors Choose and Contests

Helping public schools, winning prizes, sending a crazy lady in a tomato costume out in public.

Stories, True and Otherwise

Monologues, travelogues, fiction, and fart humor. And hens. Don’t forget the hens.

The Vine

The Tomato Nation advice column addresses your questions on etiquette, grammar, romance, and pet misbehavior. Ask The Readers about books or fashion today!

The Thin Blue Line
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

It took me a while to get accustomed to Morris’s style of putting the story together; I hadn’t seen one of his films in a while and I forgot that they aren’t as straight-ahead as …

Thief
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

It sucked, made not one iota of sense, and had so much Tangerine Dream encrusted on the score that we could barely hear the sucky and nonsensical dialogue in the second place. Tempus will never …

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

So good! I was not bored for one single second, that chase scene with the giant crane was brilliant, and I thought Nick Stahl was pretty good too. My only complaint: Arnold should have left …

The Terminator
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

I liked this a lot. I don’t know what it is about these movies that makes me enjoy them so much; partly, it’s that the exposition isn’t draggy. The movies aren’t short, but they’re spare …

Tender Mercies
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

Evidently this movie was a big whoop twenty-odd years ago; it’s good, and everyone in it is very appealing — particularly Robert Duvall, who is much more sympathetic than he’s been in a while — …

Syriana
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

Yes, it’s confusing, but I think that’s part of the point; I don’t see how else Gaghan could have made the movie, because if he’d explained any further, it would have been 1) five hours …

Sweet and Lowdown
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

Sarah: “No, but I really hate Sean Penn.” Mr. S: “Oh, me too, but you won’t mind him in this.” And I didn’t; a couple of times, I could see him doing That Sean Penn …

Super Size Me
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

I liked Spurlock’s show 30 Days a lot, so it’s no surprise that I liked this; sometimes the graphics get a little hokey and Schoolhouse Rock-y, but in a documentary, it’s good rhythmically to break …

Superman Returns
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

I’d wait to rent it, if I had it to do again, but I liked it okay — Routh is very cute, Kate Bosworth is much better than I’d expected, and it’s fun to watch …

Superman IV — The Quest for Peace
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

Uch. At least Superman III had some camp value; everyone in the third installment showed up to work, in any case, but this one is just bad — Reeve is given miserable dialogue, even clonkier …