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!

Punchline
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

Yeah, I know. It’s a fucking awful movie, but I remembered it for some reason as being not only 1) fairly funny in spots but 2) a lot better than people gave it credit for. …

The Poseidon Adventure
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

The grandpappy of disaster movies, and I have to say, we’ve seen all these tropes before, but 1) it’s because this movie gave birth to many of them, 2) it still works, and 3) what …

Poltergeist
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

Not as scary as I remembered, although it’s got its share of jump scenes — and more likeable, actually. There’s always a decision made, from a writing standpoint, on how much time to spend on …

Pirates of the Caribbean — The Curse of the Black Pearl
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

Good fun, although 1) I should have seen it on the big screen and 2) it should have been 10-15 minutes shorter. Still: “Me eye!” [scrabble scrabble] Hee. (9/1/06)

A Personal Journey With Martin Scorsese Through American Movies
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

My Netflix list swelled by about fifty movies after watching it; I really liked it, but sometimes he doesn’t do the best job of explaining why a given film clip illustrates the point he’s trying …

The Passion of the Christ
March 5, 2007 · One Comment

Wow. It’s not a movie, exactly; it’s more of a video installation of a passion play. Gibson really likes him some slo-mo, and the gore does cross the line into absurdity at times (more than …

Party Monster — The Shockumentary
March 5, 2007 · No Comment
Party Monster — The Shockumentary

Don’t bother. You’d get more information from the recent New York interview with Michael Alig, not to mention James St. James’s book or the Culkin movie. Full of gaps, crappy production values…skip it. (12/1/06)

The Parallax View
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

Really really neat — in both senses of the word. It doesn’t over-explain; the shot set-ups are amazing without getting too obvious; there’s a black humor to it that gives the movie a shot of …

The Others
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

I saw it in the theater when it first came out, but I wanted to watch it again and see if I could pick up any holes or slip-ups knowing the twist from the beginning. …

Open Water
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

It takes a while to get going, and I was sitting there like, “Okay, the movie’s only 79 minutes long. Shouldn’t something, you know, happen?” But then, when things do start happening, it’s kind of …