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!

Friday Night Lights
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

…It’s a football movie, what can you say. It’s like Chinese food — hard to do really well, hard to screw up really badly. I liked this one a lot; I like Peter Berg as …

Five Easy Pieces
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

It bored me. I think that when it was made, this kind of reasonably unsympathetic “anti-hero” was still new enough that Nicholson could put it over, but at this point, I just feel like I’ve …

Finding Nemo
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

A little heavy-handed in parts, towards the end, but it’s a kids’ movie, so I can let it go, especially since I love the little kung-fu crab in Sydney Harbor. LOVE HIM. It’s the little …

Fear
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

Snerk. So, so bad. But Wahlberg is cute, and that roller-coaster scene is definitely a contender for the Supposed To Be Erotic But Actually Hilariously Stupid Hall Of Fame. Hee. (8/16/04)

Faces of Death
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

Uh…okay, then. I also watched the FOD: Fact or Fiction “documentary” afterwards, and based on the clips in that, the sequels had much gorier footage, so I don’t feel quite so weird about having almost …

Faces
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

Deeeeee-pressing! I mean, really depressing. And, initially, boring and annoying. The businessmen at Jeannie’s apartment, all fake-laughing drunkenly and crazily, and everyone’s all disheveled and hostile and WE GET IT, Cassavetes. But then, when the …

Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex (But Were Afraid To Ask)
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

Vintage early-’70s Allen, with all that that implies, and painfully dated in spots, although I liked the last segment a lot; Burt Reynolds is hilarious, just by showing up.The rest of it felt slow and …

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

An utterly charming, intelligent movie that trusts the audience to keep up. It’s smart, it’s sweet and sad, and what great performances by the entire cast — even Elijah Wood, for whom I had an …

Enter the Dragon
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

YEAH. Good times. The slo-mo sequence as he’s stomping on Oharra’s head…brilliant.

Elf
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

Did not like it, and I really wanted to, too. I went into the movie in a wretched mood, which didn’t help, but it really seemed like two entirely different movies to me — the …