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!

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 …

Elaine Stritch at Liberty
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

Check it out if it’s on HBO; I kind of wish we’d gotten more back story on the assistant (you’ll know what I mean when you see the credits), but it’s still a really interesting …

Eight Men Out
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

I like John Sayles, but I think I know too much about the Black Sox scandal to tolerate the movie’s necessary compression of so many complicated issues and minor events into a neat two-hour package. …

Eagle’s Claw
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

I forget who recommended this one to me.   Alas: disappointed.   The little freeze-frame tutorial at the beginning is so promising, but then it’s just kind of slow, and while it does pick up …

Duck Soup
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

I’d never seen a Marx Brothers movie before, and a lot of it has not aged well; it’s informed so much by vaudeville, and it’s just kind of not how we think as a culture …

Die Another Day
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

You don’t expect much from a Bond movie in certain areas, but I didn’t love this one — it tried too hard for “serious” at the beginning, it went on too long, and Halle Berry …

The Devil Wears Prada
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

Pretty by-numbers stuff, but I enjoyed it more than I’d expected to, mostly because of Stanley Tucci.   Streep is getting all the glowing reviews, and she’s great, but when Tucci is onscreen is when …

Day for Night
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

Loved it!   The kitten-wrangling scene is brilliant, of course, but the whole thing is just so neatly done — it’s funny, it’s not too in love with itself, the pace is great.   I …

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

Loved it.   Loved it!   It’s confusing and derivative, but who cares — Sam Rockwell is my husband!   All right, all right.   If you want it to make sense, you won’t like …

Come Back to the 5 and Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

In spite of the fact that every single member of the cast is really very annoying in it (except Karen Black, who is fabulous, in spite of some hair continuity issues), it’s quite good.   …