Apparently I was not the only person who thought this.  Check it out:

And

Yeah.

Every asshole with a cable modem thinks he can make a mint on the internet by selling useless crap. (Real grade-A douchebags call this a passive income muse. No joke.)

Why should be any different? Introducing the first offering of the Overthinking It Store. Buy quick, before this combination of memes expires, or before we get a cease-and-desist order from Mr. Serious. I give it 72 hours.

Honestly, this seems in bad taste. (winky emoticon)

So last May (that’s May 2007), Matt “Call Me the Webmaster” Wrather and I were taking in The Coast of Utopia, a trilogy of plays by Tom Stoppard. It covers the part of Russian history most people don’t know a lot about — between when Catherine the Great had sex with a horse and when Animal Farm picks up.

So anyway, during one of the intermissions, I was sort of free-associating, as is my wont. And like an apple hitting me on the head (see how I’m referring both to Newton and orchards?) I realized that Tobey Maguire is in both Spider-Man and The Cider House Rules. And that Spider and Cider rhyme. And then I knew I was doomed. I was going to have to do something about it.

So here you go, internet. The Spider House Rules.

I don’t really expect it to get watched that much, since The Cider House Rules isn’t that well-known. But as long as you guys are impressed, I will not have sat through the terrible 1992 Michael Caine thriller Blue Ice in vain (I needed him holding a gun).

I have had a love-hate relationship with Family Guy. Or, more precisely, a love-indifference relationship. Honestly, it wasn’t even on my radar during the first Fox run, though I was of course aware of occasional gems. I didn’t watch it on Adult Swim or buy the DVDs.

My indifference was never informed by anything like a moral stance. Contrary to the impression I may have given, I’m not prudish in the least, and frankly relish comedy that is blatantly offensive. (Click at your peril. It gets worse and worse.)

In fact, I think that the supposed “offense” actually does more to reveal and ironize the double-dealing — from subtle forms of self-deception to the most blatant hypocrisy — that is a daily feature of life in the world’s only current superpower. (Do you hear me, China? Your souls are in peril! Sarah Silverman tried to warn you!) I’d actually like to talk about offensive comedy more, but that’s for another post.

Long story short, I got into the show when it returned to Fox last year, and it is in a spirit of profound admiration that I offer you the following clip, which may be the most perfect comic artifact the show has produced. Video after the jump. more »

Elton John stuns the audience at his benefit concert for Hillary Clinton with a scathing political rewrite of “Candle in the Wind.”

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[Continuing Terminator Week, Matthew Belinkie imagines how John Connor's decision to send Reese back to 1984 might have come about. You'll hear this radio-drama enacted on our Terminator Week podcast, "How to Survive a Terminator Attack," to be released this Friday. —Ed.]

John: Are you sure, Walter? That’s an actual working time machine?

Walter: (he speaks in a “nerd” voice) I’m afraid so, Mr. John Connor. It looks as if, the Terminator is on its way back to May 12, 1984.

Reese: What? That’s years before Judgment Day. Why then?

John: I know why, Reese . It’s nine months before I was born.

Reese: Oh my God! That machine is going to impregnate your mother!

more »