IT'S ERIE'S OWN O-NEED-ERS! For anyone with digital cable and nothing much going on tonight: one of those all-time great curl-up-on-the-couch-whenever-this-movie-turns-up movies is on HBO4 right now: That Thing You Do!

Just a few random thoughts before I join Mr. Cosmo on the couch:

• Liv Tyler has never looked lovelier than she does in this movie.
• Part of what makes this movie so great is one of the things that doomed Studio 60 to failure. Studio 60's sketch comedy = not funny. The hit song that drives the Oneders Wonders to fleeting fame and negligible fortune = brilliantly catchy. (And the movie is ballsy in that regard -- think about how many times that song is played over the course of the movie. If the song hadn't worked, the movie would have been DOA.)
• I have never not gotten choked up during the scene when "That Thing You Do!" is played on the radio for the first time. It always happens the same way: I get a little misty when Fay hears the song at the mailbox and realizes what's going on, and it escalates until the car carrying Steve Zahn screeches to a halt in front of the appliance store, at which point I lose it entirely.

STILL HATES SNAKES: He's certainly showing his age, but the first picture of Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones (in costume! on set!) from the shoot certainly doesn't seem like the magic is gone.

SADLY, JOSHUA MALINA HAS OTHER COMMITMENTS: Sure, come next Thursday, we won't have Aaron Sorkin to kick around any more on TV, but come the fall, we get both Sorkin's first produced screenplay in 12 years (and look at that cast!), and his return to Broadway with The Farnsworth Invention. Anyone up for an outing?

RELATING A QUESTION WHICH MY WIFE HAS ASKED ME: Who, exactly, is the intended or expected audience for the Daniel Pearl biopic A Mighty Heart? Angelina Jolie fans? As with United 93 or Letters from Iwo Jima, both of which I still really want to and yet don't quite want to see, who's spending $9.50 on a a summer night choosing to see that? Are there enough fans of the guy who played the douchey son in The Birdcage?

TOP 100 MOVIES IN WHICH SOMEONE STICKS IT TO THE MAN: The American Film Institute has now produced a canon for the 100 Best Movies, Inspirational Movies, Thrilling Movies, Funny Movies, Romantic Movies, Movie Stars, White Movie Heroes and Villains, Songs in Movies and Movie Quotes.

What list would you like to see them tackle next? Many here have rallied around the idea of "Best Movies About People from 15-25," or some other way of defining "teen/young adult movies" (is Pete "Maverick" Mitchell too old for the list?). I'd also like to see 100 Best Movies of the Blockbuster Era -- i.e., from Jaws forward. What else?

Former Beatles flourish on album charts - Yahoo! News

MEANWHILE RINGO WAS RECENTLY SPIED BUSKING "THE NO-NO SONG" AT THE HAMPSTEAD HEATH TUBE STATION: Three of the four Beatles left their mark on the upper reaches of this week's album chart with Paul McCartney holding steady at No. 3 with "Memory Almost Full" (and is it me, or does the intro of the song "Vintage Clothes" borrow a little too heavily from the intro of Fleetwood Mac's "Say You Love Me"?), the re-issue of the George Harrison's Traveling Wilburys output debuting at No. 9 and a tribute album of John Lennon's songs with proceeds going toward Darfur coming in at No. 15.

Fear not Ringo fans. Come August you'll finally be able to get a ringtone of "You're Sixteen," perhaps the most inappropriate love song this side of "Me and You and a Dog Named Boo."

ALL IT TAKES ARE TWO LITTLE WORDS: Was it just me, or was tonight's Studio 60 an apology from Sorkin for "Isaac and Ishmael" (coupled with a variation on "The Apology")? Writers attempt to make an immediate response to 9/11, which seems like a good idea at the time, and then gets lambasted throughout the media for being ineffective in getting there. Seems that Sorkin has now realized that distance helps in shedding some light, and this one wound up being pretty good. (Not quite as good as the Brothers and Sisters flashback from earlier this season, but nice work all around, especially from Steven Weber.) Seems like the show finally has found its rhythm in these final few episodes, making both the early slog and the cancellation even sadder.

SOMETIMES A TRAVESTY IS ALL YOU NEED: I actually hadn't intended to do a SYTYCD results post, but I was sufficiently disturbed by nearly everything that happened on tonight's show that I felt moved to post.

First there's the whole issue regarding that one couple who had no business being anywhere near the bottom three. I'm usually pretty good at coming up with the game theory explanation for what happens on shows like AI and SYTYCD, but I am flummoxed by this one. Given that they couldn't have expected to find themselves at the bottom, I'm not shocked that their solos weren't terribly strong (that, at least, was fairly predictable -- the first couple to truly unexpectedly land in the bottom three usually botches their solos). And I am grateful that the judges kept them around despite their dissatisfaction with the solos.

Which brings us to the two more predictable couples comprising the rest of the bottom three. The best solo of the night truly saved one of the dancers -- unfortunately, I haven't seen a single iota of that passion or talent anywhere in her partnered dances. And then there's the travesty. After all of Nigel's grand speechifying before the judges deliberated, well, he should be just a bit ashamed of himself. The male dancer who went home tonight had no business going home. (I realize you can arguably say the same thing about Ricky's departure last week, but at least he was kind of a wackadoodle.) I am a little mad at my favorite TV show.

Incidentally, who are these artists who serve as human jeopardy music while the judges deliberate every week?

BEFORE THE SHOWCASE SHOWDOWN, LET'S HAVE A HOEDOWN: Drew Carey hosting TPIR? There are certainly worse choices, but Carey lacks the smoothness of Barker and always seems to think that he's funnier than he actually is.

AND I GUESS THAT WAS YOUR ACCOMPLICE IN THE WOOD CHIPPER: Was without Internet access last night, so you're getting my thoughts on the AFI 100 list all at once today. Roger Ebert asks, where's Fargo?, but really, that's just a sympton of a larger disease.

Essentially, it's the No Fun List -- or, rather, films which are only fun, and do not take themselves seriously, found no place on the list. Where were the Mel Brooks comedies? Where were Die Hard, Juraissic Park and The Matrix? Why was Raiders of the Lost Ark all the way down at 66? Why were there only two animated films on the list -- Toy Story and Snow White and the Seven Dwarves?

For all our hopes about the last decade, only four recent films joined the list -- in order, LOTR, Saving Private Ryan, Titanic and The Sixth Sense. Yeah, once I saw Silence of the Lambs down at 74, I was pretty sure Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind wasn't going to sneak in ahead of it.

And the broadcast itself was sub-par. Too much fandom, not enough insight. If you're going to hail Citizen Kane as the Gratist Film Ever (not that there's anything at all wrong with that), say why, and it's not because of the sled. It's because a ballsy 25-year-old wrote, directed and starred in a movie taking down one of the titans of his age, and did so using every available trick in the cinematic and narrative vocabulary, and then cinematographer Gregg Toland some new tricks like deep focus to explode what filmmaking could do and show. It's an utterly modern film that still surprises every time you see it . . . and all they really talked about was the damn sled. (In ALOTT5MA terms, this show needed fewer Padmas and Heidis, and more Colicchios and Gunns.)

Now, that said, it's a much better list than the one which preceded it a decade ago: silent comedies finally got their due, with Buster Keaton's The General debuting on the list at #18, and Charlie Chaplin's films all rising -- City Lights at 11 (from 76), The Gold Rush at 58 (from 74) and Modern Times, one of my top-three all-time films, inching up to 78 from 81. And several other big leaps reflected the modern revisionist canon -- Raging Bull at 4 (from 24), Vertigo all the way up to 9 (from 61) and John Ford's magnificent The Searchers climbing all the way to 12 from 96. Among the older films which missed the last list but made the cut this time were Nashville (59), Sullivan's Travels (61), Cabaret (63), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (67)and The Shawshank Redemption (72).

Most grievous omission? Might be His Girl Friday, perhaps the best romantic comedy ever. But I'm sure you've got more to say on all this.

e.t.a for AFI voter Carrie Rickey: "These titles are classics for good reason, even though I'm more partial to Coppola's Godfather II, (ranked # 32) and Hitchcock's North by Northwest (ranked #55) than the films by those directors that made the top 10. Still, I scan the lit and ask, Best. Films. Ever.? ...I would say half the films on the top 100 -- Titanic is not one of them -- combine popularity with resonance and universality and would probably get my vote.... But as with most elections, the best candidate might not get nominated. I'm one of the 1500 movie professionals who cast a ballot. There were 400 titles nominated and we each got five write-ins. It rankled that of the 400 that made the nominations cut, only 4.5 were directed by women. I can't remember how many were directed by people of color, but it was even fewer. (One, Do The Right Thing ranked #98 at the final count.) As a point of principle, my write-ins were films directed by women, including Clueless, A League of Their Own and Something's Gotta Give, Mikey & Nicky and Lost in Translation."

e.t.a. deus--Here's the list of the 23 films (via Wikipedia) that made the cut a decade ago, but fell off the list this time:

1. All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) (54)
2. Amadeus (1984) (53)
3. An American in Paris (1951) (68)
4. The Birth of a Nation (1915) (44)
5. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) (64)
6. Dances With Wolves (1990) (75)
7. Doctor Zhivago (1965) (39)
8. Fantasia (1940) (58)
9. Fargo (1996) (84)
10. Frankenstein (1931) (87)
11. From Here to Eternity (1953) (52)
12. Giant (1956) (82)
13. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) (99)
14. The Jazz Singer (1927) (90)
15. The Manchurian Candidate (1962) (67)
16. Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) (86)
17. My Fair Lady (1964) (91)
18. Patton (1970) (89)
19. A Place in the Sun (1951) (92)
20. Rebel Without a Cause (1955) (59)
21. Stagecoach (1939) (63)
22. The Third Man (1949) (57)
23. Wuthering Heights (1939) (73)

THREE WORDS FROM THE TOP CHEF KITCHEN: "Elegant, Sophisticated, Barbecue."

Hrmm... I dunno. Sounds implausible. Like "Ghetto Ass Yacht" or "World Champion Devilrays". Three words one might reasonably prefer, in principle and in practice, to most of the results from this challenge are "Kreuz Market Lockhart".

Hard to know after so little time whether they picked the right mohawk (remember, THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!!), but we do have the comfort of knowing that the Top Chef judges came down on the right side of the "poached dates as bbq" question.

DUDE, WHERE'S MY SYTYCD T-SHIRT? An interesting thing about the structure of So You Think You Can Dance is that some dancers win themselves what I suspect will be some relatively long-term immunity by virtue of who they find themselves partnered with during the first five weeks of the finals. Jaimie and Kameron, for example -- not that they're not excellent dancers, but by virtue of being paired with Hok and Lacey ought to find themselves safe for a while. Faina, on the other hand, is going to find herself at risk every single week until either she or Cedric gets the boot. (Admittedly, it was her fault last week, but Cedric was a bloody mess this week, as I suspect he will be during each and every non-hip hop performance.) As for the verging-on-interminable backstories, this week's Shut Up and Dance Award goes to Jaimie, for her one time at band camp? intonation and her "who me on national TV?" rambling.

Best moments this week: My God, that Tyce Diorio birds routine, and Pasha and Jessi dancing it. D-Trix and Hok performing their asses off. Lacey's abs. The Viennese waltz. D-Trix and Mia's tearfest. Jesus the matador.

Not the best moments this week: The lack of Danger! in the other Tyce Diorio routine. Lauren's smiley face and amateur hour hip hop moves. The pain of Ginger Rogers and Michael Jackson. Sara not looking remotely like a cape. A samba that looked nothing like a samba. (I swear I had the same Dancing With the Stars thought 2 minutes before Nigel uttered it.)

My call as to who's going home: Cedric and Shauna.

And you know that a show is finally making headway among the chatterati when it makes the New York Magazine approval matrix. Seriously, dude, where's my SYTYCD t-shirt?

NEITHER CAN LIVE WHILE THE OTHER SURVIVES: It's now a month and a day until a cadre of highly trained owls will deliver something pretty significant to 873,068 homes (so far).

Usually I reread all ofthe books, start to finish, before the next one is released -- which was fine when each book was only 300 or 400 pages long, but for some reason the thought of starting from the beginning exhausts me this time. So I think I will likely start from Order of the Phoenix, remind myself what was going on in Half-Blood Prince, and in the meantime continue my negotiations to procure round-the-clock childcare the weekend of the 21st.

How are you preparing?

IN MY OPINIONATION, THE SUN IS GONNA SURELY SHINE: Bricks Explode has done all of us a favor by gathering "The Top 10 Unintentionally Funny TV Intros," most of which are worth savoring just for the silliness of the theme songs. Yes, that's a 40 foot tall Brooke Shields---EEEE! Though why they went with the the 90s revival rather than the 70s original of Land Of The Lost ("Marshall Will and Holly on a routine expedition...") is beyond me. And who doesn't love Blossom?

TOOK A LOUISVILLE SLUGGER TO BOTH HEADLIGHTS: A local radio station was playing Carrie Underwood's "Before He Cheats" this morning (somewhat oddly, as NYC does not have a country station), with which I was not familiar. A few thoughts and questions:

• Isn't this really just Alanis Morissette with a country beat, some pedal steel, and a little fiddle, with a little less sexuality and quite a bit more violence?
• The lyrics seem to imply that the singer can "shoot a combo" in pool and can shoot whiskey. Am I the only one that has difficulty picturing Underwood doing either of these things? (Related--is Underwood in a position to be condemning someone for being a "bleach blonde tramp?")
• How does digging your "key into the side of his pretty little 4 wheel drive" lead to "carv[ing your] name into his leather seats?" Did Miss Underwood break into the car?

Of course, this continues our general fascination with the grammatical and ontological implications of songs sung by Idol alumni.

FLONKERTON! Just what would you like to see in a computer game based on The Office?

The TV Zone: VERNE GAY: Heeeere's Jonny!

THE LATEST SHIFT: Today's rumor is Leno to ABC (or CBS), Stewart to NBC within the next few years.

RUSSELL, I THINK WE NEED TO WORK ON THOSE LAST WORDS: A question spurred by tonight's House repeat--why on earth doesn't Patrick Fugit work more? Given how amazing his performance in Almost Famous was, why has this guy not really done any substantial work since (a mini-arc on ER, Saved!, White Oleander, and a few small indie films that never went anywhere)?

THINKING FELLERS UNION: We just got served by Eddie Copeland as part of an effort to compile "blogs that make you think". We're honored and humbled by the kudos. Obviously, I need to serve it back with my own set of five, and, therefore, it's on:

• The Onion A.V. Club blog. Just sharp writing about tv, film and whatnot.
• Jim Emerson. I've been a fan since the old CinePad days, and as Ebert's right-hand man he's now able to reach a broader audience. If you've never read his searing critiques of "awful movies" like Mississippi Burning and Dead Poet's Society, go here now.
• Reverse Shot. Just learned about these guys recently. Wicked smaht.
• The Good Phight. For Phillies fans who want to do more than just boo. Like U.S.S. Mariner, but without all the rainy weather.
• TechPresident. This daily survey from the folks at Personal Democracy Forum on "how the presidential candidates are using the web, and how the web is using them" is just essential for 2007-08. Already has broken a ton of stories, and the analysis is top-notch and largely nonpartisan.
  

These five blogs can now take the following logo and display it with pride:

DUH, ESSENTIALLY, WE ALL ENTER INTO A CONTRACT WHEREBY THE LAST SURVIVING PARTICIPANT BECOMES SOLE POSSESSOR OF ALL THEM PURTY PICTURES: The first reality competition to have its pop-culture roots in a Simpsons episode, four-time reality tv loser (but we love him anyway) Rob Mariano is preparing to cast the $10 million reality competition "Tontine", which could, conceivably, be awesome. Of course, having a network willing to broadcast the show (and finance the prize) would help.

NOW I HAVE A MACHINE GUN HO HO HO: EW had an excellent list of the Top 25 action flicks of all time in this week's issue, and it's hard to quibble with them putting Die Hard at #1. And as silly as the two sequels thus far can be, it's hard to recall an action film series that more consistently delivered a good time rather than nothing more than ridiculous explosions. Relatedly, though publicity for Live Free Or Die Hard indicates that John 6:27 is "Yippee Ki Yay Motherf....", the King James Version has it as "Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed." Not quite as catchy, though.

I DO NOT LIKE THEM IN A BOAT, I DO NOT LIKE THEM WITH A GOAT: After protest from the Dr. Seuss estate, the ABC fall sitcom formerly known as Sam I Am (aka, Earl, except this time, it's with a hot chick who has amnesia rather than a trashy guy with a killer 'stache) will change its name to Samantha Be Good. Sadly, this does not bode well for my sitcom pilot titled Hop On Pop.

STREETLIGHTS, PEOPLE: While some sites are spending just a little too much time analyzing the final few minutes of The Sopranos on a shot-by-shot basis, and others offer you the chance to place any MP3 over the final scene, we're now seeing it parodied by politicians in campaign ads (and regardless of what you think of the politician in question, it's pretty funny).

ACTUAL MALICE: Today's legal and pop-cultural question--is it defamatory to falsely say about someone that they are pregnant with Kevin Federline's child? Well, Shar Jackson thinks so. (Related--is Shar Jackson a public figure so as to warrant heightened scrutiny of her claims under Sullivan? If so, what does this say about America?)

HUMBLED AND SHAMED: Humbled by the nice wishes and words from Adam below. (I didn't even remember my anniversary, which will come to no shock to my wife--I am still trying to live down a Mother's Day comment of "You're not my mother." I know, I know.)

Shamed, because I have been falling down on job of bringing you lists, so here's a little something to slake your thirst.

• Premiere has a great look at 20 Movies Not Coming Soon to a Theater Near You, which includes the good news that I have more time to finally get past page 50 of Kavalier and Clay, plus updates on long stagnant projects like Dieter, Confederacy of Dunces, and AHWOSG. One complaint, I hate, hate the format of one item per page. (EW is often guilty of this Web sin, too.)
• In case you were foolish enough to not watch 30 Rock this season, investing your time instead in that other show about a late-night comedy sketch program, Cracked whets your appetite for what may be the funniest show on TV with the show 10 Best Moments.
• Karl Rove, the Fridge, and Fred Flintstone. It may sound like a Carnac bit, but in fact all three figure prominently on The Onion's AV Club's list of 13 Great Moments in the Co-Option of Hip-Hop. While you're at the AV Club, check out their First Annual Best Issue.
• In the fun tradition of the excellent Kill Your Idols, several hipsters and musicians list for the Guardian Records They Gladly Never Hear Again. Especially amusing is Scritti Politti's Green Gartside take on the transcendent "Neon Bible" by Arcade Fire:

  "What I hear in Arcade Fire is an agglomeration of mannerisms, cliches and devices. I find it solidly unattractive, texturally nasty, a bit harmonically and melodically dull, bombastic and melodramatic, and the rhythms are pedestrian. It's monotonous in its textures and in the old-fashioned, nasty, clunky 80s rhythms and eighth-note basslines."

• And back in the day when I started blogging about lists, I loved to randomly troll Google News for post ideas. In honor of that bygone practice, here news that Phoenix is again American's Sweatiest City, Johnny Depp looks good in a hat, it's expensive to live in Moscow, and it may be easier to get a last minute airplane ticket from Edmonton to Medicine Hat.
  

MEET ME IN MONTAUK: Remember back in January when American Film Institute announced it was revising its 1998 list of the 100 Greatest American Movies to include the last decade's worth of film, and we spent a long time debating it? Wednesday night, CBS airs the results in its annual three-hour clipfest extravanganza, and like every year, we'll be around to live-blog it.

Back in January, we debate it in terms of what recent films should crack the top 100. Anyone want to predict which films from their list of eligibles will join the AFI's canon?

Finally, if it's our annual AFI time, that means it's also time to wish our own Alex Gordon a happy four-year blogiversary, as his A List A Day site debuted on June 20, 2003. Anyone who can put together lists of lists like this and this, well, you can see why we're all big fans of Alex's work, and have been thrilled to have him on board here.

HOW WILL THEY MAKE IT THROUGH THIS CRISIS WITH ONLY EACH OTHER TO LEAN ON? I was a bit concerned at the end of last season that Big Love's producers had shot their "polygamy exposed!" arrow too early. But now I think it was a great move, and feel pretty confident in saying that I believe that season two will turn out to be significantly better than season one. (And hey! That was Emmylou Harris!)

Season one had a whole lot of setup. Sometimes way too much setup. But now the whole cast of characters is in place, we know who everyone is and why they act and react the way they do, and it's as if this whole strange-but-not-strange world has been set free to unfold naturally. Add in some much-improved writing and some beautiful acting from the sister-wives, explaining how they got here and how they feel about their peculiar institution, and you've got a show that has become a worthy addition to the HBO canon.

One nit, though -- for a family that's so concerned about having been publicly outed, they sure are cavalier about their kids' tendency to flap their jaws to their friends.

BECAUSE NOT EVERYONE KNOWS THAT A GEODUCK IS A 150 YEAR-OLD GIANT CLAM: Wouldn't it be nice if the producers of Bravo's Top Chef and especially Project Runway aired a "Pop-Up" version of each episode after the main broadcast (or even, as the main broadcast) to explain some of the lingo and nuances during the show?

I mean, I know from mise en place, but I'm somewhat of an aspiring culinary geek. I had no idea that, for example, "because kangaroo has virtually no fat it can easily dry out during cooking", the many ways to cook a black chicken, a/k/a the "Silkie", or that alligator, when fried, tastes like chicken. I'd like to see these shows educate as well as entertain, and pop-ups can make these shows just a little less cryptic. Runway would've been a lot easier had I understood what ruching was...

IF I WERE INVISIBLE: I really couldn't make this up--Idol: The Musical!, a show about a group of Clay Aiken fans who've built a shrine to Clay in a barn in their small town, is coming to Off-Broadway. Adam has oft remarked on how Aiken should join Tamyra Gray (currently plating Mimi) in Rent, but maybe this will do.

SELL, MORTIMER, SELL! There's never a bad time to review just how the Winthorpe & Valentine FCOJ scam in Trading Places worked. Or, as I once emailed Randy Cohen:

Dear Ethicist,

I have learned that my employer, a major brokerage firm, has planned to obtain confidential information relating to the upcoming orange crop, which will have a major effect on the price of Frozen Concentrated Orange Juice futures. I don't believe the Commodity Futures Trading Commission will ever pursue this to my satisfaction, so I have a plan: if I switch their accurate crop information with the reverse, I can myself manipulate the market to drive them into the poorhouse (while enriching myself), eliminating the need for the lengthy, and likely ineffective government involvement. Yes, technically, I suppose it's insider trading, but given the harm my employer has done to others over the years, it seems like the only way they'll ever be sufficiently punished, and it can't work unless I stand as their opposite on the trading floor. Do you approve? B.R.V., Philadelphia Pa.

Randy explained that he didn't have the time to handle hypotheticals. So get those brokers back in here! Turn those machines back on!

KNOCKED DOWN: I'm two weeks late, but I still want to say that Knocked Up is a good movie. As a lifelong bearer of an Isro, there was much to relate to in the movie (Do you use a product in your hair? Yes, it's called 'Jew'), and everything having to do with Martin Starr's hirsuteness and every word out of Jason Segal's mouth was pure comic gold. I want to see more movie stars like Seth Rogen, more comedy coming from insecurity rather than putting people down. And every Office cameo, but especially Darryl's as The Doorman, like, wow. I like movies that make me laugh out loud, laugh uncontrollably.

But, seriously? I had a hard time with how awful Pete & Debbie's marriage was. They really weren't communicating, were really doing and saying awful things . . . and at a certain point, it was just uncomfortable, and not funny. There wasn't much sympathetic about either of them, and I think Jody was right when she commented, "I loved everything about the movie except for Leslie Mann, who was awful on so many levels I'm not even sure where to start. I feel like Apatow, being her husband and all, probably thinks it impossible that anyone could dislike Leslie Mann. So he gave her carte blanche to be a great big self-centered b-iotch. I guess we were supposed to love her and identify with her or something. The way she treated Paul Rudd bordered on abuse. If that were reversed, if you had a guy talking to a woman like that, constantly belittling her and putting her down, people would freak out."

Yeah, also? The "shocking" "Heigl" shot in the delivery room? Didn't really add to the comedy. It was just kinda there to prove that it could be there.

Do I recommend the movie? Yes. But I have no idea why some reviewers have said it's the match of, let alone better than The 40 Year-Old Virgin, a movie that got everything right.