Now there's a line I never imagined I'd find myself typing: "In Praise of Dwight Schrute." Before I explain further, can I just say: How awesome are Thursday nights this season?This week, I truly needed escapism (I have a number of friends who are directly affected by the Time Inc. cutbacks that were announced Thursday, a very sad development for a very battered business), so I opted to watch the ABC lineup in more or less real time, and was richly rewarded.First, Ugly Betty. Sheer delight. Couldn't be happier for its, and America Ferrera's, Golden Globe wins. In especially fine form this week: Becki Newton as Amanda, who's a scintillating hoot even when she's manipulated into planning treachery against Daniel or calling our Betty a "stumpy troll." I also love how Betty is introducing Daniel to the finer things in life, like slices (although that looked like a full pizza) at the corner parlor and, gulp, karaoke. Took the sour taste of this week's American Idol auditions right out of...
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No, no, no. I'm just kidding with the title of my blog. I wouldn't want to start a quarterback controversy here. Is the show better off without William Petersen? Is the fresh blood of Liev Schreiber a nice jolt of energy? Can no one ever match up with Gil Grissom? All very good questions, which I can let you decide. But let me share my thoughts. Hello, Mr. Mike Keppler. A nice dark, mysterious intro followed by him walking up to the body and touching it. Good start, buddy. And right there we begin a show filled with attitude, as Catherine chastises him for touching and explains how they do things in Vegas. Ain't no messing around in the Vegas crime lab. It wasn't just Cat, though. Almost everyone seemed a little on edge with the new guy in town. There was Sofia telling the Doc not to whistle as he cuts people open. Sara, jawing a bit with the slacker detective. Even Keppler was able to get in on it when Catherine asked him how he knew all the deaths were related, and he firmly said,...
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Question: I recently saw and loved the movie Crash, and was especially intrigued by the way all the stories intersected and converged. Could you possibly give me a list of some other films whose stories are structured in the same way? Answer: I certainly can: First, for the benefit of readers who haven't seen Crash (2005), its structure is one in which multiple narratives are developed simultaneously and overlay or intersect at key points before converging at the end. Unlike ensemble movies in which there's a main plot and a series of subplots, films like this give more or less equal weight to all the story strands and derive a significant part of their thematic power from the apparently random way in which different characters' destinies come together. To my mind, the greatest of all multiple-story narratives is
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