The movie's only serious criticism is reserved for Baker's television network, which doesn't think Americans care about Afghanistan - kind of hypocritical given this film's lack of substance.

The movie is a metaphor for the power of delusional hype--a metaphor for itself.

I'm more encouraged by the saplings: new music groups, tiny new venues, entrepreneurial musician-composers who aren't waiting to be discovered but are instead building their own Establishment.

A critic often has to play the role of coroner, dissecting a work to find out why it died (or never lived).

Let me tell you, if your marriage is in trouble, skip the therapist and find a psycho. Nothing brings people together faster.

The English have a wellspring of comedy that will never be exhausted: the combination of bestial urges and excellent manners.

Despite some standout events, 2012 was demoralizing. The Met felt adrift, and New York City Opera couldn't claw its way back to artistic health.

Russell Crowe is normally an actor who disappears so far into his characters you'd swear his DNA has been altered.

It's easy to say "This year in art sucked." After all, about 85 percent of all shows of contemporary art are bad. But 85 percent of all art made in the Renaissance was bad.

Some reviewed 'The Master' on their knees, and while I respected its distinctive discordancy - can a movie be at once feverish and glacial? - I was unmoved.

I have a female colleague who gets annoyed that Tina Fey seems to go out of her way in her movies to deride her looks, as if she weren't such an attractive woman.

Strive to be beyond what others perceive you to be, by striving beyond the limits of yourself.

In terms of instilling the values of mental toughness and work ethic, discipline is the gift that keeps on giving.

I eat every two hours. I sleep for eight hours. I have lots of water. I pray to keep calm. Most importantly, I have a smile on my face.

Behold this day. It is yours to make.

Spouses are great impediments to great enterprises.

Great marketing is all about telling your story in such a way that it compels people to buy what you are selling.

Happily, fantastic fiction is slowly gaining in status.

We are to eat food otherwise we don't live and sometimes we eat food that is very damaging.

When success and incompetence meet, disaster is not far away.

I don't believe in the afterlife.