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.

My reaction to 'Sin City' is easily stated. I loved it. Or, to put it another way, I loved it, I loved it, I loved it. I loved every gorgeous sick disgusting ravishing overbaked blood-spurting artificial frame of it. A tad hypocritical? Yes. But sometimes you think, Well, I'll just go to hell.

My fears are the obvious ones: that marketplace-minded publishers - all four of them - will shy further away from literary fiction, international authors, poetry, and the other marginal but hugely important regions of the book world.

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.

Cillian Murphy is the guy who battled viral zombies in '28 Days Later' and put a gas-spewing bag over his head in 'Batman Begins'. With his pallor, cut-glass cheekbones and glazed blue eyes, he's right on the border between dreamboat and spooky freak.

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