This Is Your Brain on Music is "about the science of music, from the perspective of cognitive neuroscience." Okay, it doesn't have a good beat and you can't dance to it, but Tim Gebhart blinded me with science in his enticing review, expressively convincing in his summation that "the brain is also the vehicle by which music also affects our feelings and emotions."

TV/FILM

From TV Editor TV and Film Guy:

Short and sweet and DVD-licious, it's Anna Creech's review of The Ellen Degeneres Show on DVD.

Less short, less sweet, but not really much more scary is the Sci-Fi Channel Original: Basilisk. It's Sci-Fi Channel in all its glory and happily enough Matt Paprocki is here to tell us all about it.

From Film Editor Lisa McKay:

Among the many reviews of latest Bond flick, Casino Royale, I particularly liked Daniel Woolstencroft's. He gives credit where credit is due and tells us why Daniel Craig may yet surpass the legend that is Sean Connery. 

If you're not familiar with the wildly successful industry that is Bollywood, Chanakya is here with a Bollywood primer to get you started. Complete with some basic background and a cultural perspective, Chanakya goes on to suggest some films to watch and helpfully grades them according to your level of expertise. At least one of these is already in my Netflix queue.

Robert Altman died last week at the age of 81. Howard Dratch, Randall A Byrn, and tink all do justice to his memory with some reflections on why his films have resonated with audiences over the years.

CULTURE

From two very different vantage points, Donnie Marler the son brings us the lighter side of the birds and bees in I Had To Ask and he enlightens us all with the perspective of a loving parent in the much more serious Teen Pregnancy: A Father's Story.

Richard Marcus ponders how and why pockets of society sometimes meet their need for attention through volume and violence in How Loud Do I Have To Be?

Writing about a little known subject, Timothy Greathouse offers an interesting update (or introduction) of a town that's been on fire for quite a while now in The Great Disappearing Act of Centralia, Pennsylvania.

From Asst. Music Editor A.L. Harper:

Enjoying Thanksgiving the way only someone hilariously and deeply dysfunctional can is the way Elvira Black wants to do it at The Toilet Bowl.