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Score!
Bet you didn’t know today, April 3, is National Film Score day. Well, now you do. And no one will ever be able to take that away from you. It’s no secret that music composition is integral to the cinema experience. A great score can make a great picture even better (Oppenheimer, for instance) while…
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Awkward moments at the movies
Did you know there is an annual day devoted to the celebration of awkward moments? Well, now you know that day is – wait for it – today. Yes, today. National Awkward Moments Day happens to coincide with the beginning of National Introverts Week, meaning this week – and this day in particular – is…
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A Stanley Kubrick countdown
Stanley Kubrick, arguably the greatest filmmaker of his generation, shuffled off this mortal coil 25 years ago today. He was 70 years old. Only six days earlier, he had given Warner Brothers the final cut of what would be his last motion picture, Eyes Wide Shut. Kubrick didn’t make me a cinephile, but he did…
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Romance on the Big Screen
This week we commemorate the 95th anniversary of that fateful day seven members of the George “Bugs” Moran gang were mowed down, deep-dish Chicago style, by four of Al Capone’s Tommy gun-wielding henchmen. Or to put it another way, this Wednesday marks Valentine’s Day. As such, it seems as appropriate a time as any to…
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The Last Detail (1973)
There is no doubt that screenwriter extraordinaire Robert Towne wrote The Last Detail with his friend Jack Nicholson in mind. As 1st Class Signalman Billy “Badass” Buddosky, one of two Navy lifers tasked with escorting a young midshipman to the brig, Nicholson was gifted with a meaty role that enabled him to demonstrate his full…
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Michael Clayton (2007)
Critics swooned when Michael Clayton hit theaters in the fall of 2007, and rightly so. Here was the sort of legal thriller, went the conventional wisdom, that John Grisham movies always promise to be but rarely are: Smart, complex, suspenseful. The collective fawning was more than justified. Michael Clayton is just about pitch perfect, an…