Category: Year

  • The Ant Bully (2006)

    The animated kids’ movie The Ant Bully begins with scrawny, little Lucas Nickle (voiced by Zach Tyler Eisen from TV’s Avatar: The Last Airbender) suffering a wedgie at the hands of the neighborhood bully. “What are you gonna do about it?” Lucas’ tormenter asks rhetorically. “Nothing, ’cause I’m big and you’re small.” Almost immediately after…

  • Deliver Us from Evil (2006)

    Deliver Us from Evil is a difficult film to watch, but it is an essential one. The Oscar-nominated 2006 documentary chronicles the tale of a pedophile priest and his many victims, but its scope is more expansive. By zeroing in on the specific case of defrocked Father Oliver O’Grady, the filmmakers paint a stark portrait…

  • The Exorcist (1973)

    Even 50 years after audiences got the holy bejesus scared outta them in packed movie theaters, The Exorcist remains, in my estimation, one of the most frightening films ever made. Released the day after Christmas in 1973, it almost immediately leapt from blockbuster to cultural phenomenon, fueled by reports at the time of some moviegoers…

  • The One and Only (1978)

    The One and Only must have looked like a surefire hit on paper. After all, the 1978 romantic comedy starred Henry Winkler, aka The Fonz – resident icon at the time of TV’s hugely successful Happy Days – and was helmed by Carl Reiner, who had scored box-office gold the previous year with Oh, God!…

  • Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)

    Based on a series of graphic novels by Bryan Lee O’Malley, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is a movie with ADD and a lapsed Ritalin prescription. It moves with bullet-train speed, crackles with wit and packs enough hip pop-culture references to make Chuck Klosterman green with envy. There are nods to arcade games, comic books,…

  • Don’t Worry Darling (2022)

    After all the offscreen drama that surrounded the Venice Film Festival premiere of Don’t Worry Darling, you would have expected a dumpster fire of a movie. But it isn’t that. While Olivia Wilde’s sophomore directorial outing (after 2019’s Booksmart) isn’t an entirely satisfying thriller, it’s also not exactly a dud. Think of it as a…

  • Coraline (2009)

    Picasso mused that every child is born an artist, but that the hard part is how to remain one after they grow up. Nothing is more surreal or vivid than the imagination of a child, where even the most seemingly mundane experience can evoke stark fear or unbridled joy. It’s a frontier ripe for storytellers,…

  • (500) Days of Summer (2009)

    Romantic comedies can be as propagandistic as any jingoistic World War II-era flag-waver, playing in the sandbox of audiences’ lovesick fantasies while paying only lip service to the messy reality of relationships. That’s why you have to admire a picture as cheerfully impish as (500) Days of Summer and the zeal with which it both…