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Blood in the Face (1991)
The bogeymen of our world haven’t changed much since the initial release of Blood in the Face, a documentary that opens a window on the subculture of American neo-Nazis, Klansmen and assorted white supremacists. The ugliness of white nationalism still thrives – hell, probably more so than those 20th century pre-MAGA neo-Nazis ever could have…
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Spider Baby or, the Maddest Story Ever Told (1967)
The Merrye children of Spider Baby or, the Maddest Story Ever Told don’t seem like they would have much to be merry about. The unfortunate brood suffers from a rare neurological disorder particular to their bloodline. As a voiceover narrator helpfully explain in the opening, at around the age of 10 or so, Merrye family…
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Alpha Dog (2006)
The murder of a 15-year-old boy at the center of Alpha Dog is rendered all the more tragic because it is so totally, utterly senseless. While the teenagers who populate the story fancy themselves as street-smart, they appear to be engaging in make-believe until it is too late – a bunch of self-styled tough guys barreling toward…
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American Hustle (2013)
Beginning a major Hollywood picture with a bald guy working on a comb-over isn’t the most obvious of artistic choices. American Hustle starts with Christian Bale, paunchy and fleshy and in decidedly non-Dark Knight shape, fixing his thinning hair with a watchman’s precision. He glues down a massive comb-over and maneuvers a monstrous toupee before…
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M3GAN (2023)
Hey, all you parents of screen-addled kids: Stay away from M3GAN. At least, that is, stay away if you don’t want to feel horribly guilty for letting computers and smartphones raise your child. This fiendishly dark horror-comedy has a lot to say about parenting and tech addiction, but such social observations are neatly ensconced in the…
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Doubt (2008)
Doubt came to the big screen with some seriously formidable talent behind it, but don’t be lulled into expecting pretentious High Art. Forget for a moment that it’s an adaptation of a Pulitzer- and Tony-Award winning stage play. Forget that it stars two heavyweight master thespians in Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Forget that…
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All the King’s Men (1949)
All the King’s Men catapulted Broderick Crawford from character actor to movie stardom, and rightly so. As fire-breathing demagogue Willie Stark, the indelible performance earned him an Academy Award for Best Actor. His portrayal dominates the film. Adapted from Robert Penn Warren‘s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1947 novel and loosely based on the life of legendarily corrupt Louisiana…
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Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant (2009)
By the late 2000s, vampire was the new black. Between the popularity of the Twilight franchise and HBO’s True Blood, bloodsucking hadn’t been this lucky since the Wall Street bailout. … Which brings us to another vampire-centric tale, Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant. Truncating the first three novels of Darren Shan’s YA book series,…
Cutting to the Chase with Phil Bacharach
Let’s talk about movies.
Cutting to the Chase with Phil Bacharach 