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The Hangover (2009)
The no-holds-barred bachelor’s party ranks as one of life’s great paradoxes. OK, maybe not one of the great paradoxes, but certainly in the top 100 or so. As anyone who has ever engaged in such depravity can attest (or so I’m told), this particular rite of passage turns on the conceit that its most memorable…
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Elegy (2008)
Adaptations of Philip Roth novels don’t generally fare well on the big screen (Goodbye Columbus, anyone?), but Elegy is the rare beast that gets it just about right. Based on Roth’s The Dying Animal, about an aging college professor grappling with inner demons and an obsession with a younger woman, Elegy avoids the pitfalls typically…
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Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
Extolling the greatness of Bonnie and Clyde is a little like remarking on how wet rain is. Oceans of ink have been spilled on the significance of this masterpiece nominally about the real-life, Depression-era bank robbers, among the more recent treatises being Mark Harris‘ excellent Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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,…
Cutting to the Chase with Phil Bacharach
Let’s talk about movies.
