Tag: reviews

  • The 10 best road-trip movies

    “I take the open road. Healthy, free, the world before me,” wrote the poet Walt Whitman, long before anyone in Hollywood even thought about shooting a road-trip movie. The road is a potent metaphor. It symbolizes growth, freedom, reinvention and escape––or just a place to get your kicks (if you’re on Route 66, anyway)––but the…

  • The 10 best R-rated comedies

    Let’s not beat around the bush. Dirty jokes are pretty damn funny. The best R-rated comedies aren’t just crude, however. They’re giddily transgressive, pushing past politeness and dragging the audience along with them. Laughter is the best medicine, but sometimes adults need something a little stronger than aspirin or a Z-Pak. These are my picks…

  • The 10 best movies about the workplace

    Americans spend about one-third of their lives at work. That translates to roughly 90,000 hours, although in fairness that figure probably includes plenty of time spent watching the clock and scrolling through TikTok. The workplace, such a huge chunk of modern existence, is ripe for melodrama and farce, and everything in between. What follows are…

  • The 15 best coming-of-age movies

    From Pip to Holden Caulfield and everything in between (as well as before and after, for that matter), the coming-of-age story has been indispensable. There are a multitude of variations, of course: a first love or heartbreak, that first encounter with mortality, learning a momentous truth about a parent or friend, discovering right and wrong.…

  • The 15 best school-centric films

    For good or ill––or, more accurately, for good and ill––school is where we learn our socialization skills (or lack thereof). Oh, it’s also where we just plain learn, of course: reading, writing, arithmetic and whatnot. But there are also crucial lessons to be had out of the classroom, whether that be in the cafeteria, the…

  • Hot films in the summertime: 10 movies ideal for summer now streaming

    Movies love summer. The two just go together, kindred spirits dedicated to childhood, fun and escapism.  Hollywood saves its blockbuster entertainments for that period between Memorial Day and Labor Day, of course, but there is also that class of films that are set during, or otherwise pay homage to, the season of long days and…