Category: Movies
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12 Angry Men
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Read more: 12 Angry MenIn movie jargon, the words “classic” and “masterpiece” are accolades that are tossed around quite a bit. Sometimes they are well deserved, sometimes not, and often the status is indeterminate. In the case of 12 Angry Men, there is no reasonable doubt at all about the verdict. This classic is a masterpiece and one of…
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Uplift the Race: 3 Spike Lee Joints
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Read more: Uplift the Race: 3 Spike Lee JointsFor over 30 years now, ever since his debut feature She’s Gotta Have It in 1986, Spike Lee has been one of the most innovative and provocative filmmakers of our time. As expressed numerous times throughout his many films, Lee’s highest goal is to “wake up” and uplift all oppressed and deluded people, but he…
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Goodfellas
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Read more: GoodfellasI recently watched Goodfellas for the third…and final time, not because I intend to retire to eremitism, join a cult or end my life soon, but—to see how it held up. Seeing it first in 2004 while a twenty-year-old, English-as-a-second language twit enamored with mob flicks centered around New Yawk, big-city, third-world, streetwise culture; and,…
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Baby’s Day Out
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Read more: Baby’s Day OutAs anyone who has read my in-depth review of Beethoven knows, family movies from the 1990s are often covert founts of darkness and despair, sometimes to the point that it is nigh impossible to see them any other way. Another great example of this curious phenomenon is the 1994 film Baby’s Day Out, which depicts…
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All Is True
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Read more: All Is TrueIn his autobiography LittleWilson and Big God, Anthony Burgess ( for those of you who did not know, his complete name was John Anthony Burgess Wilson. Furthermore, for those of you who do not know, he was author of A Clockwork Orange, Tremor in Intent, The End of the World News, among many other novels,…
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Birdemic: Shock and Terror
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Read more: Birdemic: Shock and TerrorBirdemic: Shock and Terror was clearly made without the benefit of anyone who knew absolutely anything about filmmaking within a hundred yards of the set. Witness production values and acting that make Tommy Wiseau’s notorious 2003 classic The Room look like a legitimate masterpiece. Witness sound editing and mixing apparently done by a pair of…
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Matters of Survival: A Note on In a Lonely Place & Bigger Than Life
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Read more: Matters of Survival: A Note on In a Lonely Place & Bigger Than LifeIn a Lonely Place (1950) and Bigger Than Life (1956), two of Nicholas Ray’s finest films, are about two men made to feel “ten feet tall” in order to survive. For Dixon Steele (Humphrey Bogart) in Place, it happens in a war; World War II, to be precise. For Ed Avery (James Mason) in Life,…
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Beethoven (1992)
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Read more: Beethoven (1992)Despite evidence to the contrary, much of it written by me, I am not a monster. Like virtually any human being, I have certainly been known to find dogs charming, but I am happy the building in which I live only allows cats because I would rather see my neighbors’ pets than hear them, and…
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Carnival Of Souls (1962)
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Read more: Carnival Of Souls (1962)Carnival of Souls is one of the 50 horror movies included in the Amazon movie bundle (still available!) that I purchased years ago. Most of those movies were more laughable than horror, and really cheesy affairs, like The Beast Of Yucca Flats. Others were well made and effective, even if they were on a low…
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Darkon (2006)
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Read more: Darkon (2006)Before I even begin to insult the participants in Darkon by giving them verbal swirlies and literary locker-stuffings, I must digress for a moment and recognize how tragic this whole thing is.