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Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
It’s kind of a shock to realize a zany movie that came out when you were a teenager is now considered one of the great enduring cinema classics. That’s particularly true when said movie is a mocking and acerbic comedy, and at the time was brazenly defying accepted movie conventions. Monty Python and the Holy…
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Klaus (2019)
What a surprise and joy it is to watch an animated movie, and even more, a Christmas animated movie, that’s charming, funny, heartwarming, and entirely original. 2019’s Klaus is an alternative origin for the myth of Santa Claus but never comes off as cloying or sentimental or sickly sweet. The idea of an inept postman, banished to the outer regions…
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Assignment: Outer Space (1960)
You know how some sci-fi cheapies from the 50s and 60s are so ineptly made they turn out to be wildly entertaining? The 1960 space-opera confusion, Assignment: Outer Space is not one of those. This one’s so inept it’s worse than bad, it’s just plain boring. Originally an Italian film titled Space-Men, American International Pictures dubbed,…
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Harriet Craig (1950)
Joan Crawford was a rarity among Hollywood’s glamorous Golden Age stars. She wasn’t afraid to play, well, shall we say, aggressive characters. You know, calculating, two-faced characters. Hypocritical, double-dealing characters. Okay, I’ll just say it. She wasn’t afraid to play a bitch. In fact, she was exceptionally good at playing them. One of her best bitch roles was as…
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George of the Jungle (1997)
I was in the mood for a wacky comedy, so I chose 1997’s spoof, George of the Jungle. While sticking closely to the “throw in any joke you can think of” sensibility of the original 1967 animated television series, this slapstick farce is often quite funny, even if routinely uninspired and less witty than you probably…
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The Dark Knight (2008)
I’m not much of a comic fan so, consequently, film adaptations with comic book characters don’t do much for me. That being said, I really liked 2008’s Batman epic The Dark Knight, maybe because it comes off more like a crime drama than a superhero flick. It was wildly hyped when first released, primarily Heath Ledger’s turn as The…
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Heaven Only Knows (1947)
Do you ever watch a movie and spend the entire time wondering what genre it’s supposed to be? Is it intended to be a comedy or a drama or a thriller or just what exactly? Usually, if you’re wondering that, so were the filmmakers. 1947’s Heaven Only Knows is one of those films. It starts off as…
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Boogie Nights (1997)
I think a lot of people have avoided Boogie Nights because they think it’s about something other than it actually is. Released in 1997, the story focuses on a young man from an abusive family who escapes to Los Angeles where he takes a job as a performer in the adult film industry during the Golden Age…
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Monkey Business (1952)
Screwball comedy is a fragile genre. If you have wacky characters, you need a realistic scenario, and vice versa. If both the characters and the story are bizarre, there’s nothing for the audience to cling on to, to identify with. I think that’s the problem with 1952s Monkey Business. Director Howard Hawks certainly knows his way around screwball…
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Being the Ricardos (2021)
Seeing any backstage drama that later became public knowledge makes us all feel like insiders. Being the Ricardos, from 2021, places us smack in the middle of both the production of a legendary TV series and a legendary love story. This excellent, if bloated, look at a week in the production of the pioneering television comedy…
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How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)
As an experiment, one year I watched only holiday movies between Thanksgiving and Christmas (Except for one. I really need a frickin’ break … from all that … frickin’ joy). A new one to me was the live action How the Grinch Stole Christmas from 2000. Of course, I grew up with the 1957 book and the…
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The Tingler (1959)
In the 1950s producers of less-expensive, lower budget horror films (yes, I mean the below B-grade cheapies) used ingenious gimmicks to sell tickets. Probably the most famous was 1959’s The Tingler. No, it’s not about a sex toy, but a monster the human body creates when scared that then feeds off fear, making the spine tingle.…
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Small Apartments (2012)
2012’s warped comedy, Small Apartments, is about as delightfully weird as any movie I’ve ever seen. Star Matt Lucas, from the brilliantly funny sketch-comedy series Little Britain, is the glue that holds the preposterous premise together and makes it believable and relatable. He plays an astonishingly eccentric, hairless man (wearing only tidy-whities, eating a diet consisting entirely of…
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On the Town (1949)
It was a night for another made-it-this-far-without-seeing-it-before movie, the 1949 film version of the Broadway hit On the Town, directed by Gene Kelly (who also choreographed and played one of the leads) and Stanley Donen. While just fine, even quite good as shiny, effervescent, mindless entertainment, it eviscerates the original Broadway source, cutting 4/5th of Leonard Bernstein’s brilliant score, and adding new songs…
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Hell’s House (1932)
Sometimes while watching an older film you’ve never heard of, like 1932’s drama Hell’s House, you don’t expect a lot, but then you’re wowed by an incredibly well-made and riveting film. Although a young Bette Davis and Pat O’Brien, both very early in their careers, are top billed, the real star is Junior Durkin as an orphaned boy sent to live…
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The Magnificent Seven (1960)
So how is it possible I hadn’t seen The Magnificent Seven before? This 1960 epic is widely considered to be one of the greatest westerns of all time (but then, I’m not a huge western fan, so maybe that’s why I’ve missed it). It’s a remake/adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s brilliant 1954 Japanese film The Seven Samurai, even more widely considered…
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Made You Look: A True Story About Fake Art (2020)
I loved the fascinating documentary, Made You Look: A True Story about Fake Art that tells the story of a prestigious art gallery in New York that, over the course of fifteen years, sold a lot of previously unknown works by astoundingly famous artists like Rothko, Pollock, Motherwell, Warhol and many others who were equally well known. Over…
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Look Who’s Back (Er ist wieder da) (2015)
I love strange and bizarre movies (probably not a surprise to you), and 2015’s Look Who’s Back (Er ist wieder da) may be one of the oddest I’ve ever seen. Based on a best selling German novel by Timur Vermes, the film follows Adolf Hitler after he magically wakes up in modern day Berlin, is mistaken for a comedian, becomes a…
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Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)
Frank Capra, one of Golden Age Hollywood’s finest directors, helmed a fantastic film version of the stage hit Arsenic and Old Lace in 1942, however Warner Brothers had agreed to not release the film until the comedy had closed on Broadway. No one suspected a farce about a family riddled with insanity, full of murder, kidnapping, torture and…
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Halston (2021)
I binged all five episodes of the dramatic-bio series Halston in one sitting, which, I guess, should tell you I liked it enough to keep pushing forward. And I certainly did. The Netflix miniseries, exploring the famed fashion designer’s struggles with fame, celebrity, closeted homosexuality, and HIV/AIDS, is pretty restrained for Ryan Murphy, since the producer has a penchant for…
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Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) (1972)
Woody Allen’s 1972 satire Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) may be vintage Woody, but most of it isn’t classic Woody. Based on David Reuben’s famous (and scholarly) 1969 sex manual of the same name, the film is comprised of seven zany comedy sketches dealing with sexuality, fetishes, reproductive biology and television game…
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The Earth Dies Screaming (1964)
When I sat down to watch 1964’s The Earth Dies Screaming I naturally thought I was going to see a schlocky sci-fi stinker. Surprisingly, this British production is stylish, atmospheric, and spooky, even thought provoking, despite a couple of slow moments. When most of the population of a small village mysteriously drops dead all at once, a…
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The African Queen (1951)
Rewatching director John Huston’s 1951 masterpiece, The African Queen, which I hadn’t seen in a very long time, I discovered it not only holds up, but looks like it could have been filmed yesterday. Almost nothing about it feels creaky, not the production design nor the story-telling, and certainly not the acting. Set during World War I, a…
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Quartet (2012)
Funny and touching, 2012’s comedy-drama Quartet examines the challenges met by aging artists as their lives appear to have less and less meaning. Although somewhat uneven in tone, the story of elderly opera singers in a retirement home, planning to sing together one last time for a benefit concert, is beautiful and compelling. The themes of romance,…
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Babes in Toyland (1934)
Looking for an engaging, classic Christmas movie? How about the delightful, if eccentric, 1934 musical comedy Babes in Toyland (aka March of the Wooden Soldiers). It stars the iconic comedy team of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy as toy makers who muck up an order for Santa Claus, only to end up saving both Christmas and their fairytale world from a despicable villain.…