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The Day of the Jackal
As the elaborate cat-and-mouse game unfolds, it’s never quite clear who is the hunted and who the hunter. The Jackal (a brilliant Edward Fox as a professional assassin) is stalking de Gaulle. And the entire French government is stalking the Jackal. I suppose one knows that de Gaulle isn’t going to die, but what makes…
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Midnight Run
Charles Grodin displays immense actorly patience, letting you warm to his character oh so slowly. His blank, backward-staring gaze – not De Niro’s fire, humor and despair – dominate Midnight Run. Then come the moments when he confiscates “counterfeit” bills, slams the train door on De Niro, and turns out, gloriously, to be a pilot.…
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The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
As straightforward an account of the problem of transformative experience as you will ever find, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar tells the tale of man who, in the experience of acquiring a difficult skill, finds his preferences and values so changed that his original purpose for wanting the skill no longer applies. Children’s books,…
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It’s Quieter in the Twilight
Fifteen billion miles from Earth, the Voyager spacecraft glide outward into the vast of interstellar space. They are still working, still communicating, but with power levels in a long, slow decline toward final dysfunction. While in Pasadena, a dozen or so aging engineers, programmers and scientists – the sort of people one NEVER sees on…
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The Eight Mountains
The journey from book to movie is arduous and fraught. It is exceedingly rare for a movie to flatly exceed its source (e.g. The Godfather) and perhaps even less common for the movie to be a perfect distillation of the novel. The Eight Mountains is that. It brings every scene and every character to life…
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Annie Hall
As in most great movie romances, the lovers in Annie Hall do not end up together. Jane Austen may assure us that well-suited, rational lovers can live with as much chance of happiness together as it is possible to have, but we tend to believe that the essence of great romance is in its loss.…
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13 Assassins
Whichever version you choose to watch of 13 Assassins, you won’t go wrong. The new version is faster, bloodier and more visually striking. The old version has the same great story beats and is even more perfectly Japanese. Not to be missed by anyone who enjoys Samurai movies (and who doesn’t?). (Prime)
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The Fabelmans
After the disappointingly bland remake of West Side Story, Spielberg returns to form. Yes, it’s obviously a “late” work in the mold of great craftsmen reflecting on their life and craft, but it has all the classic Spielberg touches: masterly direction, a certain innocence, a genuine love of the craft, and a gift for getting…
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The World’s End
The fitting conclusion to the Cornetto Trilogy, each of which has its special pleasures. But I’ve always loved World’s End the best, perhaps for my namesake – the “King” of Gary’s in film. One mile. Twelve pubs. Twelve pints. And a story of friendship, loss, and what the total absence of personal transformation might look…
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The Hornet’s Nest
This is as close as you can (or would want) to come to combat in Afghanistan. Those are slugs whispering by the camera and you can see the very unsimulated fear on the faces of the father and son doing the filming. There is no real story arc (it’s Afghanistan), just visceral, hard-to-watch, gripping, and…
We are not rational animals, we are animals that must work to be rational
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