Tag: Perfect Movies
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Perfect Movies: Back to the Future
Is this yet another Gen Y/early “Millenial” (ugh) article about the movies people of my age watched as children back in the 1980s? Of course it is. To clarify: I do not identify as a Millenial. I have previously written on this site about my dislike of how people of my generation have been conflated […]
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Perfect Movies: Paris, Texas
Movies are brilliant constructions of image, sound, and dialogue. Although this seems to be a reductive analysis of what comprises a movie, it’s meant to be a boast of the complexity of the art form in general. That they live on in immortality in a way that plays cannot, or how novels are one-dimensional in […]
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Perfect Movies: The Godfather: Part II
Crime–specifically gangster–movies have come a long way since the early days of cinema. From early lurid crime pictures like Howard Hughes’ pre-Hays Code Scarface in 1932 that was heavily edited to avoid glorifying the gangster lifestyle, to the 1983 version starring Al Pacino that made a concerted effort to alternately glorify and condemn a life […]
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Perfect Movies: Terrence Malick’s First 5 Films
Terrence Malick is one of the most interesting directors of both the 20th and 21st century. For decades known as a reclusive auteur who rarely made a film–and when he did they were universally hailed for their meditative tone and brilliant cinematography–Malick abruptly broke away from the rarity of his releases and within the past […]
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Perfect Movies: Chasing Amy
Movies don’t have to be glamorous affairs of great spectacle and directorial flourishes that astonish the viewer to be perfect. Sometimes a small film composed of all-too-human emotions can speak volumes more than highly concentrated dramatics with people anguishing over unspeakable tragedies. Sometimes it can just be about a young guy who doesn’t know how […]
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Perfect Movies: Amadeus
What makes a genius? Divine inspiration? Hard work? A discipline forged in fire and molded by repetitive strikes from the hammer in the soul? Or just the foolish manic artistry that comes from torrents of flowing ability? The answer is yes. All of these disparate elements create what we consider “genius” into this world: the […]
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Perfect Movies: The Blues Brothers
“We’re on a mission from God.” And it’s not just a boast or else some tough-sounding phrase when spoken with a thick Chicago accent: Jake and Elwood Blues are literally chosen by God to save the orphanage they grew up in. Not that either of them are religious or even particularly good people: Jake just […]
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Perfect Movies: Monkey Business
There may be no more perfect comedy configuration on film than the Marx Brothers. I have had some dark days in my life–as have us all–and despite any hardship or emotional upset, I can turn on a Marx Brothers movie and it lifts my soul completely. The three main components of this merry band of absurd […]
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Perfect Movies: American Psycho
“You like Huey Lewis & The News?” I sure do, and Patrick Bateman makes a great argument for the strengths of their 1983 commercial breakthrough album, Sports. It would be a great moment in any retro film for the main character to espouse his love of mainstream contemporary music, but becoming a counterpoint to the action […]
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Perfect Movies: Blade Runner
Do androids dream of electric sheep? This question–the title of Philip K. Dick’s novel that serves as the basis for 1982’s Blade Runner–becomes the film’s central thesis, as android bounty hunter Rick Deckard is tasked with bringing in six Nexus-6 androids that have gone on the lam. Meanwhile, Deckard meets and eventually falls for an […]
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Perfect Movies: The Big Lebowski
The Dude abides. But how? With the Gulf War raging in the background and as the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune–mostly concerning a soiled rug that really tied the room together that escalates into a wild series of improbable events–fall about him, The Dude, bleary-eyed like usual, somehow maintains an inner calm. Everyone else […]
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Perfect Movies: The Breakfast Club
It is a truth universally acknowledged that being a teenager sucks. Not objectively, of course: as an increasingly cantankerous adult, I look at teenagers and want to let them know that they are young and healthy and will never be this free or full of promise again in their lives so they should stop moping […]
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