There’s a lot that’s good in this film, but let’s start with the bad
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A Few Good Men (1992)
Tag: 2009 Top 100
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The Darjeeling Limited (2007)
The Darjeeling Limited has a reputation as a minor Wes Anderson work
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The Big Lebowski (1998)
A layer under the surface, stoner comedies and hard-boiled detective stories actually have a lot in common
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Garden State (2004)
Garden State’s reputation has fallen out of favor in the 18 years since its release, and understandably so.
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Casablanca (1942)
“Is it really that good?” I wondered as I hit play for the first time in a decade.
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The Truman Show (1998)
I recently read Ed Sikov’s Film Studies: An Introduction, and one early point he makes is that everything we see in cinema, even the most vérité and naturalistic scenario, is, to some extent, constructed. Everything seen and heard is placed in front of us for a specific reason.
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12 Angry Men (1957)
Few movies have endured with such a sterling — even ascendant — reputation as 12 Angry Men.
Up is among the most uneven films from Pixar’s imperial phase, but still pretty close to a masterpiece.
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Saving Private Ryan (1998)
I’d have less of an objection to the gnarly thematic weirdness of Saving Private Ryan if the film didn’t rub our face in it
Shrek is almost impossible to evaluate at face value. You can mark it lower for creating the lazy “celebrity voice cast + pop culture reference” formula of animated comedy; you can mark it higher for millennial nostalgia (this was the default movie substitute teachers turned on when I was in high school); you can mark it lower OR higher for its over-saturation in memes and pop culture.