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Amadeus (1984)
...Everything You've Heard is True
Filmmaker(s): Miloš Forman

Disciplined Italian composer Antonio Salieri becomes consumed by jealousy and resentment towards the hedonistic and remarkably talented young Viennese composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Ratty Accident of God things just come together for no apparent reason. And when they do, they are either of the Mozart type or Salieri types. Here's how to tell in films: no chances are taken -- no experiments are made -- everything is extremely...


Published August 9, 2025
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Penn and Teller Get Killed (1989)
What more do you want?
Filmmaker(s): Arthur Penn

The "bad boys of magic" go over the edge in this mind-blowing, role-switching comedy murder mystery set in the dizzying world of Atlantic City casinos. In a TV interview, Penn mentions his idea of a fun practical joke: "I wish someone were trying to kill me. It would give focus to my life, excitement. I'd be like James Bond." Twenty million people hear him. One decides to deliver a punchline he'll never forget. Made by people who thought Psycho was a comedy, Penn & Teller Get Killed (they also wrote the piece) features Caitlin Clarke as the femme fatale and David Patrick Kelly as the Edgar Allan Poe-esque nutcase with a new mission. Arthur Penn, known for hip masterpieces like Bonnie and Clyde, Alice's Restaurant and Little Big Man, directs with roller-coaster pacing and subversive intelligence.

Genuine is an absolutely unwatchable film, featuring two by then seasoned performers and directed by one of our greatest filmmakers. The basic idea is that the two magicians play tricks on each other, and toward the end you aren’t sure when dangerous things are genuine or...


Published July 29, 2025
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A Sweet Journey (1980)
Whant woman talk about when men aren't around
Filmmaker(s): Michel Deville

Two lifelong best friends spend a weekend at a secluded cabin. Through intimate conversations and silent moments, they explore their deep understanding of each other's personalities and desires.

In the Story makes their own decision on when the narrative intrusion is morally clean. Assuming that the film is about some emotional event among people, the question is if are we viewing to add to our soul, aor are we viewing to take something...


Published June 30, 2025
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Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989)
The winner of this battle would be the most enormous enemy against human beings.
Filmmaker(s): Kazuki Ōmori

After the previous Godzilla attack, a miniature arms race ensues to collect his cells. Concerned over Godzilla's possible return, the Japanese government uses the cells to create a new bio-weapon, ANEB (Anti-Nuclear Energy Bacteria). They seeks the aid of geneticist Genshiro Shiragami, who's experiments result in a new mutation.

Sexual Spies Godzilla films — the Japanese ones — are essentially social commentary and painful self-reflection embodied in beasts. So we have films about American dominance, gangsters in corporations, pollution, national friendships… This is the most complex one. The core story is a genius scientist creating...


Published June 25, 2025
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Tampopo (1985)
The first Japanese Noodle Western.
Filmmaker(s): Jūzō Itami

In this humorous paean to the joys of food, a pair of truck drivers happen onto a decrepit roadside shop selling ramen noodles. The widowed owner, Tampopo, begs them to help her turn her establishment into a paragon of the "art of noodle-soup making". Interspersed are satirical vignettes about the importance of food to different aspects of human life.

New New Wave about other movies both fascinate and challenge me. The French "new wave" consisted of three types of ideas. They had notions about explicitly acknowledging the camera. That's such an ordinary notion these days that it is impossible to appreciate. And in any...


Published February 20, 2025
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Stand by Me (1986)
For some, it's the last real taste of innocence, and the first real taste of life.
Filmmaker(s): Rob Reiner

After learning that a boy their age has been accidentally killed near their rural homes, four Oregon boys decide to go see the body. On the way, Gordie, Vern, Chris and Teddy encounter a mean junk man and a marsh full of leeches, as they also learn more about one another and their very different home lives. Just a lark at first, the boys' adventure evolves into a defining event in their lives.

What Happened to Lardass? first duty of a filmmaker is to worry about how to transport the viewer into the special world they have in mind. The hard way to do this is by devising a very strong narrative. Expert filmmakers then worry about the...


Published January 27, 2025
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Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
If adventure has a name, it must be Indiana Jones!
Filmmaker(s): Steven Spielberg

When Dr. Indiana Jones – the tweed-suited professor who just happens to be a celebrated archaeologist – is hired by the government to locate the legendary Ark of the Covenant, he finds himself up against the entire Nazi regime.

Masculinity Fades in my several thousand comments, a contemporary comment is missing for this popular movie. I’ve seen this now again after more than 40 years. It has not aged well. In its time, it was a phenomenon, created by the two biggest filmmakers in...


Published January 27, 2025
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Fitzcarraldo (1982)
Dare to dream the impossible.
Filmmaker(s): Werner Herzog

Fitzcarraldo is a dreamer who plans to build an opera house in Iquitos, in the Peruvian Amazon, so, in order to finance his project, he embarks on an epic adventure to collect rubber, a very profitable product, in a remote and unexplored region of the rainforest.

Constrained Frenzy invention of modern drama was the birth of twins, and they have been spatting ever since. One of these is the Shakespearean tradition: characters transform, sometimes even extending beyond the constraints of the movie to create themselves or some reality. Situations are complex,...


Published January 6, 2025
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The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981)
She was lost from the moment she saw him.
Filmmaker(s): Karel Reisz

In this story-within-a-story, Anna is an actress starring opposite Mike in a period piece about the forbidden love between their respective characters, Sarah and Charles. Both actors are involved in serious relationships, but the passionate nature of the script leads to an off-camera love affair as well. While attempting to maintain their composure and professionalism, Anna and Mike struggle to come to terms with their infidelity.

Narrative Folding environments, two of the century's greatest film actors, one of the half-dozen or so best modern playwrights and Fowles' experiment in parallel narratives. Fowles' work was pale compared to Nabokov's "Pale Fire," for instance in building a convoluted, layered narrative, but is comparable...


Published December 9, 2024
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Blade Runner (1982)
Man has made his match...now it's his problem.
Filmmaker(s): Ridley Scott

In the smog-choked dystopian Los Angeles of 2019, blade runner Rick Deckard is called out of retirement to terminate a quartet of replicants who have escaped to Earth seeking their creator for a way to extend their short life spans.

Offworld Truth the mid-seventies, I exchanged a few letters with Phil Dick, who had then dropped his obsession with parallel, valid visions and had developed a similar obsession with created realities. This concern maps well to the wave of film theory that was sweeping the...


Published December 9, 2024
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