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MacGuffin Spotlight
An Appreciation – My Man Godfrey
The other day, I was looking through my movie collection, and ran across a film I loved but had totally forgotten about. I put it in my player and watched it for old time’s sake, and once again, I fell back in love with it…
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The Tomb of Terror – Magic (1978)
Every Saturday night The Tomb of Terror opens, unleashing reviews of the obscure and the classic in horror cinema. Abracadabra, I sit on his knee. Presto-chango, And now he is me. Hocus pocus, We take her to bed. Magic is fun; We’re dead. This poem…
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Bird Watching – Adrienne Shelly’s “Sudden Manhattan”
What an oddly sad experience, watching the quirky little film Sudden Manhattan (1996), from the late actress, writer, and director Adrienne Shelly. In her film, Shelly stars as an aimless 30-year-old woman named Donna, living in Manhattan, who has just lost her job, and thinks…
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An Appreciation – Network
“I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” It’s scary just how prophetic the film Network (1976) has become when seen in today’s modern age. Both Paddy Chayefsky, who wrote the film, and the great Sidney Lumet, who directed, came…
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The Tomb of Terror: Messiah of Evil (1973)
Every Saturday night The Tomb of Terror opens, unleashing reviews of the obscure and the classic in horror cinema. Husband and wife writer/producer/director team Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz have had a storied career in Hollywood. Film school friends of George Lucas (Star Wars), they…
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Action Junkie – Trouble Man, and the trouble with men.
“His friends call him Mr. T. His enemies call for mercy!” In the summer of 1971, the seminal action film Shaft smoothed its way onto the silver screen and exploded at the box office. Made for a budget of one and a quarter million dollars,…
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Bird Watching – Amy Heckerling’s “Clueless”
In last week’s Top 5, Ben and John discussed their favorite teen comedies, which served as the inspiration for the film I want to discuss this week: the brilliant and hilarious Clueless, from writer/director Amy Heckerling. An earlier film directed by Heckerling, the Cameron Crowe-written…
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An Appreciation – Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
It’s been said that it is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. No film better expresses this than Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), one of the most unapologetically romantic films of the new century. Written by…
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