Comedy

[5] In the ‘so bad, it’s (almost) good’ category, welcome to Troll 2. When a vacationing family discover a town full of goblins disguised as people, they have to escape before they become goblin food. This is one of the most famously awful movies ever made — a perfect storm of horrible writing, horrible acting, and horrible execution. What really sets the movie apart, though, …

[3] Sandra Bullock gives her most offputting and peculiar performance in All About Steve, a film that sets the feminist movement back about fifty years. Bullock plays Mary, a woman in her forties who lives with her parents, tries to make a meager living creating crossword puzzles for her local paper, and who inexplicably falls head-over-heals obssessively in love with a blind date (adorable Bradley …

[5] Shirley MacLaine plays a jinxed woman whose four husbands meet tragic ends in this satirical comedy about money and passion. There are a lot of great moments in What a Way to Go, but the sum isn’t greater than the parts. The disjointed narrative is made nearly tolerable by screenwriters Betty Comden and Adolph Green, who also brought together the fractured tales of Singin’ …

[5] With a script by Neil Simon and an incredible all-star cast, I expected more from this spoof of murder mysteries. Most of the ensemble are confined to playing the same note throughout the film, including Peter Sellers as a simile-spewing Charlie Chan and Alec Guinness as the blind butler. The squeaky-clean humor is in dire need of some double-entrendres or naughty subtext. Still, it’s kinda …

[6] No, it’s not a movie about a whore. It’s Greer Garson, for fuck’s sake! Her Twelve Men, also known as Miss Baker’s Dozen, features Garson as a new teacher at an all- boys’ school where she’s not made to feel terribly welcome. The head of the school (Robert Ryan) doesn’t think she’s qualified and since she’s the first female faculty member they’ve ever known, …

[7] Move over, Lindsay Lohan (or at least flail further down the gutter.) There’s a new mean girl in town, and her name is Emma Stone. Easy A is the perfect vehicle for Stone, who shows natural charm and considerable range as a highschooler who decides to lie about losing her virginity. Before she realizes what she’s done, she’s created a whole whorish persona for …

[6] Robert Altman uses the circus-like atmosphere of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show for a commentary on racism and the whitewashing of American history. It’s actually a pretty light-hearted film built around Buffalo Bill’s contentious relationship with Sitting Bull. Paul Newman is reliably good as the exasperated Bill, pushed to his wits’ end by a stubborn but commercially valuable Indian who quietly challenges his authority …

[6] Jessica Lange and Elisabeth Shue star in this darkly comedic period piece about a bitter seamstress (Lange) who plots to ruin the lives of her late sister’s husband and daughter after they refuse to accept her into their wealthy family. Things get escalated when Lange’s character finds love in a young artist who eventually falls for her daughter-in-law. Shue plays a bawdy stage performer …

[7] William Holden leads an ensemble cast in Billy Wilder’s adaptation of Stalag 17. The film takes place entirely in a German prisoner-of-war barrack, where the captured Americans are beginning to suspect that Holden’s pessimistic black marketeer character may be informing on them to the Germans. But Holden knows better — that there’s a German spy planted in their midst, secretly thwarting all their chances …

[6] Sally Field and James Garner star in this story of a divorced mother who moves to a small town and tries to open a successful horse ranch. She quickly befriends the town pharmacist (Garner) and the two strike up a surprisingly unsentimental relationship. The plot thickens when the ex-husband comes to town trying to patch things up, creating a love triangle that has to …

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