Wag the Dog
With an election like no other currently under way, we can nostalgically look back at a political farce that not long ago seemed like a far-fetched comedy. Tame by today’s standards, Barry Levinson’s comedy stars Oscar winners Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman as a spin doctor and Hollywood producers who fabricate a war to help re-elect the president.
Inherit the Wind
Spencer Tracy gives a powerhouse performance as an attorney defending a young school teacher who dared teach his students the Theory of Evolution. Way ahead of its time, Inherit the Wind is as much a condemnation of ignorance and superstition in 2016 as it was in 1960.
Spirited Away
Spirited Away is the great Japanese film director Hayao Miyazaki’s most complex creation. The story is layered and ingenious. The characters are otherwise unthinkable and unique. The animation is magical.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
The film that sums up the great American political system stars John Wayne and James Stewart as the two competing elements of closing American frontier. John Ford directs his greatest western, with two of the screen’s greatest stars.
Adaptation
The late film critic Roger Ebert referred to Charlie Kaufman as “the most gifted screenwriter of the 2000s.” In this 2002 film, adapted from an article in The New Yorker by Susan Orlean, Kaufman’s screenplay seamlessly combines the stories of a multitude of characters in the midst of some form of adaptation.
See y’all at the movies!
