Eminently quotable, Rob Reiner’s The Princess Bride—with a screenplay by William Goldman based off his own book—combines slapstick humor with situational comedy and satire in a way few other films have ever achieved. No other filmic attempt at deconstructing the fairy tale has so successfully struck Read More …
Adam Sandler’s Barry Egan is a lonely, meek, and put-upon man who has lived under the thumb of his seven older sisters, instilling in him an ever-building anger that he can barely control. In spite of this emotional turmoil, Barry becomes the object of affection Read More …
Perhaps the great dystopian satire of the cinema, Brazil reveals the foolishness and absurdity of its Brave New World with a dark wit and a robust humor. Jonathan Pryce plays the hapless Sam Lowry as a comic variation on Kafka’s Josef K. As in The Trial (the 1962 Orson Welles adaptation Read More …
Neither the comedian nor his audience knew the full extent of Nazi atrocities; if they had, The Great Dictator either wouldn’t have been made or wouldn’t have succeeded. Still, its takedown of Hitler (not to mention Mussolini, Goebbels, and Goering) is relentless and blistering, even if it’s Read More …
The Big Lebowski showcases the best of the Coen brothers’ comedic talents—lovably ridiculous characters, hilarious echolalic wordplay, and delightful sight gags—making this one of their most successful pure comedies. But just as effectively, Lebowski functions as Coen brothers wisdom literature. If A Serious Man is their Book of Job, then Read More …
“How do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word: Tradition.” So says Tevye, a milkman and family man living with his Jewish community in the town of Anatevka, in Tsarist Russia in 1905. Throughout the film, Tevye shows an admirable willingness Read More …
In The Fisher King, a disgraced shock-radio DJ (Jeff Bridges) discovers that when you hit rock bottom, you can find revelatory discoveries there. Jack finds another lost soul named Parry (Robin Williams), a reckless homeless man who, in order to cope with a severe trauma, fantasizes Read More …
Remy is a French rodent who aspires to be one of the great Parisian chefs, and cooking happens to be a metaphor for the artistic process. Anton Ego is a renowned acerbic critic, who, against all odds, admires Remy’s handiwork (in fact, it brings him Read More …
Ulysses Everett McGill persuades two naïfs from his prison chain gang to help him reclaim a stolen treasure, although his definition of this treasure is much different from that which he truly seeks. Fraught with the perils of blind seers, sirens, and cyclops in a Read More …
Existential awe and wonder before the sublime are not common notes in a Hollywood cartoon, but Andrew Stanton’s WALL-E defies expectations and easy categorization: a post-apocalyptic slapstick comedy; a lyrical sci-fi love story and a savage Swiftian satire. Incipit vita nova, Dante wrote upon glimpsing Beatrice: “Here begins Read More …