This may be the personally oddest and most eclectic “Best Of” list I’ve ever compiled. Half is strongly art-house and indie minded, while the other half is not simply mainstream, it is firmly entrenched in solid blockbuster territory. How to explain it? Simple. These were my favorite films of the year. These were the ones [...]

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An English professor once told me that the hardships and travails with which you and I wrestle never rise to the height of tragedy, no matter their extremes or intensity. True tragedy only occurs, he said, when immense calamities befall exceptional individuals. Tell that to the ordinary shlub beset by unrelenting heartbreak in the Coen [...]

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