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A New Leaf
: :Elaine May wrote, directed, and starred in this acidic comedy about a wealthy playboy (Walter Matthau) who discovers that he has nearly spent all of his fortune. Casting about for a solution to his money problems that won't actually involve work, he finds a desperate solution: He'll marry an heiress (May) for her fortune. The hitch: She's a social maladept ('The woman is feral,' Matthau growls). Indeed, Matthau finds marriage so intolerable that he decides there's only one course of action, which is to actively ...
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Gazebo
: :Elaine May wrote, directed, and starred in this acidic comedy about a wealthy playboy (Walter Matthau) who discovers that he has nearly spent all of his fortune. Casting about for a solution to his money problems that won't actually involve work, he finds a desperate solution: He'll marry an heiress (May) for her fortune. The hitch: She's a social maladept ('The woman is feral,' Matthau growls). Indeed, Matthau finds marriage so intolerable that he decides there's only one course of action, which is to actively ...
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Death Becomes Her
: essential video:This 1992 black comedy by Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, the Back to the Future trilogy) features some of the most eye-popping special effects of the '90s in its story of a narcissistic star (Meryl Streep) who steals the husband (Bruce Willis) of another woman (Goldie Hawn) and continues her rivalry with her even after death. A magic potion keeps both women going despite the punishment of murderous bullets and fatal plunges, and the joke is that even as they ...
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Stuart Saves His Family
: :Though it seems like a one-joke premise, this spinoff of Al Franken's Saturday Night Live character, self-help nerd Stuart Smalley, actually has some substance. And, in fact, it offers a message that wouldn't be out of place at an Al-Anon meeting (although with the laughs). Stuart, fired from his cable TV self-help show, goes home to resolve a family crisis. Dad (Harris Yulin) is an abusive drunk, Mom (Shirley Knight) is an enabler, Sis is an over-eater, and Brother has a problem with his temper. ...
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Beetlejuice (P&S Slip)
: essential video:Before making Batman, director Tim Burton and star Michael Keaton teamed up for this popular black comedy about a young couple (Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin) whose premature death leads them to a series of wildly bizarre afterlife exploits. As ghosts in their own New England home, they're faced with the challenge of scaring off the pretentious new owners (Catherine O'Hara and Jeffrey Jones), whose daughter (Winona Ryder) has an affinity for all things morbid. Keaton plays the mischievous Beetlejuice, a freelance 'bio-exorcist' ...
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Dr Strangelove
: essential video:Arguably the greatest black comedy ever made, Stanley Kubrick's cold war classic is the ultimate satire of the nuclear age. Dr. Strangelove is a perfect spoof of political and military insanity, beginning when General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden), a maniacal warrior obsessed with 'the purity of precious bodily fluids,' mounts his singular campaign against Communism by ordering a squadron of B-52 bombers to attack the Soviet Union. The Soviets counter the threat with a so-called 'Doomsday Device,' and the world hangs in ...
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Witches of Eastwick
: :Jack Nicholson was born to play the devil, and in George Miller's adaptation of John Updike's novel he plays it for all he's worth. As a wolfish womanizer summoned by three bored women in a picturesque New England town, he's sating all of his appetites with a rakish grin. Cher, Susan Sarandon, and Michelle Pfeiffer play the women who discover their untapped magical powers by accident. The smart and sexy singles, out of place in the conservatism of their village, find happiness, however briefly, in ...
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Buddy Buddy
: :Jack Nicholson was born to play the devil, and in George Miller's adaptation of John Updike's novel he plays it for all he's worth. As a wolfish womanizer summoned by three bored women in a picturesque New England town, he's sating all of his appetites with a rakish grin. Cher, Susan Sarandon, and Michelle Pfeiffer play the women who discover their untapped magical powers by accident. The smart and sexy singles, out of place in the conservatism of their village, find happiness, however briefly, in ...
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The Burbs
: :Tom Hanks stars in this sporadically funny, extended sketch piece about a gaggle of suburban neighbors so preoccupied with mysteries taking place behind the closed doors of a newcomer that they go to extremes to look inside. The film is essentially a simple satire from director Joe Dante, for whom suburbia has been ripe territory for such comic-horror stories as Gremlins, Explorers, Matinee, and Small Soldiers. Of all Dante's movies, The 'burbs has the least story material to go around, and it depends heavily (and ...
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Americathon
: :Tom Hanks stars in this sporadically funny, extended sketch piece about a gaggle of suburban neighbors so preoccupied with mysteries taking place behind the closed doors of a newcomer that they go to extremes to look inside. The film is essentially a simple satire from director Joe Dante, for whom suburbia has been ripe territory for such comic-horror stories as Gremlins, Explorers, Matinee, and Small Soldiers. Of all Dante's movies, The 'burbs has the least story material to go around, and it depends heavily (and ...
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