Phil Bacharach

The 10 best movies about time travel Time travel movies aren’t really about time. Yes, the idea of moving through time is fantastical, but such stories are conduits to explore themes as diverse as nostalgia, regret, fate and free will…

Anyone daydreaming about time travel these days? Let’s talk movie time-travel.

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The 25 best love stories on film This just in: Moviegoers love romance. From the very start––beginning with The Kiss in 1896––cinema has excavated emotional gold from affairs of the heart. Big-screen love stories are so pervasive,…

Before the month of Valentine’s Day comes to end, I’m sliding in with my thoroughly unimpeachable, albeit fully subjective, selections of the 25 best love stories in the movies…

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The 10 best journalism movies Long before the profession of journalism fell prey to culture wars, movies about reporters tended to depict them as the-people-have-a-right-to-know crusaders or, more often, as doughy guys in ill-f…

Recent layoffs at The Washington Post are just the latest casualty in what have been some very bad years for the 4th Estate. Makes me all the more nostalgic for the great journalism flicks. My picks for the 10 best… cutting-2-the-chase.com/2026/01/26/t...

The 10 best movie dystopias It can always be worse. At least, that’s what moviegoers have long told themselves, and so there is a weird comfort that comes from losing yourself in big-screen dystopias. Fritz Lang likely jumpst…

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Been thinking about dystopian futures lately? If so, you’re not alone. So let’s look at post-apocalyptic cinema (link in comments below)

The 15 best school-centric films For good or ill––or, more accurately, for good and ill––school is where we learn our socialization skills (or lack thereof). Oh, it’s also where we just plain learn, of course: reading, writing, ar…

School. We’ve all gone through it. Movies. We’ve all gone to them. So without further ado, here is a list that involves both
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More words and phrases I hope can be retired in 2026:
“at the end of the day”
“I see what you did there”
“AF”
“sit with that”
“a nothing burger”
“hold my beer”
“I was today years old when…”
“am I right?”
“FAFO”

Streaming Romance - Oklahoma Gazette Valentine’s Day is around the corner, but how elaborate do you really want to get in this economy? If you’re not in the 1% club, the costs of an expensive restaurant, roses, or even a heart-shaped box...

Valentine’s Day is only weeks away, which is as good an excuse as any to talk movie love stories. Here’s my latest in @okgazette.bsky.social:

The 10 best black comedies You have to laugh to keep from crying, the saying goes, but black comedies give us the luxury of doing both. Gallows humor isn’t solely a coping mechanism. Laughter can be empowering. Moreover, by …

Looking for some laughs in these troubled times but still wanna feel slightly disturbed? I’ve got recommendations cutting-2-the-chase.com/2026/01/23/t...

If this is actually from a news conference. why isn’t there audio or video ?

My refrigerator is covered in magnets of the far off places my neighbors visit while I watch their dogs.

The 10 most memorable movie marriages Cinema has been terrifically successful showing dysfunctional marriages, but much less so depicting the other kind. Make of that what you will. Of course, the warts-and-all approach might be prefer…

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In case you wondered, I have another movie-related list: 10 most memorable marriages in film. Link in comments…

The 10 best male buddy movies Friendship is, as Cole Porter succinctly put it, the perfect blendship. Maybe so, although margaritas and Reese’s peanut butter cups are definitely in the race. At minimum, the buddy film has long …

Not that you asked, but here is my take on the 10 all-time best male buddy pictures…

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words and phrases I’m hoping can be retired in 2026:
“take a listen”
“let that sink in”
“I didn’t have (fill in the blank) on my bingo card”
“old-timer’s disease”
“(fill in the blank) adjacent”
“anyways” (unless you’re a Chicago gangster circa 1925)
using “drug” as the past tense of drag

“The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages.”—Virginia Woolf

surely, gorgeous cinematography isn’t antithetical to an elegiac rumination on life.

what else were you thinking?

certainly best film about an alt-weekly

“Beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life. Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living within that way of life.” —Hunter S. Thompson

The best movies of 2025! For cinephiles, 2025—much as with nearly every other facet of society—was not for the faint of heart. Netflix’s intended purchase of Warner Brothers Discovery has ominous implications for the long-…

if you’ve been hungering for another 2025 “best in film” list, well, friend, it’s time to belly up to this post in yer eatin’ pants…
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If you want to celebrate the life of Rob Reiner tonight and you haven't seen it, the documentary about his best friend, ALBERT BROOKS: DEFENDING MY LIFE, is as much about Brooks as it is Reiner's love for his lifelong best friend. As fall down hilarious as it is sweet & touching. It's a must see.

“We can’t solve today’s problems with the mentality that created them.”—Albert Einstein

After seeing BRYAN CRANSTON in ‘Breaking Bad’ - ANTHONY HOPKINS sent this wonderful email to the show’s star full of admiration for Cranston's performance, claiming it to be the best acting he'd ever seen.

It really annoys me that “restive” means, essentially, “restless.” Until “festive” is redefined as “unfestive,” this inconsistency bugs

“The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts.” —H.L. Mencken

For two days running, I’ve heard “Dark Side of the Moon” coming from my 18-year-old son’s room. Although I’ve never played Pink Floyd for my kids, I’ll take it as a parenting win. Bonus point: I’m 99% sure he’s listening to it sober.

"We must be free not because we claim freedom but because we practice it." —William Faulkner

Why are my Facebook reels overrun with AI slop of Mr. Rogers & Marilyn Monroe that I invariably click and invariably hate myself for watching? Is this what meth is like?

"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." —Aldous Huxley