10. Bad Words.  Here’s a cheesy, distasteful, and seemingly thin premise: a 40 year old high school drop-out identifies a loophole that allows him to compete in a children’s spelling bee. But Jason Bateman, as Guy Trilby, pulls it off with unapologetic, politically incorrect snark even before the plot deepens to explain how (and why) in the world this is happening. ... Read More »

Spoiler Scale (How spoilery is this article on a scale of 1 to 10?):  3   “I don’t know Pauline Kael.  Fuck Pauline Kael.”  It’s the kind of comment that a serious film critic may find downright “unseemly,” but that’s kind of the point.  As delivered by a long-time friend and colleague of Roger Ebert in the documentary Life Itself, it sums up Ebert’s place, relatively speaking, ... Read More »