The Office: #23 -- "A Benihana Christmas"

23) "A Benihana Christmas" Season 3, Episode 10 Every Thursday during the final season of The Office, I'll be counting down the best episodes of the series' previous eight seasons. Follow me on Twitter @StiglitzMovies to see my thoughts on the ninth and final season. Below are links to previous entries in this retrospective. Intro 50-25 24 - "The Deposition" Pre-Title Sequence: Dwight brings in a dead goose declaring it a “Christmas miracle.” Toby’s reaction (“Dwight,...

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The Master

Edited to add: After three different drafts, I finally settled on this one. Because of that, I probably didn't expand on some claims I made throughout this jumbled rumination. Some have pointed out questions they have for me in the comments; I suggest you look there for more (hopefully) lucid thoughts on the film and why I compare the editing to that of a Malick film and why even though I understand that the cyclical (what I call redundant) nature of the film is probably Anderson's point...

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Sydney Pollack: The Electric Horseman

If you follow this blog at all, then you probably know that I am not someone who favors plot or story over other elements in film. I don’t need a mind-bender to keep me interested; in fact, I have no use for movies like The Usual Suspects, Inception, and films of their ilk. Mostly it’s because I feel like a lot of those kinds of films (with the exception of Inception which had great stunts) use their twisty storylines as a way to mask their film’s deficiencies. Sometimes the actors can...

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The Office: #24 -- "The Deposition"

  24) "The Deposition" Season 4, Episode 12    Every Thursday during the final season of The Office, I'll be counting down the best episodes of the series' previous eight seasons. Follow me on Twitter @StiglitzMovies to see my thoughts on the ninth and final season.  Pre-Title Sequence: Pam explains that Michael once received a message while he was in a meeting and told Pam that he’d call them back. Since then, Michael has always wanted to relive that moment,...

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The Office: 50-25

My countdown of the 50 best episodes of The Office begins with a look at numbers 50-25. Starting Thursday, a new episode will be unveiled in conjunction with episodes from Season 9. Read the intro to this series here. This will just be a quick list with some quick thoughts on each episode listed. A more coherent format will begin on Thursday with individual selections. Enough yakkity yak yak, on with the list! List after the jump... ...

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Goodbye, The Office

Blog Note: It’s been hard tracking down a copy of The Electric Horseman since it’s no longer available on Netflix Instant. The Pollack Retrospective will return shortly once I’ve corralled a copy of the film and can continue on. For the three of you reading it, I haven’t given up on it. When NBC decided to finally pull the plug on The Office and make this upcoming season its final one, I knew I wanted to do some kind of retrospective on the show. However – as you can no doubt tell...

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Sydney Pollack: Bobby Deerfield

We last left this retrospective with one of Pollack’s best and most popular films, Three Days of the Condor, and we now come to one of his least popular and most maligned: Bobby Deerfield. Oh, there is so much to say here, but I suppose I should just get this out of the way right now: I don’t hate this movie. It’s nothing special, contains no memorable moment, has little of Pollack in it other than his languid pacing – and yet I can’t help but admire the film at arm’s length for its earnestness....

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