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Film · Warner Bros. · 1944

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Arsenic and Old Lace

28Leave it.

I laughed, and it is still a pile of dead men the film wants called harmless.

Take controlThis scores 28. Arsenic and Old Lace cannot be blocked by name on this shelf. The lock is the phone. Block it

The review

The timing is good, and I felt worse afterward than the film wanted. Two sweet aunts poison lonely old men and call it a kindness. Their nephew the critic finds out on his wedding day. Cary Grant. The bodies are the joke. A house can watch it, and should know that before the first laugh. It is played as harmless.

It is still a pile of dead men. Sweetness does not retire the cellar. Conscience never gets a vote with those aunts, and the farce is happy to skip the bill. If the room already likes the phrase they meant well, this picture will be glad to agree. I would say what it is before I started it.

Journal

Keep Arsenic and Old Lace in the record.

No house has filed a sentence for this yet.

Live Historic number 28. Yours can differ.

The glance

Industry and Household and Piety and Courage and Republic and Temperance and Truth and Stewardship are the thin ones.

Does anyone here do a real job, and does that job matter?

This phone is set for a grown person, just me. Change the ages.

Consider this

The Parent Trap

41 instead of 28

The Parent Trap is still a comedy film, and it scores 41 instead of 28. What you gain is stewardship: A child inherits the wish, which is good, and the method, which needs a correction.

The eight

3
Industry
The nephew is a critic; the aunts' real activity is the poison.
4
Household
He learns the truth on his wedding day, inside the aunts' house.
2
Piety
They call poison a kindness, and conscience never stops them.
3
Courage
A wedding day is spoiled; nobody risks a life they would miss.
3
Republic
Lonely old men are neighbors, and their deaths are played as a joke.
2
Temperance
The farce wants another body, and it never puts that laugh down.
3
Truth
The sweetness is a lie the picture is happy to leave looking cute.
2
Stewardship
A pile of dead men remains, plus a laugh that calls it kindness.

Where to watch

Finding the page.

Live Historic · Arsenic and Old Lace · 28IMDb

Live HistoricSee what matters.

Film · DreamWorks · 1999

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American Beauty

28Leave it.

The household is rotting, and the picture is too pleased to watch. Adults. Not a liberation.

Take controlThis scores 28. American Beauty cannot be blocked by name on this shelf. The lock is the phone. Block it

The review

The film is right that a house can become a catalog and a silence. It is wrong about the cure. A man chasing a feeling, and a plastic bag offered as transcendence, is not a repair. A daughter lives in the house while the film calls his restlessness honesty.

Adults. If you saw it in its year and called it brave, look again at who the bravery costs. The table was the place to begin. He begins with himself and calls it beauty.

Journal

Keep American Beauty in the record.