American Graffiti
The 1973 box office and critical smash American Graffiti epitomized the 1950s nostalgia craze, established the device of interweaving multiple stories, inspired such television serie...
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Critical Essay by Michael Dempsey
[In American Graffiti] Lucas and his fellow writers, Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck, manage to be serious without portentous symbolism or heavy underlining. They slip...
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Critical Essay by Pauline Kael
Using women (and not only women) as plot functions may be a clue to the shallowness of many movies, even of much better movies—American Graffiti, for example. Th...
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Critical Essay by Alice Sodowsky, Roland Sodowsky, and Stephen Witte
[American Graffiti] imports more than mere nostalgia for a past: it explores the consequences of technology upon an age that still...
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Background InfoThe son of a lawyer,
Dreyfuss
was born in
New York
on 29 October, 1947. By the age of nine he was living in
Los Angeles
, a stone's throw away from the Hollywood dream factory t...
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Question 1 of 10:In the1950s, the penniless
Duvall
shared a flat with two other wannabe actors:
Gene
Hackman
and who else?
Jack
Nicholson
Dustin
Hoffman
Al
Pacino
Clint
Eastwood
Qu...
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The American Film Institute's original 1998 list of the top-100 American movies:1. "Citizen Kane," 1941.2. "Casablanca," 1942.3. "The Godfather," 1972.4. "Gone With the Wind," 1939.5. "Lawrence of ...
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The American Film Institute's 2007 list of the top-100 American movies:1. "Citizen Kane," 1941.2. "The Godfather," 1972.3. "Casablanca," 1942.4. "Raging Bull," 1980.5. "Singin' in the Rain," 1952.6...
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Heavily armed soldiers trudge through the fetid streets of Sadr City, gagging from the stench of open sewage, eyes warily scanning ahead for trouble. Suddenly, a middle-aged man approaches _ and be...
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Ask a free marketeer what government should do about rising gasoline prices and the usual reply is "nothing," because "high prices provide incentives to conserve and for companies to deliver new su...
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"Superbad" has been so super-ubiquitous, it only feels like it's already been in theaters for months.Between the posters, TV commercials and promotional appearances by its stars, the hype machine h...
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Celebrity birthdays for the week of Sept. 16-22:Sept. 16: Actress Lauren Bacall is 83. Blues singer B.B. King is 82. Actor Peter Falk is 80. Singer Betty Kelly of Martha and the Vandellas is 63. Dr...
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After the Academy Awards, Hollywood usually takes a little hiatus until summer, when the studios roll out a weekly parade of stadium-fillers. But in recent years, it's become difficult to pinpoint ...
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A half-dozen pairs of headlights are easing into a loose formation behind a late-model import sedan on a freeway outside Modesto, California, where a moonless February night has settled in with a p...
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American Graffiti
Critical Essay by Michael Dempsey
UKTV Profiles: RichardDreyfuss
