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    Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)

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    Combining whodunnit, film noir, and slapstick humor, Who Framed Roger Rabbit seamlessly blends animated and live-action characters and settings to create a hybrid masterpiece. It follows washed-up, toon-hating private detective Eddie Valiant as he is roped into investigating cartoon character Roger Rabbit, who is wanted for murder in 1940s Los Angeles. As he delves deeper into the case, he uncovers a web of corruption and deception that he must unravel to clear Roger's name.  Like with The Maltese Falcon , I've seen this movie a dozen times, but I'm always surprised by the ending. The performances by Christopher Lloyd and (especially) Bob Hoskins are spot on throughout, providing grounding to balance out the giddiness and always-on quality of the toon characters. That being said, it's amazing how authentic and real  every character, ink or flesh, feels. This would have been a very easy movie to get wrong, to be either over- or under-invested in, to be overly lazy or ove...
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    12 Angry Men (1957)

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      This is one of the most stressful movies I've ever watched, and it's worth every one of the hairs standing at attention at the back of my neck. For a film that's nothing but a bunch of men arguing with each other in a locked room, 12 Angry Men  is suspenseful, thoughtful, and attention-demanding, supported by twelve powerhouse performances. This film follows twelve jurors tasked with determining the guilt of a young man from the slums, who has allegedly murdered his father. The judge imposes the standard of reasonable doubt: if there is a reasonable doubt about the boy's guilt, the jury must come to a verdict of not guilty. And so it begins. Henry Fonda plays Juror 8, at the start the only juror who questions the assumptions of the other men that the defendant is guilty. He demands discussion before a verdict is reached, and as he argues his case, the biases and interests of the other eleven men emerge: the man who grew up in the slums and doesn't take kindly to p...
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    Ace in the Hole (aka The Big Carnival) (1951)

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      Though in its day a critical and commercial flop, Ace in the Hole , a film about a disgraced newspaperman who creates a media circus to try to get back on top, still has a lot to offer. Kirk Douglas plays Chuck Tatum, a reporter who has been let go from a slew of high-ranking papers because of his erratic and often abusive behavior. He finds himself working for a small-town paper in New Mexico, desperate for a big story to help him rekindle his career. He finds just the thing when he stumbles upon a man trapped in a collapsed cave. Tatum uses all his tricks to smooth-talk, bargain, and swindle everyone he meets for exclusive access to Leo, the trapped man, including the sheriff, the local press, and Lorraine, Leo's freedom-seeking wife. Tatum even goes so far as to force rescuers to take more time-consuming measures to free him, risking Leo's life in exchange for the story of a lifetime.  As the media circus surrounding the cave balloons into a veritable carnival, including ...
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