November 27th, 2009 | 12:05 am | Phillip Maher

With this terrific film, Rebecca Miller announces her ascendance into the upper echelon of American directors and sends a message to every author who’s ever lamented Hollywood’s desecration of their book -- if you want it done right, do it yourself. Working from her own novel, Miller beautifully translates literature into cinema, allowing the necessary specificity of film to animate her title character in ways that surprise and delight, while retaining space for the audience’s imagination.
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August 6th, 2009 | 6:50 pm | Cammila Alberston

Filmmaker John Hughes, the director of such teen-centric classics as The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, and Ferris Beuler’s Day Off, died today at the age of 59. Hughes passes just as a series of celebrity deaths have reminded us how nothing inspires geyserous outpourings of nostalgia like the mortality of our former heroes. But I think it’s fair to say that Hughes’ work has continued to inspire the same steady stream of deeply personal affection from its viewers since day one.
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