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Jim Ridley

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Latest Articles

Vegas, Babies

Peter Pans head for the Strip in Todd Phillips' The Hangover.

By Jim Ridley
Jun 4, 2009

What Fletch was to plaid-checked water-cooler wits in the '80s, what National Lampoon's Van Wilder was to college-bound douches at the dawn of Dubya, that's what 2003's Old School is to Gen-X frat rats — a secret-handshake movie. A shaggy, intermittently hilarious wish-fulfillment nightmare about sorta dissatisfied, sorta middle-aged dudesters...
Beyond Gonzo

Call hell-raiser Hunter S. Thompson's style what you will — a new doc succeeds when saluting his substance

By Jim Ridley
Aug 28, 2008

In a nation of frightened dullards, there is always a sorry shortage of outlaws, and those few who make the grade are always welcome." So wrote Hunter S. Thompson of the Hell's Angels after riding with California's motor-psycho Mongol hordes in the mid-1960s, a feat of embedded journalism that left...
Empire Strikes Back

Mongol paints a historically hazy but kick-ass picture of everyone's fave emperor, Genghis Khan

By Jim Ridley
Jun 26, 2008

You want a history lesson? Take a class. You want clanging swords, sneering villains, storybook romance, and bloody vengeance? Here's a brawny old-school epic to make the CGI tumult of 300, Alexander, and Troy look like sissy-boy slap parties. Mongol, alias Genghis Khan: The Early Years, may compress, elide, and...
Violence Is Golden

With its secret boys club and bloody good fun, Wanted has all of the fight with none of the guilt

By Jim Ridley
Jun 26, 2008

Of the summer's many revenge-of-the-nerd fulfillment fantasies — from The Incredible Hulk all the way down the megaplex food chain to The Foot Fist Way — Wanted stands the best chance of dislodging Fight Club from fanboys' Facebook pages. It has the same dizzying flipbook style, the same kicky ultraviolence,...
New Blood

The joys of DIY filmmaking persist in Son of Rambow

By Jim Ridley
May 15, 2008

No adult has ever been able to codify what separates a good movie from a classic. In kid terms, though—those favored by Son of Rambow, a chipper tribute to the cinema as both supplier and repository of dreams—a good movie merely sends you bounding home from the theater. A great...

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