Memphis Movies This Week: ‘Ella McCay,’ ‘The Shining’ on IMAX
Emma Mackey stars in “Ella McCay” opening Friday, Dec. 12. (Courtesy 20th Century Studios)
James L. Brooks’ greatest claims to fame probably come from television, where he was a co-creator on classic shows across multiple decades: “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Taxi” and “The Simpsons.”
But Brooks also made one of my favorite movies as a writer-director with the 1987 comedy “Broadcast News,” and that triumph was bracketed by a couple of other well-regarded hits in the preceding “Terms of Endearment” and following “As Good As It Gets.”
These movies made Brooks somewhat synonymous with the idea of the smart mainstream adult comedy, which feels like an increasingly rare breed.
The “James L. Brooks movie” is an ideal rarely achieved, including by Brooks, whose most recent attempts to replicate this style — 2004’s “Spanglish” and 2010’s “How Do You Know” — didn’t hit and are no longer very recent.
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Chris Herrington
Chris Herrington has covered the Memphis Grizzlies, in one way or another, since the franchise’s second season in Memphis, while also writing about music, movies, food and civic life. As far as he knows, he’s the only member of the Professional Basketball Writers Association who is also a member of a film critics group and has also voted in national music critic polls for Rolling Stone and the Village Voice (RIP). He and his wife have two kids and, for reasons that sometimes elude him, three dogs.
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