The Strangest Damn Gang You Ever Heard Of

All right, guys. This is the big one. Sheer movie-watching joy. The best film of 1967, no matter what AMPAS said. Yes, Lance Mannion's Wednesday Night at the Movies brings you Arthur Penn's masterpiece, Bonnie and Clyde. The Siren is hoping all her commenters show up at 10 pm EDT at Newcritics ready to pay tribute to Warren Beatty's grin and Faye Dunaway's beret. Newcritics is back with the living after a nasty run-in with some malware bandits, so post away without fear. As a little shot from the hip flask, here are just five things, out of probably at least five hundred, that the Siren loves about Bonnie and Clyde:

1. The superb control of tone. Take the scene with a kidnapped Gene Wilder, which starts out mocking the squares in a way that's very 60s without killing the period ambience. And then, when Wilder tells them his profession, Penn cuts to Dunaway's face, and the scene is suddenly the very darkest kind of foreshadowing. Split-second abrupt, and smooth as Talisker.

2. The tender, whispery-quiet family reunion scene that functions as the funeral we never see.

3. The beauty of Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. All the Siren can say to that is, damn.

4. The supremely witty script from David Newman, Robert Benton and the uncredited Robert Towne. Some say that screenplays are about structure, not dialogue. This one has both, the light-and-dark interplay between the episodes kept moving along perfectly, while the dialogue is always spare but telling.

5. The music. Boy, does this bring out the Siren's inner Alabama. In a good way, of course.