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The picture is incredibly shrewd entertainment, lively and original and full of surprise, directed and acted with great passion and skill. The beauty of the script is that it puts that casual torrent of words front and center, using it to hook us as rousingly as any car chase or alien attack.

Movies with zingy scripts appear every awards season — and, once in a while, during the off-season. But just think back to a year ago, when The Social Network , a movie written with nimble genius by Aaron Sorkin, was released.

Yes, it received the thunderous acclaim it deserved, and yes, audiences turned out for it. Yet both the movie and its success were treated, in a way, as a fabulous anomaly. If anything, The Social Network , as marvelous as it was, was greeted as the exception that proved the rule.

And the rule, of course, is this: They want diversion, spectacle, easy-to-scan characters, great escape. And that means not words but eye candy. They want their brains on IMAX.

And this year, I would argue that the screenplay-driven experience is notably on the rise. Bridesmaids , with its brilliantly sharp and humane and — yes — hilarious script, led the way.

So far, it seems to be connecting as solidly as a big bat biting into a fastball. Could it be that in desperate and maybe more honest times, American moviegoers have already begun to seek out something new and essential that is also very old? The months ahead will tell.

For right now, it seems as if more and more, from coast to coast, audiences, for the first time in a long time, may finally be standing up to say: All hail the word!

More than any actor of his era, Brad Pitt spent years living down being the Sexiest Man Alive. They saw a copper-haired demigod who had just enough talent, perhaps, to squeak by in the acting department. But if you looked closer, what you saw is that Brad Pitt, though he did spend a while finding his way, was often a terrific actor. In Fight Club , he was a magnetic contradiction: Eight years later, in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford , he was even better.

The movie, at least to me, was a painfully inert and indulgent art Western, but every time Pitt came on screen as Jesse James, the film vibrated with his threat. He could scare you because he saw everything inside you. He had it in Inglourious Basterds too. He played a man who could see right into the souls of his sons, which is why he locked himself, tragically, into a power struggle with them. Pitt gives Billy Beane more than instinct; he gives him antennae.

And in doing so, he lets the audience feel that they, too, can see something that no one else can. What few will fail to see, at this point, is that Brad Pitt, the former Sexiest Man Alive, has become a great actor. And what do you think of Brad Pitt as an actor? Follow Owen on Twitter: All products featured were editorially selected. Entertainment Weekly close window.

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TV TV Recaps Movies Music Books News Theater window. How audiences fell back in love with screenwriting. Plus, Brad Pitt's sexiest dimension Owen Gleiberman Posted on September 25, at Get the latest TV news from Entertainment Weekly Please Enter a Valid Email Address Please Enter a Valid ZIP Address.

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