books
Fifty Shades of What?

By now we know that a movie based on a bestselling book series about kinky sex dominated t...

movies
Rush Celebrates Its 40th with North American Tour

You know the adjective old applies when a band you followed as a kid celebrates its 40th a...

genres
Star Wars, George Lucas, and the Pitfalls of ‘Auteur Theory’

It's a storyline we celebrate every Oscar season: the uncompromising film director, locke...

movies
Feb. Netflix Discards Include Some Well Worth Watching

For Netflix subscribers, each month brings a new list of movies and TV series that will ...

genres
‘American Sniper’ Sets January Box Office Record

As if we hadn't always known, even in these supposedly cynical times of rampant moral re...

movies
A Horror Farce: ‘A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night,’ by Ana Lily Amirpour

"Quirky" is an overused adjective in describing independent films, but in the case of th...

art
Avenging the Honor of Free Speech

January 7, 2015, will be remembered as the day Islamic terrorists declared war against f...

movies
‘Hobbit’ Tops Christmas Weekend Box Office, ‘Interview’ Shows Agility of Distribution System

Several new films hit U.S. theaters over the Christmas weekend, but The Hobbit: The Bat...

culture101
Christmas-Themed TV Movies and Programs Reach Record Numbers

This Christmas season (known to Christians as Advent) has brought the most Christmas progr...

movies
‘Exodus: Gods and Kings’: More Spectacle Than Substance

Ridley Scott's film dramatization of the biblical Book of Exodus is ultimately a conve...

movies
‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ Evokes Return of Carter-Era Malaise

It's difficult to imagine a better choice to replace the great Mel Gibson in the upcoming ...

genres
An Excellent French Film Noir: Melville’s ‘Le Samourai’

Film noir began in the United States around 1940 and continued into the 1950s. It was id...

culture101
Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Darkly Powerful ‘Day of Wrath’

Carl Theodor Dreyer (1889-1968) is one of the great masters of the cinema, yet his reput...

movies
May-December Relationship Is Done Well in ‘Nelly et Monsieur Arnaud’

Tales of May-December romances can easily fall into cliched male fantasy:  an attractiv...

movies
Review: Simenon Adaptation Sustains Mystery in ‘La chambre bleue’ (‘The Blue Room’)

The new film The Blue Room is based on a Georges Simenon detective story (which I have not...

culture101
A Book for October: Ellery Queen’s ‘The Egyptian Cross Mystery’

October is, of course, a good month to read horror fiction, given the obvious connection t...

movies
The New Ghostbusters: ‘Hilarious Women’

The good news is that a new Ghostbusters film is finally looking likely: writer-director P...

movies
“Touch of Evil”: Orson Welles’ Most Profound Film

Orson Welles will likely always be most remembered for his first film, "Citizen Kane" ...

books
Jack Carter Returns

"The rain rained.” It takes a tremendous amount of courage, or foolishness, to begin a...

movies
‘Olympus Has Fallen’ Sequel Finds Director

Olympus Has Fallen, an action film starring Gerard Butler, was one of two movies about inv...

movies
Battle of Houdinis Begins Tonight: History Channel vs. Classic-Era Hollywood

History Channel's four-hour miniseries Houdini, about the celebrated American stage magic...

culture101
Can the Romantic Drama Be Rescued?

A popular film genre that has seldom received much respectful attention from critics and s...

movies
Despite Flaws, D’Souza Doc Is Interesting and Important

Writing in the American Spectator, James Bowman finds some things to like about Dinesh ...

movies
The Tragic Implications of Comedian Robin Williams’s Suicide

The death by suicide of actor-comedian Robin Williams will undoubtedly set loose a torr...

movies
Costner’s Self-Financed ‘Black and White’ Tackles Controversial Issues

Kevin Costner's new film, Black and White, appears destined to create much controversy, ...

movies
“Guardians of the Galaxy”: Another Conservative Pop Culture Triumph!

 Jonah Goldberg, that pop cultural savant, recently wrote a piece called, “Our Conserva...

movies
Magic in the Moonlight

Magic in the Moonlight, Woody Allen's latest flick, reprises some of his perennial theme...

movies
The Real (but Limited) Appeal of James Garner’s Antiheroes

Next Monday, Turner Classic Movies presents a special tribute to the late James Garner, w...

books
Citizen Hollywood: How the Collaboration Between LA and DC Revolutionized American Politics by Timothy Stanley

  The problem with a book like this is that it can easily overestimate the importa...

movies
A Summer’s Tale (Conte d’ete) by Eric Rohmer

  This 1996 film has at last been given a theatrical release in the United States....

manners-and-morals
Updated: Oldman Denounces Hollywood Political Correctness, Hypocrisy

The acclaimed actor and self-described libertarian Gary Oldman comes out with guns blazi...

movies
Cold in July

  It is 1989 in Texas and Richard Dane (Michael C. Hall), a small business owner, ...

culture-and-economics
Kickstarter Gives in After Successful Crowdfunding of Gosnell Film at Indiegogo

The online crowdfunding site Kickstarter has been brought to heel by documentary filmmak...