Cinematically speaking, there are fewer spectacles less inspiring than physical beauty unaccompanied by any semblance of distinct humanity, character or spontaneous emotion. Unfortunately, we see way too much of this "Stepford" syndrome in our popular media -- whether they're washed-out looking models or those fit, corn-fed, camera-ready young Americans whom...

Nineteenth century English writer Charles Dickens produced a massive legacy of novels, plays, articles, and short stories, and with the 1844 publication of The Christmas Carol, may have done more to enliven the institution of Christmas than anyone before or since.

Drawing from his own early life of poverty, Dickens'...

 We all know it, and consciously or unconsciously, we prepare for it: Thanksgiving is not, after all, just a holiday, but the starting line for a five and a half week social immersion involving family, colleagues and friends that leaves us all stunned and spent (if not worse) on New...

First, I suppose I should describe what I mean by “cool,” since the word is so broadly defined now…

Growing up, to me “cool” meant someone that people were instinctively drawn to, but who kept themselves slightly apart. Someone unflappable, slightly mysterious, out of reach. Someone aware of their own charisma...

A month ago I attended a Parents’ Day conference at one of our kids’ private high schools. A history teacher set to retire after 45 years of service was musing on reading the old student literary journals from the forties and fifties. Asked whether by comparison he noticed an erosion in writing skills in the history papers...

With a couple of recent celebrity scandals, a troubling aspect of the American character has reared its head once again: a moral absolutism and extremism fostered largely by the fanatical religious right -- be they fundamentalist, evangelical, or the more orthodox wing of the Catholic Church.

 Their vocal and powerful...

Even for a jaded movie hound like myself, it’s been a revelation to experience both the quality and range of feature-length documentaries now available for home viewing. At their best, these kinds of films provide an immediacy and intimacy that narrative films rarely match.

 I’ve always been partial to documentaries...

Earlier this month Kate Winslet celebrated her birthday. To this aging fan, she still  seems astonishingly young, but of course, success came fairly early for her. Who can forget her disarming freshness and exuberance in Ang Lee’s “Sense and Sensibility” (1995)?

Her close friend and co-star Leonardo di Caprio shares...

Those who hold to the American Film Institute’s view will assume the subject of this piece is Orson Welles, who, at the tender age of 25, made Citizen Kane (1941), a film that both cursed and immortalized the young man. This admittedly brilliant feature heads their much scrutinized list of...

The news of director Roman Polanski's arrest stirred me more than I might have expected, since I'd just screened Marina Zenovich's revealing documentary about this man's tortured life, entitled Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired (2008).

This documentary is must-viewing, particularly given breaking events.

Confronting these developments, we must affirm the law's the...

Earlier this month the British actor/comedian Peter Sellers, best known to the world as the bumbling Inspector Clouseau in the “Pink Panther” series, would have turned 84. Wouldn’t life be brighter if this comic genius hadn’t left us so soon? As it was, we lost him close to thirty years...

In politics, in life and in the movies, whatever happened to the idea of good fellowship and manners?

The whole flap with Joe Wilson made me ashamed to be a fifty year-old white guy. Did anyone hear Mark Shields (someone who makes me feel considerably better about being a fifty...

Today marks the centennial of director Elia Kazan’s birth, and doubtless Hollywood will soon be giving us souped-up special editions of his finest film work, if they haven’t already. Though DVD extras can be uneven, this is still an exciting prospect.  Kazan’s best work truly deserves re-discovery, since for the...

As a movie lover and home viewing advocate, I've often complained at needing to wait six months to see a new Hollywood release. I've also lamented that certain classic DVD titles remain unavaillable, for reasons unknown.

On the first point, the explanation is fairly straightforward: the industry wants us...

Today's New York Times carried a revealing article titled "A-List Stars Flailing At The Box Office", which raises some pressing questions facing the movie business today.

Lo and behold, industry insiders are shocked (shocked!) and mightily troubled by the revelation that Hollywood's top stars are not opening films the way they...

I'm one of those unfortunate children of the seventies who was old enough to know about Woodstock as it was happening, but way too young to attend. This cruel injustice stuck in my craw then, but the pain has eased with repeat viewings of the seminal documentary shot in and...

This week marks the birthday of legendary director John Huston. In the eighty outsize years he actually had on this earth, he seems to have lived several lives and lifetimes. Those who remember him best for his occasional acting forays, most memorably as Noah Cross in "Chinatown", should also explore...

I don't know how many of you caught the superb "American Masters" tribute to the late Walter Cronkite on PBS last week, but it was highly illuminating.

Most of us think of "Uncle Walt" sitting behind his anchor desk at CBS, but this program also outlined just what brought him...

It is so strange how life unfolds sometimes.

I was watching CNN just today, and I saw anchor Kyra Phillips leave her desk and wander back into what seemed like the bowels of the newsroom, camera trailing her, to meet a correspondent doing a piece on the unrest in Iran....

One of the finest actors and leading men from Hollywood's Golden Age, William Powell was born towards the end of this month way back in 1892. It's unlikely most people under 30 would even recognize his name, which is sad, but also easily remedied.

Whatever your age, there's good reason...