Tomorrow, the thoroughly original, impossibly talented Johnny Depp hits the milestone age of 50.

Does this mean he's actually middle-aged? No, it can't be.

After all, part of this unique actor's enduring charm is his child-like quality, his willingness to dress up and be silly.

But behind that, there's...

Reviewing my Huffington Post archive recently, I was reminded that my very first piece, published on the sixth anniversary of 9/11, concerned New York City movies that brought back the city of my youth, which (to age myself) was during the seventies and eighties.

A decidedly grittier town back then,...

Each morning, I go to the AOL home page to retrieve my email, and way too often I'm greeted with moronic headlines like: "Mother finds lost son alive after five years living in her attic!" I then wonder just when AOL merged with The National Enquirer.

I pivot quickly to...

One of the singular joys of living in New York City is The Metropolitan Museum of Art, conveniently situated right across the Park from us.

I was reminded of this on Wednesday when I attended their "Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity" exhibition.

Combining artwork and costumes, it showed how...

Witnessing the outpouring of sentiment on Roger Ebert's death has been revelatory -- both a stunning testament to one man's outsize influence on film criticism over five decades, and more broadly, a timely reminder of the enduring importance of film in our society.

Ebert certainly was on to something when...

With spring gently settling on the East Coast, I feel once again I've emerged from a confining cocoon of my own making.

I don't like cold, I don't like snow, I don't like winter sports. For me, everything goes decidedly downhill (no pun intended) after New Year's.

But now,...

I love St. Patrick's Day. It's so inclusive. By that I mean that though it's a bona fide religious holiday, you don't need to be particularly pious to enjoy it.

Beyond its religious significance, Wikipedia aptly describes March 17th as a celebration of Irish history and identity, including "...prominent displays...

I recognize these musings about this year's Oscar ceremony may be coming in a little late, but I like to take a few days to absorb all the coverage, let the breathless hubbub die down and reach a few conclusions in the quiet, cold light of day.

This year I...

It was nice to see Silver Linings Playbook on the list of nominees for Best Picture this year. Mind you -- I'll lay odds it won't win, and fun as it is, against the field it faces it probably shouldn't.

Still, it's reassuring that Oscar can pay tribute to a...

As we enter the lead-up time to the annual Oscar ceremony, I find myself looking back to past winners and nominees.

This year one name in particular came to mind, as I realized I had yet to pay tribute to this consummate screen actor, a two time Oscar winner...

Ever since 2006, when the arrival of Blu-ray supplanted standard DVDs as the gold standard for home viewing I've been pondering: should I buy or rent?

Of course, that was the same question we all confronted a decade earlier with DVDs, which not only played better but were more durable...

At this time of new beginnings, my contrarian spirit has me thinking about great endings. Great movie endings, to be precise.

Tying together or summing up all that has gone on before, they are a large part of what make great movies great.

After all, assuming it's not total...

Top-ten lists of holiday films abound right about now, but what about picking the top three Christmas movies ever made?

Lord knows there's plenty to choose from. Christmas movies are a genre unto themselves: between live-action and animated features, there are literally hundreds of titles out there. Inevitably, some...

I don't know how many of you were lucky enough to catch the recent profile on 60 Minutes with Morley Safer interviewing our most famous living historian, David McCullough.

The author of countless volumes which all make the past accessible and very much alive, McCullough has gone on record to...

Grace Kelly would have turned 83 today, which only highlights the tragic fact that she's been gone exactly thirty years now.

When I heard of her untimely death all those years ago, I remember thinking what most of her public must have thought: that her life had been just as...

I suppose it sounds snooty, but I'm really tired of those teen horror movie entries that get trotted out every Halloween.

I mean, we have children who are worried about getting employment and don't even go trick-or-treating anymore. Who could believe that soon-to-be codgers like us would want to watch...

Fifty years ago today, the first James Bond entry, Dr. No, premiered in London.

Twenty-one (soon to be 22) features later, Bond stands as the highest grossing film series of all time, adjusted for inflation, grossing $5 billion worldwide.

With the last Bond film costing over $200 million...

Talk about a movie aging gracefully.

For my birthday last Saturday night, we invited over a group of our closest friends to screen the newly released blu-ray edition of 1952's Singin' In The Rain.

Though I expected a delightful experience, truly timeless movies have a way of surprising...

I found it interesting (if not particularly surprising) that the top box office performers of the last several decades have tended to be longer movies.

For example, blockbusters like the Lord of the Rings series clock in at about three hours per installment, while Avatar and The Dark Knight...

A couple of weeks back I noted an interesting item in The Hollywood Reporter stating that in the latest Sight and Sound poll conducted among 846 "movie experts," Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo had displaced Citizen Kane as the greatest film of all time.

I confess I was stunned that...