Some lists are just lists. Some lists reveal deeper truths. Then there's this one.

When I sat down to compile my list of the all time greatest performances by an actress in a lead role, I went through all the steps I had gone through when putting together the...

Hand to God, I was not going to write about the Oscars. I freely admit I enjoy watching them and predicting them and gossiping about them and complaining about them. But I think we afford a little too much cultural currency to an 85-year-old PR/marketing campaign launched by Hollywood in...

This is getting hard. I wanted to leave room for James Stewart and George C. Scott. I wanted at least one Nicholson or Pacino. I toyed with the idea of leaving spots empty for all the actors I no doubt forgot. But, lists must be made, and so here are...

In an attempt to get these all done before this year's Oscars, after which everyone forgets about movies for a while and shifts attention to March Madness and disgust with the IRS, I am combining Best Screenplay and Best Cinematography into one post. There's not much reason to put these...

Last week, when I selected my ten nominees for the greatest supporting actor performance of all-time, I immediately got complaints from virtually everyone I know, as well as a lot of people I didn't know. Everyone was very polite about it. And they all had defensible selections of their own....

If movies teach us anything, it's to dream big. Think you can't handle 64 ounces of Mountain Dew? A Jacuzzi-sized bucket of popcorn? Multiple Tyler Perry previews? You can and will have it all. So in the run-up to the Oscars, I'm taking that as my inspiration. I'm not going...

2013 seems like a good year for revolution, doesn't it? I'm talking artistic revolution. I know there are plenty of actual bullet and drone political revolutions going on as well, but I think the art world is due. PRI's Studio 360 recently did an excellent documentary about the revolutionary year...

This is, as the title says, obligatory. Whether you work in an office or a garage, have a nationally syndicated radio talk show or a lone friend you Skype with in Argentina, you will very likely express an opinion on the Oscar nominations. I intend to write something soon about...

One is a world of civilized men using a deliberative, legislative process to resolve volatile social issues. The other, a world of brave men using firearms (and a few sticks of dynamite) to resolve a volatile personal issue. Which world do you want to live in? Stephen Spielberg's Lincoln, or...

It's that time of the year for "best of" lists. Most of them are recaps of the 2012, but I am always more intrigued by the Library of Congress's annual selections for the National Film Registry. Since 1989, panels of experts have selected 25 films per year to...

Between seventh and 12th grade, I think I read Aristotle's Poetics in at least three different classes. For those of you who were absent those days, the Poetics is a brief analysis of what works and doesn't work in the presentation of dramas. Aristotle listed six fundamental elements of any...

This is the second entry in my periodic continuation of film critic Danny Peary's entertaining 'Alternate Oscars.' Today, we look at 1993.

Picture: Schindler's List essentially won Best Picture the day it was released. Nobody debated this. It was big and important and quite good. But I can't help...

I don't live inside the Beltway and consequently I do not have to adhere to the local laws requiring me to predict the election. But I am only three miles outside of it, so making a prediction is hard to resist.

Everyone around here uses his own criteria. Some use...

David Thomson, just about the most perceptive film critic of the last 25 years, wrote this line in a critique of Rob Reiner's 1990 film Misery: "... it settled for the basic character setup rather than (being) a film about two tyrants, competing for authorship." Well, Paul Thomas Anderson knows...

Film critic Danny Peary wrote a fun and informative book back in 1993. Alternate Oscars looks at every Oscar awarded in the big three categories -- picture, actor, and actress -- from 1927-28 on and offers, when appropriate, a better choice. Peary's book stops with the 1991 Oscars, which leaves...

I really did not want to write this. After taking a couple months off from blogging to work on other projects, like getting my son off to college, I had intended to return to the rough-and-tumble blogosphere with things I know about. My next blog, swear to whichever God you...

This began as something different. Originally, I had thought to write a "most underrated TV shows" list. Two things became apparent very quickly. First, there are about three million "underrated TV shows" lists currently floating around cyberspace. I doubt the world needs another. Second, it's very hard to define "underrated."...

Lord Voldemort succeeded in killing Albus Dumbledore. Tiger Woods chipped in on 16 at the Memorial. And two worlds shook.

For those unfamiliar with magic and muggles, Lord Voldemort was the evil wizard whose rise to unparalleled dominance in the wizarding world was thwarted by the innocent babe Harry Potter....

The nexus between big time entertainment and politics is nothing new. Ever wonder why the defining event of the 1930s, the Great Depression, never appeared onscreen in mainstream Hollywood movies during that decade? Strange or not, politicians and entertainers are constant bedfellows. So when syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker recently

You feed them, shelter them, and try to teach them the relative societal value of Janis Joplin and Christine Aguilera. Then it's time for them to go off to college and you realize all the things you forgot to tell them. As we prepare to send my son off to...