Thanksgiving brought me to one of my favorite dysfunctional romances and one memorable social occasion. 

Good, better, best, bested. Many of us can understand this.

Back when I was a...

Werner Herzog's approach to "the truth" has always been fascinating, fearless, at times ferocious and to continue in this alliterative vein, faithful.  Faithful to life -- to its wonderful or horrifying craziness,...

If any picture was the movie to usher in the new millennium, it was David Fincher's Fight Club. To me, it was the movie of the 1990s -- as prescient as Network was in the 1970s towards the future of "news," and as equally misunderstood. As Fight Club revealed and...

Excerpt from my piece at Garage Magazine. I'd run the whole story, but I'd like people to still buy magazines. Also, there's other great stories inside.

I think my car is trying to kill me. Not in any cinematic supernatural way, a la Christine or The Car. It's...

Jason Schwartzman has just accused me of having a crush on Terry Gilliam. Sitting in a small room of movie writers, the frequent Wes Anderson actor and perhaps one of Anderson’s most iconic  characters (he was Max Fischer, after all), talked about a lot of things: working with Anderson, his...

In her first movie, she kissed Marlon Brando. And then she won an Oscar. How many actresses get that kind of a debut? But then, how many actresses are as wonderful as Eva Marie Saint?  A performer (and woman) of elegance, vulnerability, charm, beauty, intelligence and great wit, Miss Saint remains, not just a movie...

No one has Montgomery Clift's eyes.

Those haunted, sensitive eyes that gazed at the viewer with method modernity and timeless emotion -- pleading and gentle, but with the potential for reckless...

This is art.

While conducting interviews for his newest picture, Spike Jonze was pleased when I called his work a children's art film, stating that art films are considered a "dirty word" to studios. He thanked me. He didn't need to. We should thank him. Jonze's...

A re-do of The Stepfather? It only led me to my archive of demented dads, a movie (and real life) character I'm fascinated by. From the anti-Atticus Finch figures of Bigger than Life to Lord Love a Duck to Paper Moon, varied degrees of problematic parenting are always interesting.  But for those special psycho stepfathers, however, no one should ever forget the biggest,...

With the buzz that Marlon Wayans has replaced Eddie Murphy in the upcoming biopic, Richard Pryor: Is It Something I Said? I was brought back to one of my favorite comedy show, album, and film of all time: Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip.

Today I was asked a question I can never answer -- "what's your favorite movie?" When pressed to choose, the same picture always rises to the surface --  "The Third Man." It haunts me. No matter how many films I have seen and will see in the future, I'm fairly certain "The Third Man" will remain my...

Repulsion, rage and Roman. From comments, to blog posts, to emails, my entire day has been filled with Roman wrath. I can handle it. And I should -- I touched on a sensitive, flammable issue. But based on my "Repulsion" piece here, I think some readers failed to understand...

Update: After a flurry of comments and emails regarding this post, ranging from appreciation of my essay, to articulate disagreement, to insane sexist supposedly anti-rape salvos, I've written my take on the Polanski case, at my site. I wrote this piece not to defend his original actions, I wrote...

Vince Vaughn loves Buck Owens. He likes Gram Parsons and the Burrito Brothers. He reveres the work of Robert Plant with Alison Krauss. He has stories about George Jones and Merle Haggard -- current stories. He's hung with Willie Nelson. And he took the time to talk about all of...

"Nobody puts Baby in the corner."

How many young girls (and older women, and many men as well) swooned when that rough-hewn handsome yet sensitive, yet beautifully graceful Patrick Swayze stood up for the awkward, ...

Excerpt from my piece at Garage Magazine. I'd run the whole story, but I'd like people to still buy magazines. Also, there's other great stories inside.

"Come on dad, give me the car tonight..."

Some of my most vivid teenage memories were wrapped in chrome and steel. My first...

[Re-printed from my story "What Inglourious Basterds Owes to History" publlished at IFC. Spoilers ahead for those who haven't seen Inglourious Basterds.]

There have been two moments in film this year that have moved me to my cine-loving core. Both involved individuals stirred by the power of image,...

Here's something you don't hear every day: Sir? Madam? Your child. He is not a blessed miracle of God sent from heaven above. He is not full of promise. He is not underneath it all, a smart kid, a pussycat, an angel. No. He is, in fact, a mouth-breathing brat,...

Inglourious Basterds is a gorgeous, violent, beautifully acted, gut-punching, genre-blending jolt that doesn't make you want to scalp Nahtzies (as Brad Pitt's hillbilly Aldo Raine so memorably intones), it makes you want to watch a lot of movies. Or rather, live in a world of movies. Escape into a world...

It Might Get Loud is about the allure, the mystery and the expression of the guitar. Bringing three very distinct, yet very different guitarists, Jimmy Page (The Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin), Jack White (The White Stripes, The Raconteurs) and The Edge (U2)  together on one stage, filmmaker Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient...