Some houses had glamour, some had laughs, some had secrets and some had the worst of it. That was my neighborhood.
For those wanting a respite from today's low, "in-your-face" brand of comedy, here are a few tried-and-true classics featuring these top screen comediennes. These special ladies made us laugh -- and feel smart -- at the same time.
It's a good thing that, when push comes to shove, we're really not rugged individualists. I'm thinking that it's almost time for us to accept who we are.
Wings, the first Oscar best-picture winner (and only silent film winner), was the Star Wars or Avatar of its day.
A dozen years ago Maria wrote about her father in Gary Cooper Off Camera: A Daughter Remembers. The book had extensive photographs of the Coopers' private life. She keeps the voluminous photographs her mother saved in huge portfolios under a plush sofa in the living room.
A "gentleman's agreement" is not so easy -- not when it comes to Miriam Hopkins, Gary Cooper and Fredric March. Criterion has released the g...
The world of today, saturated with fears of international terrorism, global ecological crises, and a glut of hardwired broadband information networks that weave connections across the entire planet is a far cry from the world that Gary Cooper left when he died on May 13th 1961.
Christian Bale strikes me as a complete enigma. Yes, his acting chops are prodigious, but he seems to me to be all technique and no heart; we get buckets of perfectly formed ice, but very little fire.
Celebrities' houses are just like the plebs': some are awesome, others are ridiculous, and almost all sold below asking in 2010, if at all. From Tom H...
What sets artists apart from stars and competent actors is originality and authenticity. Patricia Neal had these and other rare qualities in spades.
Middle Men" wants to be Boogie Nights for the Internet. Two crucial problems: Writer-director George Gallo isn't nearly the storyteller that Paul Thomas Anderson is. And this film stars Luke Wilson.
As we head into the Independence Day weekend, I wanted to suggest some classic titles scattered over the decades that each in their way evoke our country's unique character.
It's not enough to revere the best of our film heritage -- we must work to protect and preserve it. With that in mind, I've compiled a short list of public domain titles that I'd like to see brought back to their original glory.
Now back from my 5-week trip mostly abroad, I've been catching up and just watched "Theatricality," the latest episode of Glee on Fox. I'm a huge fan...
While ending the steroid era in baseball proved reasonably straightforward once the will to act was present, we as a country have yet to face, no less curtail, our ongoing steroidal celebrations of pumped-up patriotism.
As we head into Independence Day weekend, for those who'd like to move beyond the evergreen "Yankee Doodle Dandy", I want to suggest some classic titles that evoke our country's unique character.
This movie is pro-selfishness and egoism (which is just egotism misspelled), and anti-altruism. It preaches, at length and in a superior tone, that Altruism is Bad. And it means it.
While Hollywood continues to dominate the global film market, the most original, intelligent, and enduring movies today are being made outside this country.
Wayne's persona -- its bigness, roughness, but also its decency -- literally came to define our heritage. And to a surprising degree, it still does.
I firmly believe that what we consume by way of popular entertainment helps determine the overall quality of our lives.
Regardless of one's faith, at its core the holidays involve gatherings of extended family spanning all life-stages, so it makes sense to lay in a store of films that all generations can watch and enjoy together.
He may rarely go beyond the high 80s on the speed gun, but Mussina makes hitters look as feeble as if he were blowing 100-MPH fastballs by them.
