The neo-noir was a genre closely identified with the ‘90s. By 1998, though, neo-noirs were a dime a dozen, with directors and screenwriters trying numerous ways to infuse something new into their takes; many tended to up the salaciousness factor in the hopes that titillation would bring in...

“If people had to choose, this summer, between seeing one dinosaur movie, much as I’m proud of Carnosaur, I would probably recommend Jurassic Park,” says Roger Corman with a happy-to-be-here smile on his face and a dinosaur puppet on his hand. “But, I think we can agree, that I would hope...

The English Romantic writer Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley lived about as cinematic a life as one could, filled with historic achievement, tortuous love, wild sex, radical politics, turbulent family drama, and one devastating personal tragedy after another. That the new film about her early adult...

FORD PREFECT: Oh, Zaphod, this is a friend of mine, Arthur Dent. I saved him when his planet blew up. ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX: Oh sure, hi, Arthur, glad you could make it. FORD PREFECT: And Arthur, this is my— ARTHUR DENT: We’ve met. FORD PREFECT: What? ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX: Oh, er… have we?...

In 1975, Peter Weir’s debut film Picnic at Hanging Rock put Australia’s burgeoning art cinema squarely on the map, on its way to becoming a cult classic. Based on a novel by Joan Lindsay, the film has always had an air of “based on a true story” about it, despite its central mystery being a...

In 2008, 13-year-old Saoirse Ronan received her first Oscar nomination for Atonement, a British WWII melodrama based on an Ian McEwan novel about a fanciful girl named Briony Tallis who unwittingly unravels the lives of her sister Cecilia and Cecilia’s lover, Robbie, after accusing him of a crime...

Deadpool came in like a comet in 2016, grossing $783.1 million worldwide — fantastic for any movie, but unheard of for a hard-R superhero movie. Audiences responded to Ryan Reynolds’ Bugs-Bunny-on-meth take on the character, and to the way the film didn’t believe in a fourth wall and poked...

In Avengers: Infinity War, Josh Brolin is big and purple. His Thanos is the film’s lynchpin and its main character almost by default. Although his quest -- to halve the world’s population with a bunch of magical MacGuffins -- is fairly conventional for superhero fare, Brolin’s performance is...

My brother and I like to bother each other and those around us with a game of soundtracks: When a deep, dark cut from a movie comes on the radio, one of us will turn to the other, smile like an executioner looking for a fresh neck, and ask: “What’s it from?” The song could be “A Letter...

This month marks the 10th anniversary of David Mamet’s mixed-martial-arts thriller Redbelt. In the intervening years, Mamet — the preeminent American playwright of his day, and one of the few screenwriters considered an auteur even when someone else directs his scripts — has been in something...

As college kids everywhere illegally stream or see Avengers: Infinity War in the theater, they might be looking pretty hard for the puffy guy — not Hulk or Thor but Happy Hogan. Iron Man’s lackey, played by Jon Favreau, didn't make it to the Avengers party this time around, but don’t...

In You Were Never Really Here, Lynne Ramsay continues to uphold her reputation for being an artist of uncompromising originality and skill. Despite only making four features in nearly two decades, the Scottish filmmaker’s work is studded with awards and accolades. Ramsay’s films are...

Eighteen feature films, more than 40 major characters, 10 years of stories, six Infinity Stones: There’s a lot going on in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It may seem daunting to try and recall all that’s happened  before the premiere of Avengers: Infinity War (the last chapter in this phase of...

When an Israeli pilot refused to take off for another shot out of sheer exhaustion, Menahem Golan threatened him at gunpoint until the landing gear left the ground. This early anecdote sets the tone for Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films, a 2014 documentary about the company...

'If you think this country’s bad off now, just wait till I get through with it.' — Rufus T. Firefly, Duck Soup  Armando Iannucci's historical farce The Death of Stalin — which traces the madcap scramble for power between members of Russia’s ruling Central Committee in the days...