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Exclusive: Early one morning up in Haddon Hall, a grand Tudor hall in Derbyshire, England, this corpulent, menacing-looking man swathed in a richly brocaded tunic trimmed with fur shuffled over to have a chat with filmmaker Karim Aïnouz and the Oscar-winning actor Alicia Vikander.

I had no idea who he was.

We were on the set of Firebrand, about Henry VIII’s marriage — his sixth and final one — to Katherine Parr.

Jude Law was supposed to join them. “Where is he?” I asked Gabby Tana, Firebrand’s producer.

“He’s in front of you talking to Karim,” Tana responded.

“That’s Jude Law?” I blurted.

Jude Law is bemused when I recount the story

He’s calling me from New York, and when he realizes that I’m in Beverly Hills, his voice breaks as he mentions that he’s been in touch with friends “who have lost everything” in...

Plot: While exploring the American West, a small group travels across the plains, experiencing violent collisions with cults, religion, and men and women fighting for control of the new world.

Review: When most people think of the Western genre, they envision actors like Clint Eastwood, John Wayne, James Stewart, and Gary Cooper playing six-shooter superheroes with leathery skin, shiny spurs, and a devil-may-care attitude. As icons of an idealized American West, these men often shine as paragons of virtue, justice, and heroism. Still, history bends to the will of the storyteller, someone who can glorify the cowboy and make their actions appear pure and righteous. American Primeval offers no such quarter to its gun-slingers. Though the series presents a fictionalized and dramatized recount of 1857, its depiction of harsh living conditions, cutthroat politics, and relentless violence is all too honest. Saddle up, folks! We’re riding along one of Netflix’s...

You don't become one of the most successful directors in Hollywood without a deep love of film and cinematic history. That's certainly true of Denis Villeneuve, who's ascended to superstardom with films like "Arrival," "Blade Runner 2049," and most recently, "Dune" and "Dune: Part Two." At a recent "Dune 2" screening I attended at the Directors Guild of America in New York, Villeneuve made an appearance and spoke briefly about the production process. Of course, being the huge fan of cinema that he is, he also made time at the end of the discussion to promote another film that made a huge impression on him recently, and it's not exactly what you might expect.

The film in question is "The Clock," a 2010 film from artist Christian Marclay that's currently part of an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan. You might wonder what kind of movie would qualify as a modern art exhibit,...

This year, for the first time in a while, a movie gave me the boost of serotonin that only hits my brain when I’m watching a great rom-com. It happened near the end of the Netflix film Hit Man, directed by Richard Linklater and starring Glen Powell and Adria Arjona. Powell plays Gary Johnson, a college professor moonlighting as a fake hit man to help cops catch people who are trying to hire a contract killer. At this point, Gary has fallen in love with Arjona’s Madison, whom...

Courtesy of Eureka Entertainment

by James Cameron-wilson

In January of this year something extraordinary happened. For the first time, United Artists’ Black Tuesday was shown on British television, having been originally banned for its violence. The film noir classic of 1954 stars Edward G. Robinson, one of the four giants of Hollywood’s gangster genre, alongside James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart and George Raft. At the time that Edward G. starred in Black Tuesday, he was in something of a career slump, but, in spite of his modest physical stature, he still manages to bring to bear his characteristically brutal persona. Perhaps even more surprising is how good the film is, a sort of forgotten masterpiece from the Argentinean helmer Hugo Fregonese who, in his time, had directed such stars as Gary Cooper, James Mason, Joel McCrea, Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Taylor, Lee Marvin and Stewart Granger, but who is largely forgotten today,...

Sean Penn would like to thank the Academy…for nothing. Despite two Best Actor Oscars — putting him in the company of Marlon Brando and Gary Cooper — Sean Penn is calling out AMPAS for their lack of risk taking.

It’s been more than 15 years since Sean Penn won his last Oscar (for Milk; he won his first for Mystic River), but he keeps himself in the loop enough to have some thoughts on how simple the Academy can be in their choices. “The Academy have exercised really extraordinary cowardice when it comes to being part of the bigger world of expression, and in fact, have largely been part of limiting the imagination and very limiting of different cultural expressions.”

So what does Sean Penn hope to see at this year’s Oscars? Surprisingly, he has some high expectations with what is currently projected to score some major nominations. “I don...

For film fans, the next best thing to actually watching movies is talking about movies. There's not much in this life that's better than having a great conversation about the films that move us, exasperate us, confuse us, and change us. This is probably why we love when celebrities get asked about their own favorite movies, whether they're listing their Letterboxd top four or gushing about their five favorites to Rotten Tomatoes. It's simple: we learn more about people, and love them more, when we get to see them light up talking about the movies they love. Esteemed actor Morgan Freeman has shared his five favorite films with Rotten Tomatoes twice now, and his choices are wide-ranging and unexpected.

The first time the Oscar-winning star of such films as "Million Dollar Baby," "The Dark Knight," and "Driving Miss Daisy" was asked about his all-time favorite movies, in 2011, he dropped a...

Oscar-winning actress Grace Kelly made just a handful of movies before transforming from a Hollywood princess into a real life one following her marriage to Prince Rainier of Monaco in 1956. Let’s take a look back in the photo gallery above of all 11 of her films, ranked worst to best.

Kelly got her start performing onstage and in television before being drafted by Hollywood to appear in Henry Hathaway‘s ripped-from-the-headlines nail-biter “Fourteen Hours” (1951) when she was just 22-years-old. The next year found her starring as the concerned wife to an imperiled town marshal (Gary Cooper) in Fred Zinnemann‘s landmark western “High Noon” (1952).

She got her first Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress for John Ford‘s adventure yarn “Mogambo” (1953), playing one of two love interests (along with Ava Gardner) to big game hunter Clark Gable. The next year, Kelly upset frontrunner Judy Garland, who made a massive comeback...

A Genre Too Big to Fail (So They Say) In 2022 alone so far, we’ve gotten Matt Reeves’s ‘The Batman,’ Sam Raimi’s ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,’ and of course (who can forget?) ‘Morbius.’ We’re not quite halfway into the year and we have three big-name superhero movies on our plate — and that’s actually a low number, compared to some past years. I remember, as clearly as if it were yesterday, that in 2017, we got ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,’ ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming,’ ‘Thor: Ragnarok,’ ‘Justice League,’ ‘Logan,’ and ‘The Lego Batman Movie.’ There was at least one superhero movie for every season, and you simply couldn’t get away from them for long. I’m not saying this is entirely a bad thing, of course; after all, I do like most of the movies mentioned. I don’t think there’s much room for debate,...

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Put yourself into a 1987 state of mind, and imagine you're using the computer from "Weird Science" to create the perfect young actor. You want it all: A hunk with legitimate performing chops who can do finely composed drama as easily as he does zany comedy. He can be the world's sexiest man and its biggest blithering idiot. He's also got an athletic frame onto which you can pack layers of muscle. Can he sing and dance? Probably, but we're not trying to take roles away from our underserved musical theater stars, so let's not get greedy. All the other stuff you want a star to do, however, he does it.

So feed your snipped-from-magazine clippings of Robert Redford, Paul Newman, Cary Grant, Gary Cooper and the like into the computer, and who do you come up with? Lorenzo Lamas?? You've got yourself a virus,...

Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis is a grand experiment. A frustrating but enthralling dive into Coppola’s vision of what film are, have been and could be.

After nearly thirty years of development and an influx of his own personal resources to ensure maximum creative freedom, Francis Ford Coppola’s potentially final film is as deliberate and obvious an agglomeration of its creator’s view on film (and life) as any director has ever committed to the screen.

That view is one that emphasizes family and charity versus the self-annihilation of greed and consumption, themes which he approached regularly in both his career (this is essentially what The Godfather is about) and his own personal life. Bundling that with all his hopes and aspirations for cinematic experimentation — this is the Coppola of One From the Heart and Rumble Fish in full flourish — produces an experience both frustrating and mesmerizing in...

The iconically seductive silent film star Clara Bow is being further immortalized courtesy of a festival at New York City’s Film Forum.

1920s superstar Bow, who recently inspired a track named after her on Taylor Swift’s “Tortured Poets Department” album, is at the center of a career retrospective screening series at the New York City indie theater. Deemed the very first “It Girl,” Bow starred in films such as “Wings,” “The Saturday Night Kid,” and short “The Pill Pounder” which was recently rediscovered and subsequently restored after 101 years.

Bow’s turn in silent comedy “It” also inspired the very term “It Girl,” which refers to “sex appeal” as coined by British author Elinor Glyn, who also appears in the feature as well as a young Gary Cooper.

The festival will run on most Mondays at Film Forum from October 7 to December 30, with an additional screening on Thursday, October...

With the elections less than two months away and the highly anticipated debate between former President Donald Trump and current vice president Kamala Harris on Sept 10, it’s time to revisit classic political movies. TCM is currently presenting a nine-week series “Making Change: The Most Significant Political Films of All Time.” Political films run the gamut from thrillers, to dramas (“Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”), to the historical, to satirical comedies.

Speaking of satires, Preston Sturges received his one and only Oscar for his screenplay for 1940’s “The Great McGinty,” his smart, funny comedy about a hobo (Brian Donlevy) who rises to governor only to lose it all. Sturges had originally written a piece “The Story of Man” in 1933 with Spencer Tracy in mind. Tracy had just starred in 1933’s “The Power and the Glory,” which marked Sturges’ first film script. He attempted to sell it to Universal which also turned the story down; so,...

Gene Roddenberry’s sci-fi series Star Trek boldly went where no other show in the genre went. While the show explored multiple philosophical questions and featured multiple alien worlds, it differed from the usual dystopian sci-fi franchises in providing a positive outlook on the future of humankind.

Roddenberry was known to have many rules in the characterization of the show’s many crews, which usually drove writers crazy. However, one rule from Roddenberry on Jonathan Frakes’ William Riker reportedly did not last past the first season. Frakes mentioned that Roddenberry told him that Riker would not smile as much.

Star Trek Creator Gene Roddenberry Instructed Tng Actor To Not Smile So Much In The Show Jonathan Frakes in Star Trek: The Next Generation | Credits: Paramount

Jonathan Frakes’ William Riker is known for his flamboyant personality. The first officer of the USS Enterprise was depicted as a ladies’ man, who grows...

The 1960s were the time when space race was heating up, and people’s imaginations were slowly becoming reality. Space sci-fi became a staple of the television diet, with Gene Roddenberry leading the march with his Star Trek franchise.

Jonathan Frakes in a still from Star Trek: The Next Generation | Paramount Distribution Television

The Original Series was followed by The Next Generation, which, after much speculation and criticism, managed to find a permanent place in the Trekkies’ hearts. And needless to say, the series made Jonathan Frakes’ portrayal of William Riker a fan favorite.

Jonathan Frakes was not the original choice for William Riker

Many memorable characters hail from the Star Trek: The Next Generation series, but Captain William Riker stands out as particularly charming, a testament to Jonathan Frakes‘ talent. But most fans will be surprised to know that he wasn’t the first choice for the role.

Related...

The Story: On Io, Jupiter’s moon, miners have begun randomly committing suicide in gruesome ways. This is chalked out to their grueling working conditions, but the outpost’s new marshal, William O’Niel (Sean Connery) becomes convinced something else is afoot. Soon, he discovers the deadly truth, that the miners are being given stimulants with the nasty side effect that they cause psychosis. His pursuit of the truth lands him on the hit list of the outpost’s general director, Sheppard (Peter Boyle), who hires professional hit men to deal with the pesky marshal. Knowing that skilled gunmen are on the way, and without anyone to turn to, O’Niel waits to face the men alone.

The Players: Starring: Sean Connery, Peter Boyle, and Frances Sternhagen. Music by Jerry Goldsmith. Directed by Peter Hyams.

I wanted to do a Western. Everybody said, ‘You can’t do a Western; Westerns are...

Arrrgghhhh! We all know the Wilhelm Scream, the iconic piece of audio that has been featured in countless movies and TV shows over the decades, but Ben Burtt, the man credited with rediscovering it for the original Star Wars movie, told THR that he had “created a monster.“

The Wilhelm Scream can be traced back to Distant Drums, a 1951 Western starring Gary Cooper. It found its way into Warner Bros.’ stock sound library and was used in many other films, but it achieved fame when Burtt put it into Star Wars as part of an in-joke with his friends.

Related Awesome Art We’ve Found Around The Net: Labyrinth, Spider-Man, The Nightmare Before Christmas

“It was a scream I first heard as a child. I recorded it off the television. It was in many of the Warner Bros. films in the 1950s and ’60s. It was a stock scream in their library,...

Gene Roddenberry changed pop culture and sci-fi forever when he created the space opera Star Trek. The original series had a cult following and only lasted three seasons before gaining a new fandom with feature films. However, the franchise only gained traction with the follow-up Star Trek: The Next Generation.

While many memorable characters from the franchise come from Tng, Captain William Riker remains one of its most charming. The first officer of the USS Enterprise, Riker was played by Jonathan Frakes, who was reportedly instructed to play the character in a very stoic and strict way. However, he became more charming as the series progressed.

Gene Roddenberry Intended William Riker To Be More Strict A still from Star Trek: The Next Generation | Credits: Paramount

Gene Roddenberry’s involvement in the syndicated show Star Trek: The Next Generation reportedly became less after the first season due to his ill health.

Filmmaker Brady Corbet has premiered features twice before at Venice, but never at this scale.

“The Brutalist” is the director’s first feature since 2018’s “Vox Lux,” which starred Natalie Portman as a pop star haunted by a school shooting. Before that, Corbet also premiered “The Childhood of a Leader” (2015) at Venice, announcing a singular cinematic voice after years of acting in indies like “Melancholia,” “Simon Killer,” “Mysterious Skin,” and “Thirteen.”

As Venice Film Festival artistic director Alberto Barbera revealed during the July 23 press conference announcing the lineup, “The Brutalist” will premiere in competition. It’s also a whopping 215 minutes long, which includes a 15-minute intermission. The film was shot on Vista Vision by Lol Crawley, director of photography on the celluloid-made “Vox Lux” and “The Childhood of a Leader” as well as Noah Baumbach’s “White Noise” more recently. Barbera confirmed that the Italian film festival will screen “The Brutalist” in 70mm,...

Masters of the Air premiered this year on Apple TV+, but although it was the biggest release in the history of streaming, few know that the production is part of a war trilogy produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks. One of them, and one of the most notable, is Band of Brothers.

Still from Band of Brothers (HBO)

Although the series was highly acclaimed, it also served as a great catapult for the success of a name that would go on to star in other renowned projects: Damian Lewis.

How Damian Lewis Got Into Character Damian Lewis in Band of Brothers (HBO)

Damian Lewis‘ journey as Richard “Dick” Winters seemed like destiny. Although he also came to attention in the award-winning drama Warriors and then in Hearts and Bones, it was his audition for Band of Brothers that impressed and guaranteed him the role immediately. Later, his success led...

The Garden of Allah. The Cocoanut Grove. The Brown Derby and The Luau. They were the hottest places to see and be seen during the Golden Age of Hollywood, from the 1930s to the 1960s. Anyone who dined at these glamorous venues or wishes they had will thrill to the Out With the Stars exhibit, opening Saturday at the Hollywood Heritage Museum. The exhibition showcases these starry restaurants and much more from the 20th century in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and New York, with a special room devoted to World War II’s Hollywood Canteen.

Most of these atmospheric spots are long gone now, except a few stalwarts like Musso and Frank, the Tam O’Shanter and the Smokehouse. But in the days before social media and TMZ, making the scene at one of Hollywood’s swanky nightspots was the best way to boost your career, explains entertainment manager Darin Barnes,...

Plot: An epic saga of the various groups who try to settle the ever-expanding horizon of the old West.

Review: Kevin Costner’s Horizon might be the most ambitious movie undertaking since Lord of the Rings. Think about it – Kevin Costner has sunk a huge chunk of his own personal fortune into making an epic Western saga, with a second movie only weeks away from hitting theatres, regardless of whether or not the first makes him any money. If that weren’t enough, he’s already started shooting pieces of the third film, and he’s sworn he’ll be making a fourth film as well. Given the scope of his ambitions, it’s hard to truly judge Horizon – Chapter 1 as a standalone film, with it so clearly part of a much bigger whole.

Running three hours (with credits), Costner, who also directed, produced and co-wrote the film (with Jon Baird...

Two For The Road Image: 20th Century Fox “Wouldn’t it be nice if we were like that?” Regina Lampert (Audrey Hepburn) asks the man eventually known as Brian Cruikshank (Cary Grant) as they walk along the Seine in Paris a bit more than halfway into the comic thriller Charade.

CharadeImage: Universal Pictures

“Wouldn’t it be nice if we were like that?” Regina Lampert (Audrey Hepburn) asks the man eventually known as Brian Cruikshank (Cary Grant) as they walk along the Seine in Paris a bit more than halfway into the comic thriller Charade. Brian is confused, because they...

Highlighted by Bulgari ambassador Priyanka Chopra Jonas, the new documentary film An Emperor’s Jewel — The Making of the Bulgari Hotel Roma gorgeously documents the creation of one of the most beautiful new places to stay in Italy.

Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, Bulgari CEO Jean-Christophe Babin says the latest Bulgari hotel shares a few traits with the legendary jeweler’s just-released high-jewelry collection, chief among them: “We always approach it with the idea of creating the best ever,” says Babin, the brand’s global CEO since 2013. “The sky is the limit.”

In Aeterna — the 150-piece high-jewelry collection that debuted on May 20 in Rome with Anne Hathaway and Chopra Jonas in attendance — that translates to an abundance of diamonds, emeralds and other gemstones, while the latest Bulgari Hotel takes that “sky’s the limit” notion to the next level. The Bulgari Hotel Roma opened its doors in June 2023 and has...

Actress Carrie Fisher became a global icon when she played Princess Leia Organa in Star Wars. The actress was twenty-one when the film was released and it immediately launched her into worldwide fame as the film became a phenomenon. Princess Leia was considered to be one of the best female characters in sci-fi.

Fisher was reportedly cast in the role of Leia after George Lucas considered multiple actresses. The late star was only one-film-old at the time and had only been in a couple of stage shows. According to an old interview with Fisher from 1977, Lucas chose her because she fulfilled one particular quality of the character that he had written.

Carrie Fisher Was Cast As Princess Leia Due To One Condition Carrie Fisher in Star Wars: A New Hope | Credits: Lucasfilm Ltd./20th Century Fox

Late actress Carrie Fisher played Princess Leia Organa, the sister of Luke Skywalker and...

Writing, acting, directing; Taylor Sheridan is known for many things and how. The cowboy whisperer of Hollywood, the man is responsible for some incredible work including Sicario, Wind River, and of course, the Yellowstone franchise which has everyone and then some hooked to it. Clearly, he knows how to tell raw and intense stories all while delivering something new each time.

Wind River (2017) | Thunder Road Pictures

The 2016 film, Hell or High Water, is a great example of Taylor Sheridan’s incredible mind. the neo-Western crime drama focuses on two brothers carrying out a series of bank robberies in order to save their family ranch. Hell or High Water is extremely personal to Taylor Sheridan, even though it is not autobiographical. But did you know that the film was not supposed to be of the neo-western genre and this was just a happy accident?

Hell or High Water is Deeply Personal...

Taylor Sheridan has become one of the most prolific television producers of recent times, with the Yellowstone Universe entries and several other shows proving to be a massive success. However, aside from producing quality television, Sheridan has also lent his talents to some of the most critically acclaimed films.

Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan wrote and directed 2017’s Wind River (Credit: Paramount Network).In 2017, Sheridan wrote and directed the neo-Western crime film Wind River, which was a critical and commercial success. However, during an interview, Sheridan revealed that he was prepared to shelve the project if the studio did not meet his only condition for making the movie. Here is what Sheridan demanded for making Wind River.

Taylor Sheridan Reveals His Only Condition to Make Wind River

After a brief acting career, Taylor Sheridan turned his focus on writing in the 2010s, serving as a screenwriter for acclaimed movies such as...

Hell or High Water was a career highlight for Chris Pine, portraying a bank-robbing brother in Taylor Sheridan’s gripping 2016 tale. Pine’s performance, under Sheridan’s direction, captivated audiences, earning much praise. Sheridan’s choice to cast Pine not only elevated the film but also saved it as Pine was indeed the right choice.

Chris Pine and Ben Foster in Taylor Sheridan’s Hell or High Water | Lionsgate Films

Through Pine’s nuanced portrayal, the character resonated with viewers, exploring themes of family and justice. Pine’s commanding presence and raw emotion left a lasting impact, making Hell or High Water a standout in both his and Sheridan’s impressive bodies of work.

Taylor Sheridan’s Casting of Chris Pine Took Hell or High Water to a Whole New Level

Taylor Sheridan aimed for the audience to sympathize with bank robbers Toby played by Chris Pine, and Tanner played by Ben Foster,...

From the very early days of cinema, the love triangle has been a staple of romantic comedies and heartbreaking dramas alike. In its classic form, there’s either two guys and two girls both interested in the same girl or guy, who finds themself torn between the two possibilities. Fizzy screwball comedies usually ended with the love triangle resolving in favor of the lead; see, for example, how Katharine Hepburn’s free-spirited heroine in 1938 comedy “Holiday” steals Cary Grant from under the nose of her own sister (Doris Nolan). In dramas, the ending tends to be a tad more bittersweet, leading to iconically devastating moments like Humphrey Bogart saying goodbye to Ingrid Bergman before she hops on a plane to escape to safety with her husband Victor (Paul Henreid) during the climax of “Casablanca.”

However a love triangle ends, its clear why the formula is such a repeating trope in...

Jeannie Epper, the peerless, fearless stunt performer who doubled for Lynda Carter on Wonder Woman and swung on a vine across a 350-foot gorge and propelled down an epic mudslide as Kathleen Turner in Romancing the Stone, has died. She was 83.

Epper died Sunday night of natural causes at her home in Simi Valley, her family told The Hollywood Reporter.

Just one member of a dynasty of stunt performers that Steven Spielberg dubbed the “Flying Wallendas of Film” — starting with her father, John Epper, there have been four generations of Eppers in show business since the 1930s — she worked on 150-plus films and TV shows during an astounding 70-year career.

In 2007, Epper received the first lifetime achievement honor given to a woman at the World Taurus Awards and ranks among the greatest stuntwomen of all time.

Known for her agility, horse-riding skills and competitiveness, the 5-foot-9 Epper also stepped in...

Gary Cooper was a two-time Oscar winner who starred in dozens of movies before his death in 1961, but how many of those titles remain classics? Let’s take a look back at 15 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Born in 1901, Cooper got his start in silent movies, most notably the aerial drama “Wings” (1927), which won the very first Academy Award as Best Picture. He would collect his own statuette as Best Actor for another WWI film: the biographical drama “Sergeant York” (1941). Directed by Howard Hawks, it helped create Cooper’s screen persona of an ordinary man capable of extraordinary courage in the face of adversity.

He won a second Best Actor trophy for playing a similar character in Fred Zinnemann‘s western “High Noon” (1952), which cast him as a retired marshal who must stand up to a gang of killers arriving on the noon train. Cooper earned additional nominations for similarly idealistic,...

Obviously it wasn’t by design, but the early-1950s renewal of the western genre, aided in large part by the success of Winchester ’73, which heralded a career second act for both its director, Anthony Mann, and its star, James Stewart, was answered in other quarters of the industry by multiple endeavors to take the once disreputable genre, previously dismissed as Roy Rogers/Saturday-matinee bunkum, all the way into the hallowed halls of state-sanctioned, capital-a art. And, as it happened, the two westerns that made a big runner-up showing at the 1952 and 1953 Oscars, High Noon and Shane, respectively, also served, by virtue of holding what wide swaths of the future cinephile demographic would come to view as Vichy letters of transit, as high-value targets for skeptics of the official cultural narrative.

These auteurist critics and film buffs, whose philosophy acquired definite contours some 10-odd years later, observed a different watershed moment: Rio Bravo.

Tom Hanks has played a hero multiple times, whether in Captain Phillips or as Woody from Toy Story. Each time, he’s managed to bring something new and meaningful to the idea of being a hero. Thus, when Clint Eastwood approached Tom Hanks, proposing that he take on the role of Sully, the real-life hero who safely landed a plane on the Hudson River in 2009, Hanks found himself pausing before making a decision, in the 2016 film.

Clint Eastwood in Bronco Billy

But then Eastwood hit him with just three words that sealed the deal. And that decision turned out to be a major highlight in Hanks’ already impressive career.

Clint Eastwood’s Three Words That Influenced Tom Hanks to Portray Sully

Before Sully, Tom Hanks had already portrayed heroes, or as he puts it “ordinary guys in extraordinary circumstances.” He had often felt typecasted. When Clint Eastwood offered him the role of Sully,...

Clint Eastwood was already 30 years old when he landed his breakout role in the CBS Western "Rawhide." The actor had spent much of the 1950s getting by on bit parts in B movies (most notably the Jack Arnold monster duo of "Revenge of the Creature" and "Tarantula"), and guest roles on TV series like "Maverick" and "Death Valley Days," so you'd think he would've been thrilled. But Eastwood was displeased with his character Rowdy Yates, who, early on in the series' run, was a wet-behind-the-ears ramrod. At his age, he was eager to play a grown, capable man with enough years behind him to allow for a bit of mystery.

Eastwood's restlessness coincided with a shift in filmmakers' approach to the Western genre. Though maestros like John Ford, Howard Hawks, Anthony Mann, and Budd Boetticher had allowed for moral ambiguity in their movies, the vast majority of Westerns were white...

The Story: A covert army unit goes to war with Cash Bailey (Powers Boothe), a well-connected drug dealer, who also happens to be the childhood best friend of an honest Texas Ranger (Nick Nolte) who’s caught in the middle of what’s turning into a bloody drug war.

The Players: Starring: Nick Nolte, Powers Boothe, Michael Ironside, Clancy Brown, William Forsythe, María Conchita Alonso, and Rip Torn. Music by Jerry Goldsmith. Directed by Walter Hill.

The History: Let me take a moment here to pay tribute to an actor who never gets his due anymore: the late Powers Boothe. While never a household name, he was well-known as a character actor in a career that spanned four decades. He appeared in a lot of great movies, including Southern Comfort, The Emerald Forest, Sin City, heck – even The Avengers! But, one of the best roles he ever had was in...

The preview opening of the new exhibit Meet the Stars: 100 Years of MGM Studios and the Golden Age of Hollywood on Thursday night was a crowded, buzzing affair. Held at the Hollywood Heritage Museum in the historic Lasky DeMille Barn across from the Hollywood Bowl, the event showcased the items of over 20 movie collectors. Memorabilia hunters, dressed in fedoras and flirty ’40s dresses, gabbed about their latest finds with others who have a similar passion.

The highlight of the night was when the crowd sang “Happy Birthday” to former MGM child star Cora Sue Collins (who played a little Greta Garbo in 1933’s Queen Christina), the last surviving MGM contract player from the 1930s. Sitting at a tableau that recreated a party thrown for her by MGM in 1935, Collins elegantly thanked everyone for their well wishes. Actor George Chakiris was also in attendance, and he posed next to a costume...

Cecilia Han stars as the worried mother in the Donnie Yen rescue thriller Polar Rescue. Courtesy of Well Go USA

I’ve been a big Donnie Yen fan for years. This martial artist/actor has been a mainstay of Chinese action movies – comedic and dramatic – for decades. For Western audiences, he may be best known for his appearances in several films about China’s legendary real-life hero Ip Man. Besides Yen’s fighting skills, he invariably projects the calm integrity of a Gary Cooper. His latest high-profile role on our screens was the blind, yet super-lethal, and highly-principled assassin co-star in John Wick 4.

Donnie is now over 60. So, like Jackie Chan, his time as a credible action hero may be waning. Preparing for the next phase of his career is the only reason I can imagine for his producing and starring in this rather uninspired family drama, Polar Rescue (a...

At the inaugural Academy Awards in 1929, native Pennsylvanian Janet Gaynor made history as the first American-born performer to win an Oscar by taking the Best Actress prize for her body of work in “7th Heaven,” “Street Angel,” and “Sunrise.” Over the subsequent 95 years, 215 more thespians originating from the United States won the academy’s favor, meaning the country has now produced 68.1% of all individual acting Oscar recipients. Considering the last decade alone, the rate of such winners is even higher, at 70.3%.

At this point, 96.8% of American-born acting Oscar victors have hailed from one of 34 actual states. Of those constituting the remainder, three originated from the federal District of Columbia, while four were born in the territory of Puerto Rico. New York (home to 49 winners) is the most common birth state among the entire group, followed by California (34), Illinois (13), Massachusetts (11), and Pennsylvania (11).

Bearing in mind our specific birthplace focus, the 16 states...

Byron Janis, the celebrated classical pianist who studied with Vladimir Horowitz, recorded previously unknown Chopin waltzes from manuscripts he unearthed and became a cultural hero in the U.S. after performing in the Soviet Union during the Cold War, has died. He was 95.

Janis died Thursday at The Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, his wife, Maria Cooper Janis, daughter of two-time Oscar-winning actor Gary Cooper, announced.

“I have been blessed with the privilege for 58 years of loving and being loved by not only one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, but by an exceptional human being who took his talents to their highest pinnacle,” she said in a statement.

During his 85-year career, Janis covered composers from Bach to David W. Guion and performed major piano concertos from Chopin, Mozart, Rachmaninoff, Liszt and Prokofiev. He occupied two volumes of the 1999 Mercury Philips series Great Pianists of the...

Betty Brodel, a singer, actress and older sister of High Sierra and Sergeant York star Joan Leslie, died Sunday in Florida, family member Cathy Palmer told The Hollywood Reporter. She was 104.

Brodel appeared with Leslie in the wartime charity films Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943) and Hollywood Canteen (1944), plus Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Too Young to Know (1945) and Cinderella Jones (1946).

Elizabeth Ann Brodel was born in Detroit on Feb. 5, 1920. Her father, John Brodel, was a bank teller and her mother, Agnes, a pianist and homemaker.

She and her siblings Mary (born in 1916) and Joan (born in 1925) sang and danced in a vaudeville act called The Brodel Sisters, performing in their hometown and New York City and touring from Canada to Florida.

When a talent scout signed Mary to a contract at MGM, the family headed to Burbank, and the sisters appeared in the 1936 short film Signing Off.

Betty also showed up in...

Richard Lewis, who last year announced that he was stepping down from stand-up after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, sadly passed away at the age of 76 at his home in Los Angeles. But despite retiring from stand-up, the self-deprecating comedian did reprise his role in Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 12, set to be its final outing.

From appearing in the very first episode of the show, Lewis was ingrained into the show’s DNA, and his chemistry with Larry David ensued for some of the funniest moments in the show.

Richard Lewis | Curb Your Enthusiasm

“F-ck You, I’m Paying”

Arguably one of the funniest interactions between Larry David and Richard Lewis takes in episode 3 of Season 10, Artificial Fruit. After engaging in a funny banter when Lewis initially rejects David’s offer to go on lunch, Lewis eventually agrees, but following their stubborn tendencies, both of them offer to pay.

Clockwise from top left: Notting Hill (Universal Pictures), Love & Basketball (New Line Cinema), Amelie (20th Century Fox),Say Anything (Ugc-Fox Distribution)Graphic: The A.V. Club

Running through the airport to stop a lover’s flight. Making a big speech in front of a crowd of strangers. Picking the perfect song for a serenade.

It’s a location that looks like a movie set from classic Westerns: For his third Louis Vuitton Men’s presentation, Pharrell Williams staged the French brand’s Fall Winter 2024 runway show at the Jardin d’Acclimatation in the Bois de Boulogne, just behind the fashion label’s headquarters.

In a show called “Paris, Virginia” — Williams was born in Virginia — models playied the part of cowboys parading in front of a huge screen where the striking scenery of the snow-capped Rocky Mountains, those of Montana, the Dakotas, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico was projected. At one point, snow even fell on the guests in the room.

Previewing the runway show during Paris Fashion Week was a short film created by Bafic with Ron Husband — one of the world’s most influential cartoonists on the Walt Disney Animation Studios production team (The Lion King, The Little Mermaid) — filmed while drawing a sketch of a cowboy.

Michael Mann is one of the top directors in Hollywood, long used to calling his own shots. When Joe Roth was running Disney Motion Pictures, he asked Mann if his “60 Minutes” expose “The Insider” with Russell Crowe and Al Pacino (1999) would make money. “Probably not,” Mann said. Roth made it anyway. It wasn’t a hit ($60 million worldwide), but it scored seven Oscar nominations, including Picture, Director, Actor, and Adapted Screenplay. Like many of Mann’s movies, it also gained stature over time.

But for all of Mann’s classic films, there are as many movies that didn’t get made in his oeuvre. It takes a lot for him to decide that he should expend the time and energy to go forward with a project, partly because his standards of performance are so high. For example, after directing four movies with high degrees of difficulty in a row Mann...

Movies and television have been competing for the same audience's time and money since TV was invented, but they've also formed a strange symbiosis. There have been a heck of a lot of movies based on TV shows, and a heck of a lot of TV shows based on movies.

Some of those shows based on movies have been major pop culture milestones, like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "The Karate Kid," and "Friday Night Lights." And of course a whole lot of been almost completely forgotten, like the sitcoms based on "Dirty Dancing," "Working Girl," and "Animal House."

But one thing these TV shows usually have in common is that they're almost always based on a hit movie. It's not surprising when a blockbuster like "M*A*S*H" or "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" gets turned into a television series. It's even common for smaller, but critically acclaimed films...

Ryan O’Neal, the boyish leading man who kicked off an extraordinary 1970s run in Hollywood with his Oscar-nominated turn as the Harvard preppie Oliver in the legendary romantic tearjerker Love Story, has died. He was 82.

O’Neal died Friday, his son Patrick O’Neal, a sportscaster with Bally Sports West in Los Angeles, reported on Instagram. He had been diagnosed with chronic leukemia in 2001 and with prostate cancer in 2012.

“As a human being, my father was as generous as they come,” Patrick wrote. “And the funniest person in any room. And the most handsome clearly, but also the most charming. Lethal combo. He loved to make people laugh. It’s pretty much his goal. Didn’t matter the situation, if there was a joke to be found, he nailed it. He really wanted us laughing. And we did all laugh. Every time. We had fun. Fun in the sun.”

On the...

Blyth’s recent credits include The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes

Michael Winterbottom has written and is set to direct a new film adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s classic World War I novel A Farewell To Arms starring Tom Blyth

Blyth, whose recent credits include The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes and MGM+ series Billy the Kid, will play the role of volunteer ambulance driver Frederic Henry, who is wounded and falls in love with his nurse in Italy during the First World War.

The Fremantle-backed film is set to start shooting in...

Tom Blyth is exchanging the Hunger Games for a hospital bed. The British actor, who plays a young Coriolanus Snow in Francis Lawrence’s Hunger Games prequel The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, has signed on to play the lead role in Michael Winterbottom’s new adaptation of the Ernst Hemingway WWI classic A Farewell to Arms.

Blyth will play Frederic Henry, a volunteer ambulance driver who is injured in Italy during the first World War and falls in love with his nurse.

The Hemingway novel, first published in 1929 and closely based on the writer’s own experience as a volunteer ambulance driver with the Italian Army on the Isonzo Front, A Farewell to Arms has been adapted multiple times in the past, including in 1932 with Gary Cooper in the Frederic Henry role, in 1957 starring Rock Hudson, and as a 1966 mini-series with George Hamilton as Henry.

Winterbottom’s feature version...

Tom Blyth is set to follow in the footsteps of Gary Cooper, Rock Hudson and George Hamilton to star in Michael Winterbottom’s new adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s classic novel A Farewell to Arms.

Fremantle, Winterbottom’s production company Revolution Films and Passenger are joining forces on the production.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes and Billy the Kid star Blyth will play volunteer ambulance driver Frederic Henry, who is wounded and falls in love with his nurse in Italy during World War One.

Published in 1929, A Farewell To Arms is inspired by Hemingway’s own experiences as a volunteer ambulance driver with the Italian Army on the Isonzo Front.

Considered one of the greatest war novels of the twentieth century, it established Hemingway as a household name.

The novel has previously been...