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They called themselves United Artists, but the trades called it a “rebellion against established producing and distributing arrangements.” Paramount Pictures founder Adolph Zukor reportedly said, “The inmates have taken over the asylum.” But when Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith went before the cameras on Feb. 5, 1919, to announce the creation of a corporation to distribute their own films, they claimed it was necessary to protect their own interests as well as to “protect the exhibitor and the industry from itself.”

It wasn’t any great prescient vision that had brought Hollywood’s biggest moneymakers to this point. Rather, they were reacting — and quickly — to what they saw as a threat to limit their salaries and the quality of their films.

A little backstory: During the 1910s, as the demand for films skyrocketed, production companies, theaters and distribution mechanisms multiplied and, in retrospect, reaction was often the catalyst for change.

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Rarely has American Horror Story sustained its current level of momentum, quality and sheer entertainment...

This review contains spoilers.

5.7 Flicker

I absolutely love it when American Horror Story uses film-making style to help tell their story. It's not a question of the way the characters dress or the way the sets are displayed, but a question of actual technical techniques. A significant portion of Flicker is devoted to the life and times of a very young Countess—long before she was the Countess—as a fresh-faced Italian girl from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn who made her way out to Hollywood to become a star on the silver screen. A chance appearance as a harem girl leads to a meeting that will change young Countess's life forever as she finds herself wooed by the most famous lover in history, Rudolph Valentino (Finn Wittrock, playing a new role) and his glamorous wife,...

Constance Cummings: Actress in minor Hollywood movies became major London stage star. Constance Cummings: Actress went from Harold Lloyd and Frank Capra to Noël Coward and Eugene O'Neill Actress Constance Cummings, whose career spanned more than six decades on stage, in films, and on television in both the U.S. and the U.K., died ten years ago on Nov. 23. Unlike other Broadway imports such as Ann Harding, Katharine Hepburn, Miriam Hopkins, and Claudette Colbert, the pretty, elegant Cummings – who could have been turned into a less edgy Constance Bennett had she landed at Rko or Paramount instead of Columbia – never became a Hollywood star. In fact, her most acclaimed work, whether in films or – more frequently – on stage, was almost invariably found in British productions. That's most likely why the name Constance Cummings – despite the DVD availability of several of her best-received performances – is all but forgotten.

'The Man From U.N.C.L.E.' with Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer. 'The Man from U.N.C.L.E.' box office: Bigger domestic flop than expected? Before I address the box office debacle of Warner Bros.' The Man from U.N.C.L.E., I'd like remark upon the fact that 2015 has been a notable year at the North American box office. That's when the dinosaurs of Jurassic World smashed Hulk and his fellow Halloween-costumed Marvel superheroes of Avengers: Age of Ultron. And smashed them good: $636.73 million vs. $457.52 million. (See also: 'Jurassic World' beating 'The Avengers' worldwide and domestically?) At least in part for sentimental (or just downright morbid) reasons – Paul Walker's death in a car accident in late 2013 – Furious 7 has become by far the highest-grossing The Fast and the Furious movie in the U.S. and Canada: $351.03 million. (Shades of Heath Ledger's unexpected death...

This year's Ebertfest opens today and runs through Sunday, and we're collecting notes on the lineup: Jean-Luc Godard's Adieu au langage, Roy Andersson's A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, Godfrey Cheshire's Moving Midway, James Ponsoldt's The End of the Tour, Céline Sciamma's Girlhood, George Fitzmaurice's The Son of the Sheik, Robert De Niro's A Bronx Tale, Damián Szifrón's Wild Tales, Pawel Pawlikowski's Ida, Alan Polsky and Gabe Polsky's The Motel Life, Ramin Bahrani's 99 Homes and Ethan Hawke's Seymour: An Introduction. » - David Hudson...

This year's Ebertfest opens today and runs through Sunday, and we're collecting notes on the lineup: Jean-Luc Godard's Adieu au langage, Roy Andersson's A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, Godfrey Cheshire's Moving Midway, James Ponsoldt's The End of the Tour, Céline Sciamma's Girlhood, George Fitzmaurice's The Son of the Sheik, Robert De Niro's A Bronx Tale, Damián Szifrón's Wild Tales, Pawel Pawlikowski's Ida, Alan Polsky and Gabe Polsky's The Motel Life, Ramin Bahrani's 99 Homes and Ethan Hawke's Seymour: An Introduction. » - David Hudson...

Jesse Eisenberg and Jason Segel in “The End of the Tour”

Champaign, Illinois isn’t quite Cannes or Park City, Utah, but the film festival hosted there annually in Roger Ebert’s name is as charming as they come. Now Ebertfest, in its 17th year, has announced its lineup of films prior to its four day run in April.

It was previously announced that Jean-Luc Godard’s acclaimed Goodbye to Language 3D would be the opening night film. Now Chaz Ebert has penned a touching love letter to her late husband detailing the choices they’ve made for the festival in his absence.

Among them are James Ponsoldt’s The End of the Tour, Ramin Bahrani’s 99 Homes, Roy Andersson’s A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting On Existence, Céline Sciamma’s Girlhood, and special screenings of A Bronx Tale with Robert De Niro and the 1926 silent film The Son of the Sheik...

Innocence of Muslims / 'Desert Warrior' director Alan Roberts best-known for '70s soft-core porn The polemical anti-Islam "film" (actually, a cheap, grade Z amateur video), now has not only a producer, but also a director. The "Israeli entrepreneur Sam Bacile" has been exposed as the Egyptian Coptic Christian Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, who allegedly misled all (or most) involved in the production. And Gawker has reported that Alan Roberts aka Robert Brownell, the director of a handful of softcore porn movies in the '70s and early '80s, helmed "Desert Warrior," a cheesy Arabian adventure that was to become -- following some sloppy overdubbing -- Innocence of Muslims. Besides the now infamous Islamophobic YouTube sensation, which has been blamed for riots in several Muslim countries from Tunisia to Pakistan, Alan Roberts' movie credits include several now long forgotten titles. (Please scroll down for more details.) Alan Roberts also produced several little-known movies,...

Innocence of Muslims: Cast and crew repudiate rabidly anti-Islam 'film' An amateurish, rabidly anti-Islam 'film' -- actually, more like a homemade video made three decades ago -- whose Arabic-dubbed version was initially blamed for this week's attacks by Muslim fanatics against the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and the U.S. embassy in Cairo, Muslims was initially called "Desert Warrior." (Photo: Actor purportedly as Islam's prophet Mohammad.) According to 80 cast and crew members of the film, they thought "Desert Warrior" was going to be an adventure flick set in Biblical times. Indeed, the movie's casting notice on Backstage calls it a "historical Arabian Desert adventure film." Below is the statement submitted to CNN on behalf of those who worked on what eventually became Innocence of Muslims. (Please scroll down to check out: Innocence of Muslims creator: Coptic Christian involved in meth manufacture, bank fraud.) "The entire cast and crew...

Anna Magnani in (what looks like) Luchino Visconti's Bellissima At the end of Giuseppe Tornatore's Best Foreign Language Film Oscar winner Cinema Paradiso, small-town projectionist Philippe Noiret has died and the Nuovo Cinema Paradiso has become a pile of rubble. The bratty Italian boy Salvatore Cascio has grown into the classy Frenchman Jacques Perrin (like Noiret, dubbed in Italian), a filmmaker who sits to watch a mysterious reel of film the deceased projectionist had left him. It turns out the reel contains clips from films censored by the prudish local parish priest, whose family values found kisses, embraces, and bare breasts and legs a danger to society. Now, who's doing all that kissing, embracing, and breast/leg-displaying in that film reel? (Please scroll down for the Cinema Paradiso clip.) Here are the ones I recognize: Silvana Mangano and Vittorio Gassman in Giuseppe De Santis' Bitter Rice (1949); Mangano...

As you may have heard, Michel Hazanavicius’s “The Artist” (The Weinstein Company, 11/23, ?, trailer) — which made a big splash at this year’s Cannes Film Festival (where it was a serious contender for the Palm d’Or and its star Jean Dujardin was named best actor), and which will soon be seen again at the Toronto International Film Festival — is not only in black-and-white, but also silent!

Many credible analysts — including Harvey Weinstein, who is as savvy an Oscar-prospector as anyone, and whose studio purchased the film’s rights shortly after Cannes – believe that it is visually beautiful/emotionally powerful enough to seriously factor into this year’s Oscar race.

But could a silent film, in this day and age, actually catch on with the public and/or Oscar voters?

Most people today dismiss silent movies as lacking something — namely, sound — but that’s not a particularly enlightened position. After all,...

WASHINGTON -- Some of Hollywood's most dynamic duos and the ever-popular sequel are among the headliners included in the 2003 version of the Library of Congress' list of 25 films that will be added to the National Film Registry. Among the major motion pictures included in this year's list are Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which first paired Robert Redford and Paul Newman; Tarzan and His Mate, the second in the Tarzan series; National Velvet, which put Mickey Rooney together with a teenage Elizabeth Taylor; Naughty Marietta, one of the movies made by the song-and-dance team Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy; and Son of the Sheik, starring Rudolph Valentino. Each year Librarian of Congress James Billington selects 25 "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant motion pictures for the Registry. The list is designed to reflect the full breadth and diversity of America's film heritage, thus increasing public awareness of the richness of American cinema and the need for its preservation, Billington said.