Examples of Theocracy: Since the early days of filmmaking, theocratic rule – in its many forms – has often been depicted on screen. Cinema & TV examples of theocracy range…
Oscar diversity: Women – including two lesbianish characters – form the core of the 1950 Best Picture winner All About Eve. But would the Broadway-set classic have met the new…
Belfast movie: Kenneth Branagh has begun shooting the semiautobiographical indie drama – “my most personal film,” as per the screenwriter-director – set in the turbulent Northern Ireland of the late…
Robert Pattinson in The Batman: COVID-19 scare. Pattinson’s positive result has halted filming of the latest reboot of DC Comics’ Batman, created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger, and first…
Playwright Arthur Miller vs. Red Scare Hysteria: The Crucible Demythologizes American Exceptionalism
Playwright Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible (1953) – about the witchcraft trials held in late-17th-century Salem – as a political allegory against the HUAC hearings held in mid-20th-century Washington, D.C.…
Ruth Warrick: In show business for nearly seven decades, actress Ruth Warrick is best remembered for two disparate roles: Charles Foster Kane’s genteel wife in Orson Welles’ 1941 classic Citizen…
The Women remake with Meg Ryan. In the old Margalo Gilmore (on Broadway, 1936), Norma Shearer (1939), and June Allyson (1956) role, 1990s Hollywood Sweetheart Meg Ryan plays a materially…
Valentino with Rudolf Nureyev and Michelle Phillips. Ken Russell’s 1977 Rudolph Valentino biopic Valentino is based on the dubious 1966 bio (“Was he a great lover – or a sham?”)…
“Movies” or…? Quo Vadis: One of the first feature films ever made, Enrico Guazzoni’s Italian epic came out in 1913, going on to become a global sensation. Should American “moving…
‘Under the Volcano’ screening: John Huston’s ‘quality’ comeback starring daring Albert Finney As part of its John Huston film series, the UCLA Film & Television Archive will be presenting the…
Crime novel The Blank Wall by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding. While her husband is away during World War II, housewife Lucia Holley – the sort of “Everywoman” who looks great in…
Roy Rogers, Singing Cowboy of 1940s and 1950s Hollywood. Known for his affable characterizations and, both on and off screen, “traditional values” stance, the King of the Cowboys – step…
Antihero Ricardo Cortez in Symphony of Six Million, with Irene Dunne. Directed by Gregory La Cava, this 1932 family/romantic melodrama may have been one of Cortez’s favorite among his own…
“Latin Lover” Ricardo Cortez, who went on to play a series of all-American scoundrels and criminals, in addition to similar unsavory types of other nationalities. Although never as big a…
‘Making Love’: Groundbreaking romantic gay drama returns to the big screen As part of its Anniversary Classics series, Laemmle Theaters will be presenting Arthur Hiller’s groundbreaking 1982 romantic drama Making…