This year is a special one for 1960s glamour gal Diane McBain who turns 80 on May 18. It's also 60 years ago this year that her favorite film, "Claudelle Inglish," was released in which she portrayed a "good girl" who turns very bad.

"No, I am your father." "These aren't the droids you're looking for." "Do or do not. There is no try."

Olympia Dukakis, an Oscar-winning actress for her role in "Moonstruck," died Saturday in New York City. She was 89 years old.

What sort of outer space movies are you a fan of? The action-packed, big-budgeters that have the word "Star" in the title, as well as either "Trek" or "Wars?" The message-heavy ones such as "2001: A Space Odyssey?" (yes, some of those messages were perplexing), or the cerebral ones like Andr…

During the two-and-a-half decades that Justin Theroux has been acting on stage, on TV, and in film, he's also kept his hands in areas of producing and writing (He co-wrote "Tropic Thunder!"). But acting has always been his mainstay. Filmgoers will know him for his parts in "Mulholland Dr." a…

"Nomadland," director Chloé Zhao's small-boned movie about nomads in America, earned best picture at a 93rd Academy Awards defined by the pandemic, as movies that premiered on streaming services ruled the ceremony -- an in-person event mounted under Covid protocols.

A long black and white credits sequence presents the highlights of a police officer's celebrated career, from his rookie days to his tenure as an undercover cop to when he was gunned down and relegated to life in a wheelchair ... and promoted to police commissioner for his troubles.

For those viewers who are on a steady diet of superhero movies, Sebastian Stan is Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, or Bucky Barnes, or the Winter Soldier. They're all the same character. For viewers who watch all different sorts of movies and who manage to fit in a few TV series, Stan is some…

Of all the superhero movies that have flooded our screens in recent years, the one that still stands out as the most fun is 2017's "Thor: Ragnarok," a film that was serious about not taking itself seriously. Even though "Thunder Force" is not up at the same budget - or star power-level as a …

Sometimes, filmmakers just pack too much stuff into their movies, hoping to attract viewers by offering a little something for everyone. If it's good stuff, that pushes the plot(s) along, all power to it. Think of "Pulp Fiction," "Boogie Nights," "Nashville," "Snatch." They worked well, with…

Today's lesson in historical fiction looks at a tale of the scoundrel Sir Francis Drake, the 16th-century British pirate who made a career of stealing treasure from Spain. Actually, Drake is only mentioned once in the heist film "The Vault." It's the finding of one of his bigger, long-missin…

There's always room for another cracking story of espionage pitting the British against the Nazis. This one, set in rural England, is the idea of comedian and actor Eddie Izzard, who stars - in a dramatic role - and cowrote the screenplay. Although some early publicity suggests the film is b…

Are the movies over?

It's best to begin by deciphering the title of this fast-moving, plot-shifting, violent, and engaging thriller.

The Russo brothers, Joe and Anthony, have been co-directing feature films and TV shows for a couple of decades. There have been multiple episodes of "Arrested Development" and "Community," along with an underappreciated good movie - "Welcome to Collinwood" - and a forgotten mediocre one - "Y…

The 1980s and 1990s were Eddie Murphy's time to shine. His three-year run on "SNL" was the jumping-off point that morphed into a movie career that kicked off with "48 Hrs.," "Trading Places," and "Beverly Hills Cop." There followed a mix of sequels, some hits, some misses, the unexpected nut…

Somewhere between Wakanda and Nexdoria among the fictional nations of Africa lay Zamunda. People old enough to have grandchildren will remember it as the opulent but silly place from which the personable Prince Akeem Joffer hailed in the dubiously dubbed cult classic "Coming to America." Sin…

Tom and Jerry were originally called Jasper and Jinx, but only in their first cartoon, the Oscar-nominated "Puss Gets the Boot," in 1940. After the name change, their Hannah-Barbera shorts would be nominated an additional dozen times, winning seven statues for their funny, fast-paced, violen…

Almost 50 years ago, there was another Hollywood movie about Billie Holiday. "Lady Sings the Blues" starred Diana Ross as the talented but troubled jazz singer. Ross was good in the role, but the film was a muddled mess of dramatic situations that didn't exactly stick to the truth, that play…

Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo, the Oscar-nominated writers of the 2011 hit comedy "Bridesmaids," finally reunite to stir up more funny business in "Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar." The duo, BFFs in real life, wrote the script and co-star as a pair of fluffy-haired best friends who leave t…

For the fourth filmed version of Noel Coward's hit stage play "Blithe Spirit," director Edward Hall and his battery of script writers have managed to keep much of the ditzy original flavor of the Coward piece - it's still set in 1930s England - but also make it accessible to and funny for mo…

I can't recall the last film that has been so praised, so nominated by so many film and critics groups as "Nomadland." Categories include Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress and others. It's also been collecting heaps of …

I started watching this movie - reluctantly, because someone told me it was about people caught in a time loop, a genre that has worn out its welcome for me. And right there, in the first few minutes, it was as if I was caught in my own time loop, of seeing exactly this sort of film again an…

Fans of "The Matrix" trilogy will recognize, early on, that there are some similarities between those films and "Bliss." Both are about certain people having choices of living in two different existences. Both involve ingesting special drugs to go from one "place" to the other. Both feature …

You are going to love this or you are going to turn it off, 15 minutes in, after or during a spell of head scratching. There will be no middle ground.

If the kind of movie that you enjoy watching is one that presents a few characters, tosses them together to tell a story, and gets you emotionally involved, then "Palmer" could be for you. But if those characters aren't developed enough to understand their motivations, if the gears that turn…

Here's what "The Little Things" is, and what it isn't. It's a serial killer drama about a couple of cops on the trail of who they think is committing the crimes. It's not an exploitative story that shows the horrific murders happening. It spells out how the two cops, each of them with very d…

"No Time to Die," the latest film in the James Bond series and one of the most anticipated movies of 2021, has been delayed again.

Gangster films have long been a staple of Hollywood, and they've come in all sorts of different guises. There were the early, straightforward good guys vs. bad guys offerings such as "Little Caesar" and "The Roaring Twenties," the lean, violent ones including "Reservoir Dogs" and "Mean Stree…

ViacomCBS' newly rebranded streaming service Paramount+ will go live on March 4, the company announced Tuesday.

For her feature film directorial debut, actress Regina King sets four men in a motel room in 1964, then has them talk - to and about each other, about themselves, and about philosophical, political, and social issues of the day.

People who watch movies with Tom Hanks in them are usually there more because of Tom Hanks than the movie. With the exception of his frightening killer in "Road to Perdition" and the repulsive author (one of six different characters) he played in "Cloud Atlas," Hanks has been drawn to portra…