The movie questionnaire and 2015 reviews of RogerEbert.com film critic Peter Sobczynski.
A report on the SDCC press conference for "Kingsman: The Secret Service" with Colin Firth and Samuel L. Jackson.
In this excerpt from the book "Superheroes!: " Laurence Maslon and Michael Kantor discuss the transformation of comic books that started with new creators in the 1970s and led to Hollywood blockbusters.
1."Ann Blyth gets a TCM salute for her birthday" The actress is probably best remembered for her turn as the self-involved Veda in "Mildred Pierce." For her 85th birthday, she was honored by Turner Classic Movies. Susan King of the Los Angeles Times has a wonderful piece on Blyth and the TCM tribute."Blyth's performance is an astonishing mixture of ferocity and venom that belies the fact she was only 16 when she made the Michael Curtiz-directed thriller."2."Gen X gets really old: How do slackers have a midlife crisis?" At salon.com, Sara Scribner muses on how Generation X is handling aging. We'll give you a hint: They're doing it differently than their parents."While the past midlife crisis model focused on breaking down confining bonds, chipping away at that adult façade to return to the fountain of youth, Xers are still in full construction mode. 'I've made a list – it's the 'do-better' list,' Leslie Mann's character tells her husband in Judd Apatow’s flawed but occasionally insightful 'This Is 40.'"3."12 Words that Survived by Getting Fossilized in Idioms" At mentalfloss.com, Arika Okrent looks at words you only ever use in an idiom. Where would 'to' be without 'fro'? But where is 'fro' anyway?"The 'fro' in 'to and fro' is a fossilized remnant of a Northern English or Scottish way of pronouncing 'from.' It was also part of other expressions that didn't stick around, like 'fro and till,' 'to do fro' (to remove), and 'of or fro' (for or against)."4."Ladies, Comics Aren't for You"At i09, Mydearpeabody isn't just discussing some diffuse misogyny in the world of comics. Inspired by a piece in the New Republic on Mark Millar and a panel discussion featuring Todd MacFarlane and Gerry Conway, she is walking us through their offensive assumptions about women and comics."It's a circular argument to say that you're not going to create interesting female characters, and then whine that you don't do it because no one is interested in them. If you haven't been creating many of them, and the ones you have been creating are flat, or women in refrigerators, or narrative devices to further male characters' plotlines, then no, I imagine most people don't find them that interesting."5."Forget Kickstarter: How Obama's New Law Could Change Hollywood Crowd-funding" The Hollywood Reporter's Paul Bond looks at how a government initiative intended to allow start-ups raise money with fewer restrictions may change moviemaking."Here's how it works: Now, startups are required to pitch investment
An Orson Welles film thought to be lost forever is discovered, Karen Black's husband writes movingly about her battle with cancer, a pink planet rocks scientists' theories of planet formation, our very own Ignatiy Vishnevetsky has been keeping busy reviewing for other sites (we're cool with that) and Mark Millar is becoming themost powerful person in comic books.
Superman always seems to need to be revamped, revived, and recycled. He is, to use comics critic Tom Crippen's keen phrase, the mainstream comics' industry's "hood ornament." In this extensively annotated list, Simon Abrams picks the 10 most influential and astonishing visions of the Man of Steel.
Back then, I could watch Max Fleischer's Superman cartoons forever and never get bored. Today, the case is almost the same. Oh, those films have some of the finest animation I've ever seen--even by today's standards, the animation is phenomenal, right from the fluidity of the movements of the characters to the uncanny weight of the objects. The characters and objects had shadows too.
Great Movies
