News

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

Every comedy team needs a straight man. Lou Costello had Bud Abbot. The Marx Brothers had Margaret Dumont. The Three Stooges had everyone they came in contact with. And while it may not sound like a good deal of fun to be the person setting up the funny folks for laughs, it does take a lot of skill to do it proficiently. And any comedian worth their weight in yuks knows the better the setup, the bigger the laugh.

This applies to many sitcoms, where the cast of zanies needs a steadily turning planet around which to wildly orbit. If you're really good at it, there could be multiple Primetime Emmys coming to you (e.g. Ed Asner won three for "The Mary Tyler Moore Show"). And if you happen to find yourself on "Gilligan's Island," while there might not...

Is that the smell of cigarette smoke filling the room? Did a thick layer of fog just descend on the city skyline? Has your inner voice started monologuing more than usual and with an air of suspicion? That’s right folks, Noir City Film Festival at Detroit’s Redford Theatre is set to return this month for it’s seventh annual showcase of murder, intrigue, trenched coats, and brimmed hats. As with every year, the festivities will be hosted by Eddie Muller of Turner Classic Movies‘ “Noir Alley” and will feature an international theme this year with foreign selections, as well as Hollywood films directed by non-American filmmakers like Otto Preminger and Hugo Fregonese.

2024’s Noir City: Detroit begins on Friday, September 20 with a double feature of “Victims of Sin” (1951) and “Night Editor” (1946). Directed by Emilio Fernández, one of the most prolific filmmakers from Mexican cinema’s Golden Age during the ’40s and ’50s,...

Every great screen performance expands the medium in its own way, giving audiences something to respond to, while offering fresh ideas to future actors. A select few can be said to have redefined the craft entirely: Orson Welles in “Citizen Kane,” Marlon Brando in “On the Waterfront,” Toshiro Mifune in “Rashomon” and Gena Rowlands in “A Woman Under the Influence.”

Rowlands died Wednesday at age 94, half a century after “A Woman Under the Influence” premiered at the New York Film Festival in 1974. Rowlands was the last to go from among a tight clique of titans — actors who transformed modern cinema: Peter Falk, Seymour Cassel, Ben Gazzara and, of course, Rowlands’ late husband, actor-director John Cassavetes.

Younger audiences who know Rowlands only as the memory-challenged older woman in “The Notebook” (directed by her son Nick Cassavetes) or for her Emmy-winning turn in “Hysterical Blindness” owe it to themselves to investigate her most important work,...

Gena Rowlands, a multiple Emmy winner whose captivating work in A Woman Under the Influence and as the elder and dementia-ridden Allie in The Notebook also moved moviegoers, died Wednesday surrounded by family at her home in Indian Wells, CA. She was 94.

No cause of death was given, but the retired actress had been battling Alzheimer’s disease, ironic in light of her famous film role.

She retired from Hollywood in 2015 after earning four Emmy Awards, two Golden Globes and two Oscar nominations. Her Oscar noms included A Woman Under the Influence and Gloria, both borne of collaborations with her late husband, John Cassavetes. The duo made an indelible mark on American independent film, not just for the often revelatory end product, but also for the DIY way they made their movies.

A Woman Under the Influence was prompted by Rowlands, who wanted to delve into the difficulties faced by...

This post contains spoilers for "Soylent Green" and its source material.

Richard Fleischer's 1973 dystopian sci-fi classic, "Soylent Green," ends with a shocking revelation. Set in a future consumed by ecocide — thanks to unchecked overpopulation and the depletion of resources that came with it — New York City stands on the brink of collapse. The increasing divide between the affluent and the poor has prompted riots over the artificial wafers made by the Soylent Corporation, and their latest product, the plankton-rich Soylent Green, remains coveted, while the rich indulge in organic delicacies. After NYPD detective Robert Thorn (Charlton Heston) gets embroiled in a conspiracy, he learns that the plankton claimed to produce Soylent Green has gone extinct, and that the key ingredients in the wafer instead come from human bodies. "Soylent Green is people!" he shouts in anguish to the crowd assembling around him in the end, devastated that the truth might never be uncovered.

Tom Cruise’s Interview With The Vampire Role Was Offered To Another Actor ( Photo Credit – Wikimedia )

Tom Cruise is arguably one of the biggest action movie stars in the world. Before being cast in the world-renowned franchise Mission Impossible, he had led highly successful films, including “Top Gun” and “Born on the Fourth of July.”

Starring in movies like “Rain Man” and the 1996 hit film “Interview With The Vampire” proved the action star could also shine as a dramatic actor. But director Neil Jordan revealed Tom Cruise wasn’t the first choice to play Lesat. The movie was adapted from Anne Rice’s original book of the same name.

In an excerpt from his new memoir, published in The Telegraph, Jordan reflected on his decision to cast Tom Cruise opposite Brad Pitt, revealing he originally offered the role to Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis.

Trending Top Gun: Maverick Sequel Update Shared By Film’s Producer,...

When Neil Jordan’s “Interview With the Vampire” film adaptation released in 1994, Tom Cruise was already a worldwide star. He had led the highly successful “Risky Business” and “Top Gun” and received an Oscar nomination for “Born on the Fourth of July.” But, not everyone was convinced he could play the titular vampire, Lestat de Lioncourt, and his casting caused a considerable amount of backlash among fans of Anne Rice’s original book.

In an excerpt from his new memoir published in The Telegraph, director Jordan reflected on his decision to cast Cruise opposite Brad Pitt and the outrage that followed, recalling how he originally offered the role to Daniel Day-Lewis.

“The problem was the casting of Lestat. Brad Pitt had agreed to play Louis and somehow assumed Daniel Day-Lewis would be playing Lestat, an assumption shared by Anne. I offered it to Daniel, who read it, and, as I expected,...

Spider-Man Noir may have spent the past few years off somewhere staring at matches as they burn, but the hilariously melodramatic Spider-Verse character played by Nicolas Cage will officially return in a new show on MGM+ and Amazon's Prime Video, according to Variety. What's wilder: the show will be live action.

The new show will be called "Noir," and this isn't the first time we've heard about it: the show was first announced back in February 2023, but Cage's casting wasn't confirmed at that time. In fact, a month earlier the beloved actor actually told ScreenRant that he wasn't going to be included in "Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse," a decision he seemed bummed about. "You'd have to ask Sony," he told the outlet when asked about the future of his character. "No one's spoken to me about that ... I wish they would. I love Spider-Man Noir, too. I think that's a great character.

Synopsis: As an intimate portrait of William Shatner’s personal journey across nine decades of a boldly lived and fully realized life, William Shatner: You Can Call Me Bill strips away all the masks he has worn during his storied career to reveal the man behind it all.

Review: William Shatner is a legendary actor better known for his iconic performance as Captain James T. Kirk in the original Star Trek television series and films. He holds a unique place in Hollywood history. A fan favorite for over sixty years with a career on stage and screen as a writer and singer, and having traveled to space, Shatner’s legacy has built him a dedicated fanbase worldwide. Having written memoirs and shared his life story in many forms of media, You Can Call Me Bill is a unique documentary that does not follow the conventional format we have come to...

On Blue Lips, Schoolboy Q’s first album since 2019’s utterly unremarkable Crash Talk, there’s a sense that the Los Angeles rapper is trying to make up for lost time. He exudes an assured confidence throughout that, unlike past releases like 2016’s Black Face LP, makes it feel like he has something to prove. He’s able to whip up an endless amount of versatile and oddball flows, and does so with an equally fresh and flippant demeanor.

Schoolboy delivers each word on “Pop” with a tossed-off precision that’s both laser-focused to fit the track’s rhyme scheme and casual in its cadence. He punctuates the word “pop” with a snickering snarl, accompanied by the sound of a pistol being fired. Later in the track, he lowers his voice to a scruffy register, furiously spitting his words out. The entire song, including a notably batshit Rico Nasty feature,...

Planet of the Apes is one of the most successful and durable science fiction franchises in Hollywood history. Starting in 1968 with the original film, the Apes series has generated more than $2.1 billion in box office grosses over the course of just nine movies, with a highly-anticipated 10th entry, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, due for release this May. The property has also spawned both a live-action and animated TV series, books, comics, video games, and toys – the latter produced in the wake of the first film’s success and arguably the template for future movie merchandising campaigns.

And yet, as we’ve seen over and over again with blockbuster pop culture milestones like Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, and numerous others, Hollywood at the beginning was loathe to touch the property. After publicist-turned-producer Arthur P. Jacobs secured the rights to the novel upon which the original film was based,...

The Screen Actors Guild has been presenting its annual life achievement award for many decades. The most recent recipient for 2024 was double Oscar winner Barbra Streisand.

For the 2023 event, Sally Field was the latest veteran performer to receive the Screen Actor’s Guild life achievement award. Starting in 1995, audiences around the world have been able to enjoy this celebration of a beloved thespian’s work, crammed right in the middle of a nail-biting awards telecast. In honor of De Niro’s accomplishment, let’s take a look back at every person to be given this prize since the event was first televised. Our gallery includes Helen Mirren, Robert De Niro, Alan Alda, Morgan Freeman, Carol Burnett, Rita Moreno, Betty White, Shirley Temple and more.

SAG began handing out a career achievement prize to actors who left their mark on both the big screen and small in 1962. It wasn’t until...

For most of us, the Planet of the Apes movies have always been around. Spanning five decades and ten movies – and counting – it’s hard to imagine a world without that race of hyper-intelligent monkeys and their everlasting war against man. We take this extended universe for granted, but it wasn’t always this way. It’s probably not hard to believe that at one time, the concept of a world populated by talking apes wasn’t thought of as a box office draw, and if it hadn’t been for the determination of a handful of true believers in the material, we may never have gotten one movie, let alone an entire franchise. So let’s go back in time a bit to a world without Dr. Zaius and the gang and find out Wtf Happened to Planet of the Apes?

We’re going back as far as 1963, when...

Norman Jewison, who directed Best Picture Oscar winner In the Heat of the Night and nominees Fiddler on the Roof, A Soldier’s Story, Moonstruck and The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming, also producing the latter four, died peacefully Saturday, January 20. He was 97.

Jewison’s film career spanned more than four decades and seven Oscar nominations — three for Best Director and the four for Best Picture. His films received a total of 46 nominations and 12 Academy Awards. In 1999, Jewison was honored with the prestigious Irving G. Thalberg Award at the Academy Awards. He also collected three Emmy Awards for his work in television.

A smattering of his other wide-ranging work includes The Hurricane, Agnes of God, Rollerball (1975) and Jesus Christ Superstar, all of which he also produced. As a producer, Jewison had an eye for talent, as well.

The moment Elvis Presley stepped in front of the camera for his second appearance on "The Milton Berle Show" in 1956, there was no doubt that this young man was destined for more than pop music superstardom. Much more.

Conversationally, he was downright adorable with his boyish good looks and aw-shucks Southern shyness, but once the music kicked in he was transformed into a hunk of burning lust. That gyrating pelvis and run-riot voice spurred sexual awakenings in living rooms across the country (in full view of outraged parents). To teenagers, Elvis belted out a call to rebellion. To parents, he was a pompadoured incubus. To Hollywood, he was singing, swaggering box-office gold.

Between 1956 and 1972, Elvis starred in 31 features and two concert films. There were lulls (particularly when his popularity faded prior to his 1968 comeback special), but for the most part Elvis reliably packed 'em in. According to producer Hal B. Wallis...

In real life, cigarettes and cigars are a nasty vice that assail the olfactory nerve with a thick, pungent odor capable of leaving clothes, car interiors, and whole rooms smelling like ashtrays. They're also incredibly addictive and, when one's habit stretches out over decades, ruinous to an individual's health.

In movies, however, they're instant atmosphere machines that can, when wielded by an actor who knows how to smoke with style, heighten a character's sense of sophistication or sex appeal. Marlene Dietrich defined pre-code cinematic carnality with her wickedly sensuous French inhale in "Shanghai Express," while Humphrey Bogart conveyed marrow-deep weariness with every heavy exhale in "Casablanca." As for cigars, conjure up an image of Edward G. Robinson, and you'll invariably see the sawed-off star with a stogie clenched between his sausage-thick fingers.

Though the entire world has long been tragically aware of how deadly a nicotine addiction can be, films...

Hollywood, with its lengthy list of Jewish founders, flourished during an era of rampant antisemitism. In recent years, the Anti-Defamation League has said anti-Jewish sentiment has hit levels unseen since after the Great Depression, a time when Jewish studio moguls had difficulty securing bank loans as many lenders would not work with Jews. Now, in Los Angeles specifically, an Adl report (released months before the Israel-Hamas conflict) found harassment and vandalism increasing to highs.

On Nov. 8, the Los Angeles Museum of Tolerance hosted a screening of footage produced by Hamas to brag about murdering Jews. During the screening, the head of the Museum of Tolerance, Rabbi Marvin Hier, reminded viewers that if not for atrocities like the one on Oct. 7, the Jewish global population should be 200 million today, but “there are only 14 million because we are the leftovers of pogroms.” The screening, organized in part by Gal Gadot, saw protestors...

Locked In is a mystery thriller film directed by Alex Baranowski, from a screenplay by Rowan Joffé. The Netflix film revolves around Lina, an unhappy newlywed woman who has a hostile relationship with her mother-in-law Katherine. An affair starts a chain reaction that ends up in betrayal and murder. Locked In stars Famke Janssen, Rose Williams, Anna Friel, Finn Cole, and Alex Hassell. So, if you loved the Netflix film here are some similar movies you could watch next.

Gone Girl (Max & Prime Video Add-On) Credit – 20th Century Fox

Synopsis: Gone Girl, directed by David Fincher and based upon the global bestseller by Gillian Flynn, unearths the secrets at the heart of a modern marriage. On the occasion of his fifth wedding anniversary, Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) reports that his beautiful wife, Amy (Rosamund Pike), has gone missing. Under pressure from the police and a growing media frenzy, Nick’s...

Gangsters, mobsters, thugs, and mugs. Organized crime holds the upper tier of the international cinematic commission. “Crime pays,” Edward G. Robinson, who played Rico Bandello in the seminal gangster film Little Caesar (1931), is famous for saying. “But only in the movies.” When a good mob movie is on the table, it is an offer no filmmaker can refuse. There is more intrigue, suspense, violence, mayhem, and madness to be found in the criminal element than any other genre.

“Gone are the days of the gangsters,” audiences heard for years, usually in movies about mobsters. They always rise up, even if they are splattered across the ornate fountains of their gangland mansions in the last frame, like Al Pacino’s Tony Montana in Brian DePalma’s Scarface (1983), or rolling down the steps of a church, dead from a hail of bullets. That’s how James Cagney’s Eddie Bartlett went out in The Roaring Twenties (1939). Now,...

Peter Gonzales Falcon, the Texan who starred as a young Federico Fellini in the director’s semi-autobiographical Roma, has died, according to his friend Aurelio Montemayor. He was 75.

Gonzales Falcon got his start with a bit part in Viva Max (1969), a satirical film about a modern-day Mexican general (Peter Ustinov) who retakes the Alamo.

The actor went on to model for a year in London before he landed the role that would make his career.

In 2018, Gonzales Falcon related the story of auditioning for Fellini after being recommended by actor Eugene Walter, a friend of a friend:

I went to Cinecittà where there was a line about a block long with young men wanting to meet Fellini. I went around the line to the main door and buzzed. The door was opened by Liliana [Fellini’s longtime assistant] who looked like a little Edward G. Robinson and even had a cigar in her mouth.

Nicolas Cage, Joel Kinnaman in Sympathy For The Devil Photo: Rlje Films In 2013, it was mostly serious cinephiles who saw the movie Locke, in which Tom Hardy traverses the highways at night, trying to get to his mistress who’s going into labor. It’s pretty much a one-man show,...

Nicolas Cage, Joel Kinnaman in Sympathy For The DevilPhoto: Rlje Films

In 2013, it was mostly serious cinephiles who saw the movie Locke, in which Tom Hardy traverses the highways at night, trying to get to his mistress who’s going into labor. It’s pretty much a one-man show, with...

This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movie being reviewed here wouldn't exist.

There are two types of Nicolas Cage movies. There are legitimately good films that remind us he's a genuinely good, even great, actor — films like "Mandy" and "Pig." And then there's everything else. We're talking smaller films in which Cage and his wacko performance are usually the only interesting things to grab hold of. "Sympathy For the Devil" is more the latter than the former. No one is going to accuse this of being one of Cage's better films, but it is a good delivery system for Cage's usual wild man antics. He's once again given free rein to do what he wants, and what he wants to do, at least here, is to go off the deep end.

Which is fine!

Here’s looking at Warner Bros. which is celebrating its 100th anniversary. Earlier this year, Turner Classic Movies, which is a member of the Warner Bros. Discovery family, celebrated the centennial with a monthlong tribute to the studio that gave the world such landmark films as 1927’s “The Jazz Singer,” the first feature with synchronized recorded singing and some dialogue; the ultimate gangster flick 1931’s “Public Enemy,: the glorious 1938 swashbuckler “The Adventures of Robin Hood”; and the beloved 1942 “Casablanca.

And during its Golden Age, its roster of stars included such legends as Rin-Tin-Tin, John Barrymore, Edward G. Robinson, James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, Kay Francis, Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, Paul Muni, John Garfield and Sydney Greenstreet.

Max is currently streaming the four-part documentary series “100 Years of Warner Bros.” (the first two episodes premiered at Cannes). And also arriving this week is the lavish coffee table book “Warner Bros.

I’ve loved gangster movies since I was four years old and saw Humphrey Bogart and Sylvia Sidney in Dead End (1937) on TV, and Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway in Bonnie and Clyde (1967) at the movies (My dad pinched a lobby card for me). Every Friday night, a local NYC station ran old crime flicks on a slot called “Tough Guys.” Bogart, James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, and George Raft were the faces over the title. Today that might be Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Wesley Snipes, and James Gandolfini.

The gangster and crime genre produced some of the most influential films in cinema history. Mervyn LeRoy’s Little Caesar (1931), William A. Wellman’s The Public Enemy (1931), and Howard Hawks’ Scarface (1932), get a lot of credit for breaking ground in topics beyond criminality, shattering sexual taboos as well as the boundaries of acceptable visual violence. High Sierra (1941) and White Heat...

This post contains spoilers for the seventh episode of "Perry Mason" season 2.

The latest episode of "Perry Mason" has this season's mystery close to wrapping up, and in doing so has given us insight into one of the show's meanest characters -- the hardboiled, sometimes-violent businessman, Lydell McCutcheon, played by Paul Raci ("Sound of Metal").

I had the chance to talk with Raci about playing Lydell, including what he used for inspiration. "I had to look to my grandfather, who was a racist S.O.B.," he told me about one of the major influences on his performance. "I grew up in the '50s and he was trying very hard to teach me how to be a racist [...] He wore the same clothes, the same hat in the '50s, and was a racist because he was full of fear. Just like Lydell is."

Our conversation delved deeper into...

Hmmm, now this is a strange bit of film release synergy. Now the big studio-wide release this weekend is Renfield which can be called a horror/comedy hybrid (though it’s also an action thriller satire). The other small studio flick also blends comedy with another very popular genre, crime. To be more specific it’s a crime-family comedy, hence the use of that “reviled” (to some) word. Oh, and there’s a “gender-switch” as a woman takes the seat at the head of the table for the “sit-down”. Hey, if there can be a godfather, then why not a Mafia Mamma?

The story kicks into high gear “across the pond” in the “old country”, Italy, soon after a gun battle that produces lots of casualties for both warring factions. This prompts a long-distance phone call from the Balbano family “advisor” Bianca (Monica Bellucci) to a relative in the States,...

Michael Keaton in Batman Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures In a special series, The A.V. Club looks at the legacy of Warner Bros. 100 years after the studio was founded.Los Angeles had already established itself as the movie-making capital of the world by 1923. Construction had just finished on the Hollywood sign,...

“The Ten Commandments” is the 1956 epic religious drama feature produced, directed and narrated by Cecil B. DeMille, based on the 1949 novel “Prince of Egypt” by Dorothy Clarke Wilson, the 1859 novel “Pillar of Fire” by J. H. Ingraham, the 1937 novel “On Eagle's Wings” by A. E. Southon and the “Book of Exodus”, found in the ‘Bible’, starring Charlton Heston (“Planet of the Apes”):

“…the ‘Ten Commandments’ dramatizes the biblical story of the life of ‘Moses, an adopted Egyptian prince who becomes the deliverer of the enslaved ‘Hebrews’ and leads the ‘Exodus’ to ‘Mount Sinai’, where he receives the ‘Ten Commandments’…”

Cast also includes Yul Brynner (“Westworld”) as ‘Rameses’, Anne Baxter as ‘Nefretiri’, Edward G. Robinson as ‘Dathan’…

…Yvonne De Carlo (“The Munsters”) as ‘Sephora’, Debra Paget as ‘Lilia’, John Derek as ‘Joshua, Sir Cedric Hardwicke as ‘Seti I, Nina Foch as ‘Bithiah’, Martha Scott as ‘Yochabel’, Judith Anderson as ‘Memnet...

David Zaslav went office-furniture shopping when he moved into the executive building on the Warner Bros. lot last year. The new CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery had Jack L. Warner’s large dark-wood desk pulled out of storage for his use. He also found a leather legal pad holder once clutched by another of his predecessors at the storied studio: Steven J. Ross.

Zaslav wanted these totems in his sunken workspace overlooking Olive Avenue in Burbank to show the formidable legacy, in business and in popular culture, he has inherited.

“I wanted them to remind me that we need to show as much courage now in leading this business as the Warner brothers did in launching it one hundred years ago,” Zaslav says. As the studio marks the centennial of its incorporation as Warner Bros. Pictures Inc., the company has never been more focused on using the wealth of intellectual property assets,...

Jack Warner and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover Photo: Bettmann In a special series, The A.V. Club looks at the legacy of Warner Bros. 100 years after the studio was founded.It’s sad to see the once mighty Warner Bros. studio celebrate its 100th anniversary in a state of chaos and disarray.

This post contains spoilers for "John Wick: Chapter 4."

The label "direct-to-video" used to be a death knell for filmmakers and movie fans alike. In the early days of home video, the term typically referred to features that weren't good enough to get theatrical distribution, causing studios to subsequently dump them onto the shelves of Blockbusters and Hollywood Videos, where — via gaudy box art, ridiculous taglines and/or highlighting the name of a slumming movie star or a legit celebrity (who would likely only have a cameo role) — they would try to entice naïve renters to check it out.

It can be exceedingly difficult for a subgenre to change a poor reputation, but everything started to change once theatrical distribution was no longer the only game in Hollywood as video, cable, and streaming services became more ubiquitous. One of the people who has been dragging the name of direct-to-video B-movies out...

One of the most time-consuming aspects of being a cinephile is worrying about the health and longevity of TCM. The venerable broadcast television channel dedicated to classic Hollywood cinema has grown since its 1994 launch into a kind of preservationist and enthusiast's empire that includes an annual film festival, an original film distribution arm, a releasing imprint, and a slew of diverse programming initiatives (not to mention a wine club). TCM certainly seems to be in better health than most entities dedicated segments of the film ecosystem that are -- by virtue of not being focused on the biggest, brightest, latest thing -- not exactly profit drivers. It has survived both a massive merger between AT&T and its parent company, Time Warner, and a subsequent divestment of AT&T and acquisition by Discovery in all but five years, after all.

But the brand's new overlord, Warner Bros. Discovery, shelving completed films...

This story is part of The Hollywood Reporter’s 2023 Sustainability Issue (click here to read more).

In 1970, 20 million Americans participated in the first Earth Day. One of the more alarming predictions that day was from Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich, who foresaw a future in which “population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make,” resulting in the starvation death of hundreds of millions.

Hollywood took notice and released a string of eco-disaster films in the years to follow.

In 1972’s Silent Running, a science fiction film starring Bruce Dern — and directed by 2001: A Space Odyssey effects master Douglas Trumbull — all plant life on Earth has gone extinct. And 1973’s Soylent Green, with Charlton Heston (who had starred in two other sci-fi hits, 1968’s Planet of the Apes and 1971’s The Omega Man), took Ehrlich’s ideas to scary, if campy, extremes.

Helmed by Richard Fleischer...

Gambling and casinos have always been popular themes in movies, and there have been many great films made on this subject over the years. From tense poker games to high-stakes heists, the world of gambling has provided plenty of material for filmmakers to work with. Here are some of the greatest films with gambling and casino themes ever made.

Casino (1995)

Martin Scorsese’s epic tale of the rise and fall of a casino boss, Casino, is a classic film that is often cited as one of the greatest gambling movies ever made. The film follows the story of Sam “Ace” Rothstein, played by Robert De Niro, who is hired by the Mob to run the Tangiers casino in Las Vegas. With his best friend, Nicky Santoro, played by Joe Pesci, at his side, Ace builds an empire but finds himself struggling to maintain control as his personal and professional life spiral out of control.

Ted Donaldson, who starred as Bud Anderson on the original radio version of Father Knows Best and as Neely Nolan in the beloved family drama A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, the first feature directed by Elia Kazan, has died. He was 89.

Donaldson died Wednesday of complications from a fall in his Echo Park apartment in January, his friend Thomas Bruno told The Hollywood Reporter.

In his big-screen debut, Donaldson portrayed a boy who gets his pet caterpillar Curly to dance when he plays “Yes Sir, That’s My Baby” on the harmonica in the comedy fantasy Once Upon a Time (1944), starring Cary Grant and Janet Blair.

He also starred as Danny Mitchell in eight B-movies from Columbia Pictures that revolved around a German shepherd named Rusty. The first one, Adventures of Rusty (1945), featured Ace the Wonder Dog.

An only child, Donaldson was born in Brooklyn on Aug. 20, 1933. His father was...

Raquel Welch had a 50-plus year career in film and television, starring opposite Marcello Mastroianni, Edward G. Robinson, Robin Williams, Jimmy Stewart, Faye Dunaway, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Farrah Fawcett, Jim Brown, Burt Reynolds, Dyan Cannon, James Coburn and many others.

Her breakout role came as Cora in the wild 1966 sci-fi pic Fantastic Voyage, opposite Stephen Boyd, Edmund O’Brien and Arthur Kennedy. Welch then starred as a cavewoman in the 1966 film One Million Years B.C. Her next major film was with Mae West and John Huston in the title role of Myra Breckinridge. She later starred opposite Richard Chamberlain, Oliver Reed and Michael York in 1973’s The Three Musketeers, for which she won a Golden Globe.

Related: Raquel Welch Dies: ‘Fantastic Voyage’, ‘One Million Years B.C.’, & ‘Myra Breckinridge’ Star Was 82

While often celebrated for her appearance, Welch also essayed more serious roles such as the 1987 television drama Right to Die,...

The period Los Angeles film noir makes a return courtesy of director Neil Jordan. Liam Neeson makes a turn as Raymond Chandler’s famous gumshoe detective, Philip Marlowe, in what initially looks like a slight departure from his second career as an action star. However, this detective can still scrap with the best of Neeson’s other characters with a particular set of skills. The trailer has just been unveiled via the production company Open Road. Neeson is joined by an all-star cast including Diane Kruger, Jessica Lange, Alan Cumming, Danny Huston, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, and Colm Meaney.

The official synopsis from Open Road reads,

Marlowe, a gripping noir crime thriller set in late 1930’s Los Angeles, centers around a street-wise, down on his luck detective; Philip Marlowe, played by Liam Neeson, who is hired to find the ex-lover of a glamorous heiress (Diane Kruger), daughter of a well-known movie star...

After bearing his fangs as Dracula yesterday in Chris McKay’s Renfield trailer, Nicolas Cage is ready to give an update about his Spider-Man Noir character from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. With so many Spider-people swinging in for Sony and Marvel’s animated sequel, Spider-Man Noir will be among them. Wrong. According to an exclusive report from Screen Rant, Cage says his moody and monochromatic version of the wall-crawler will not appear in the sequel, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.

While talking about Cage’s new (and first) Western film, The Old Way, Screen Rant’s Caitlin Tyrrell asked if the unpredictable actor was involved in the upcoming animated film. Sadly, the answer is no.

“You’d have to ask Sony,” Cage confessed to Tyrrell. “I don’t know what’s going on with that. No one’s spoken to me about that. Ask them. I don’t know. I really don’t.

When 2018's "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" burst onto the scene and instantly established itself as a new fan-favorite spin on the classic superhero, many considered it to be the result of a perfect storm of timing, inspiration, and creativity. For one thing, remember just how uncertain and pieced-together the entire production of the film really was. Had it come out just a few years later, the multiverse novelty of it all might have worn thin already. And incredibly enough, it came at a time when the casting of Nicolas Cage as Spider-Man Noir (of all characters!) could be properly appreciated for the stroke of genius that it was.

Now that Cage's stock has risen ever higher, thanks to projects like "Pig," "The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent," and most recently the inspired choice to have him embody Dracula himself in "Renfield," one would have assumed that his involvement in the "Spider-Verse" sequel,...

Home video label Vinegar Syndrome is celebrating its 10th anniversary this week, and today brings along with it the launch of a brand new sub-label from the company.

Titled Vinegar Syndrome Labs (Vsl), the aim of the sub-label is to expand and defy expectations with the diversity of films the company restores and releases. The team explains, “As the name implies, Vsl will serve as a kind of testing area for releasing genres and eras of film that one might not immediately expect to come from Vs.

“The ultimate objective of Vsl will be to see if these types of films will find an audience, and if so, pursue and release more of them…and even if not, still serve as a means of restoring more of the weird, rare, and unusual movies you might not expect from Vinegar Syndrome.”

The first release from the new label, now available for pre-order,...

Click here to read the full article.

In 2022, Hollywood said goodbye to many actors, singers, performers, creatives, executives and all-around industry icons who had a great impact on the entertainment world during their lifetimes.

The Hollywood Reporter is highlighting some of the most well-known names who died in 2022.

Below are this year’s most notable deaths in Hollywood.

Kirstie Alley Kirstie Alley

Kirstie Alley, the Emmy-winning comic actress known for her turns on Cheers, Veronica’s Closet and the three Look Who’s Talking films, died in December. She was 71. Full obituary.

Louie Anderson

Louie Anderson, the big-hearted everyman who rose to fame as a stand-up comic, then channeled the spirit of his late mother for his Emmy-winning turn as Christine Baskets on the FX series Baskets, died on Jan. 21. He was 68. Read his obituary.

Peter Bogdanovich Peter Bogdanovich

Peter Bogdanovich, the Oscar-nominated writer-director of The Last Picture Show whose career, which...

Here’s something we’re not allowed to say about Ye/Kanye West’s recent series of antisemitic tirades: there’s a small grain of truth in them.

No, obviously not the conspiracy theories, Holocaust denial, or downright fascistic claims that people who don’t believe in Christ shouldn’t hold public office. Ye has clearly crossed over into either profound mental illness, or hatred, or both.

But it is true that Hollywood has a lot of Jewish people in it, right?

It should not be controversial to admit this.

Back in June, when this series covered Wild Things, I introduced neo-noirs as a response in the 70s and 80s to the noirs of the 40s and 50s. Historical film buffs will know that the Hays Code, which censored Hollywood films based on moral grounds, dictated edits to plot and character until it was abolished in 1968. This is one of the main reasons why films of the 70s began to lean into more gory, salacious and, yes, sexy material.

The 70s and 80s were ripe with remakes of film noirs because the coded violence and sexuality could finally be brought to the fore instead of hiding it in metaphor and innuendo. We’ll talk about several of these films in later entries of this column, but since it is Noirvember, why not use this opportunity to explore a text that cemented several erotic thriller conventions and tropes?

The Noir film...

Humphrey Bogart is one of the great icons of classic Hollywood. His trademark snarl and surprising romantic heroism sealed his legendary status in pop culture at large. For how inescapable his impact was, it's hard to imagine a period in sound film before him. But his rise to stardom took time. He wasn't exactly gunning down Nazis in Casablanca in his first year on the Warner Bros. lot.

What he was doing for most of his '30s performances was playing the background gangster in the studio's many crime melodramas. In movies with titles like "Bullets or Ballots" and "Racket Busters," audiences could rely on him showing up, grimacing, and probably dying in a moral way by movie's end. If he wasn't in a gangster movie, he could be oddly miscast, such as his appearance as an Irish stable master in the Bette Davis weepie "Dark Victory." No role was...

When Guillermo del Toro walks out of the darkness to introduce his “Cabinet of Curiosities,” he’s also walking directly out of the year 1969.

The eight-episode horror anthology has been in Netflix’s top 10 since its release Oct. 25. Each beautifully crafted episode begins with creator and host del Toro pulling an objet d’art from his elaborate cabinet to introduce the tale and its director, as well as a chess-piece-sized carving of each director.

In a tweet, del Toro explained some of the inspiration of his Cabinet: “First night: EC vibes,” he wrote, referring to the massively influential EC horror comics of the ‘50s such as Tales from the Crypt and The Vault of Horror. “Second night: unsettling and ‘now’, Third night: period/pulp classics and Final night: voices that, in my estimation, are clear and loud in the symphony of our genre.”

But del Toro goes much deeper in his introduction to the upcoming,...

Hollywood actors, writers and executives gathered at a memorial on Sunday in Santa Monica to remember power attorney Bert Fields with a string of stories about his legal prowess and sometimes unorthodox way of helping clients.

The larger-than-life litigator — with clients that included The Beatles, Warren Beatty, Tom Cruise, Edward G. Robinson and Michael Jackson — knew a lot of the secrets behind Hollywood scandals that happened throughout his six-decade-long career. Not to mention, he was yanked into a federal wiretapping and conspiracy probe into notorious private investigator Anthony Pellicano in the early 2000s.

The video that played to kick off the tribute addressed the controversies head-on — putting up a fake tabloid cover with the word “escandalo.” It also included a 1967 clip of his appearance on “Dragnet” (Jack Webb was a client) and a tribute from Tom Cruise.

“He’s a very unique adventure, someone I knew we could always count on.

This article contains Blonde spoilers.

Throughout Blonde, writer-director Andrew Dominik’s surreal, dreamlike, and often downbeat film based on Joyce Carol Oates’ fictionalized novel of the same name, the woman named Norma Jeane Mortensen—known to the world as Marilyn Monroe—is haunted by the almost spectral presence of her unseen father.

Played by Ana de Armas, Norma Jeane never gets to meet her father, who her mother (Julianne Nicholson) hints is a reputable figure in Hollywood whose life and career cannot be tarnished by the existence of an illegitimate daughter. But as Norma Jeane gets older and becomes famous as Marilyn Monroe, she does get phone calls and letters, some loving, others scolding, from the man. He’s a mysterious voice in an unsigned letter who nevertheless insists that they will meet up one day soon.

The absence of her father is an overwhelming weight in Marilyn’s life.

A mood of theatricality prevailed at this year’s edition – a bleak but furiously cinematic Marilyn Monroe biopic and a forbiddingly austere French courtroom drama being the most distinctive offerings

However stressful Venice can get – the sweat, the coffee queues, the ticketing system – it’s hard to feel disgruntled here for long. For a start, Venice has the world’s jolliest festival trailer, a gorgeously coloured animation of King Kong, acrobats and flying cowboys, all set to jangling ukulele. It puts you in a joyous mood at the start of every film, although it might not last when you’re confronted by something as brutally bleak as Andrew Dominik’s Blonde. Absolutely the hot ticket in the Venice competition, this is the much-awaited biopic of Marilyn Monroe, as imagined in the novel by Joyce Carol Oates.

Or, rather, it’s the story of “Marilyn Monroe”, the alter ego of a...

During the casting of "The Godfather," Paramount executives did not agree with director Francis Ford Coppola's choice of Marlon Brando for the iron-willed Vito Corleone. After a string of box office failures, on-set conflicts, and personal issues, they saw him as a temperamental has-been and prima donna. In his autobiography "Songs My Mother Taught Me," Brando admits even he thought he wasn't right for the part:

"I had never played an Italian before, and I didn't think I could do it successfully. They had to be convinced that he, not someone like Ernest Borgnine or Carlo Ponti, was perfect for the role."

But Brando proved he was the ideal choice, giving a hypnotic performance of sheer intensity and measured wisdom that went on to become his most iconic and earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor (though he famously declined the trophy and sent indigenous American rights activist...