Sunbathers pack the beach, practically butting elbows under striped cabanas while boats patrol the nearby water. No one dares breach the surf until one brave soul ventures forward, triggering a surge of swimmers and waders, determined to enjoy their fun…
Mark Ruffalo’s Book-Filled Film Career
In his best roles, Mark Ruffalo is maddeningly endearing. The forty-six-year-old is adept at conveying contradictions: an inherently decent guy with issues, someone you want to yell at one minute and hug the next. Ruffalo creates onscreen characters that we…
Remembering Anne Frank and other WWII youths
Anne Frank is a girl after a film and lit fan’s own heart: a vivacious teen who loved movie stars and words. “I can shake off everything if I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn,” she noted in her…
5 Reasons to Adore Chiwetel Ejiofor
The first thing that strikes you about Chiwetel Ejiofor is his eyes. They’re so expressive, almost hypnotic. So well do they telegraph intelligence and empathy that they do more than linger. They burn. Their intensity clicks faster than pronouncing his…
Andy Serkis: The Man in the Digital Mask
Actors love to disappear into roles, but few have done this as thoroughly as Andy Serkis. His voice, facial expressions, and body language give nuance and life to complex computer-animated characters, bringing him fame and accolades for his work while…
Films That Spun a Web of Romance
“The Amazing Spider-Man 2” swings into theaters on Friday, re-teaming Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone as the web-slinging superhero and his girlfriend Gwen Stacy. The two lead actors fell in love with a thwip! on the set of its 2012…
Tom Hardy: More Behind the Muscle
Tom Hardy has the muscular build and raspy voice of a bruiser, so it’s no wonder he’s often cast as a man comfortable with violence. Since his feature-film debut as an Army Ranger under siege in 2001’s “Black Hawk Down,”…
Ambition, anxiety and sci-fi disasters
Science, literature, and film give life to our dreams but never without consequence, it seems. Every invention, formula, or vision — even with benevolent intentions — has a countertale of tragedy from a lack of forethought or an unchecked ego.…
Film’s Visions of the Great Beyond
The film “Heaven Is for Real” opens in theaters in time for Easter Sunday, giving us another interpretation of what might occur in the afterlife. Based on the best-selling book of the same name, “Heaven Is for Real” shows what…
Alfonso Cuaron’s Skyward Spiral
Alfonso Cuarón is a “movie visionary of the highest order,” critics say – and we need no more proof of his focus and endurance than the path he took to launch “Gravity.” Still in theaters, “Gravity” stars Sandra Bullock and…