Citizen Kane (movie)

Film Independent at LACMA is holding a 1980s costume contest after the 30th anniversary screening of Martha Coolidge's endearing comedy "Valley Girl" on Thursday evening at the Leo S. Bing Theater. The romantic comedy was inspired by Frank Zappa and his...

Thumbs up to the American Cinematheque. The independent, nonprofit cultural organization is paying homage to the Pulitzer Prize-winning movie critic Roger Ebert with a new film series, "The Great Movies: A Tribute to Roger Ebert." The influential...

When it comes to old films, Robert Osborne is hard to stump. But this time he had to consult his notes. "Hold on, it's so obscure, even I don't remember the name of it," said Osborne, who has served as the main on-air host of Turner Classic Movies for...

This post has been corrected. See below for details. It seems like only yesterday — in fact, it was only yesterday — that I read that Roger Ebert was taking what he called, with typical verbal skill, "a leave of presence" to fight the cancer...

Roger Ebert, the Pulitzer Prize-winning movie critic whose gladiatorial "thumbs-up, thumbs-down" assessments turned film reviewing into a television sport and whose passion for independent film helped introduce a new generation of filmmakers to...

Donald Richie, an American expatriate in Japan who became that country's preeminent Western interpreter, explaining its culture — from cinema to Zen to tattoos — in books and essays that illuminated the author's psyche as much as that of his...

While it's true that there's only so much anyone can say about the Oscars, remember it can be said again and again. As a reader (and writer), I know by now that there are 10 abiding Oscar stories. Here they are, all in a single article: The history...

Richard Collins, a screenwriter during the McCarthy era who was blacklisted for several years before he cooperated with the Communist-hunting House Un-American Activities Committee, died Thursday in Ventura. The onetime Communist Party member was 98...

The strangest part of this story may be that in the middle of World War II, 74-year-old British author H.G. Wells took a train to Texas to speak to a meeting of the United States Brewers Assn. I can't quite figure out why he was tapped to speak there;...

Once in a while, a movie slips under your radar. For about, oh, 20 years. In 'Big-screen blind spot,' we sit down with those 'classic' movies everybody but us has seen and give them the nostalgia critic treatment. Confession: Until this week, I had never...

Now that Christmas is over, I have a new seasonal tune stuck in my head. Maybe it wasn't intended as a holiday song, but it's one I often find myself humming around the end of December and start of January: "Nothing Was Delivered," an obscure Bob Dylan...

First published on Dec. 25, 2011. Revised and expanded in early 2012. Pity the rubes. Those wayward tourists who dawdle in their cars and tour buses along Beachwood Drive, enraging the locals as they haltingly seek that perfect Hollywood sign photo op...