With spring gently settling on the East Coast, I feel once again I’ve emerged from a confining cocoon of my own making. I don’t like cold, I don’t like snow, I don’t like winter sports. For me, everything goes decidedly downhill (no pun intended) after New Year’s. But now, I’m renewed. I raise my face to the sun, and movie … More Details

Jack Nicholson’s own story rivals any of his films. Born in New York City, he grew up in New Jersey. He grew up thinking his grandparents were his parents, and his mother, his older sister. When years later, he learned the truth, he realized he had no clue who his real father was, and he decided he was not all … More Details

Can it really be that Benjamin Braddock, the disaffected young man starting out his adult life in “The Graduate,” turns 73 today?
That character was of course immortalized in 1967 by a then unknown Dustin Hoffman, whose sheer talent and nervous energy compensated for a conspicuous absence of classic leading man attributes.
It’s sad to think young people today may know this gifted actor primarily as Ben Stiller’s hippy-dippy Dad in the execrable “Meet the Fockers” (2004). In truth, over the past fifteen or so years, almost invariably Hoffman’s performances have outclassed the movies featuring them.
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As we head into the Independence Day weekend, I wanted to suggest some classic titles scattered over the decades that each in their way evoke our country’s unique character. Some of these movies are overtly patriotic, portraying seminal moments and figures in our colorful history, while others delve into more complex, troubling periods and events which have also helped shape … More Details