"60"

I can vividly recall the first moment I saw Meryl Streep on-screen. The film was “The Deer Hunter” (1978). Her part was relatively small — she played the stateside love interest of two men shipped off to Vietnam — but I was immediately struck by her presence. 

 Tonight, make it real; watch a doc.  Here’s a bugaboo of mine: while the documentary form offers viewers incredible rewards, it rarely gets the attention it deserves. Theories abound as to why, the most prominent being that people tend to watch movies to be transported, to actually get away from life as it is. Perhaps there’s some truth to that, but to avoid the best of these films is to miss out on something truly special. In examining real life, its myriad characters and society as a whole, docs can be wildly entertaining, yet still deliver a form of insight and impact quite distinct from narrative films.

Over the course of movie history, there have been the great actresses, women who light up the screen with charisma and character, like Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn, and Meryl Streep. There have also been women whose special gifts had more to do with the sexual allure they projected. Hey fellas, you must have noticed them, right? Brace yourselves then- here are our picks for the top twenty female cinematic sex symbols of all time. (Drum roll). 

Given the reverence for Hitchcock’s 1958 masterpiece today, people are often surprised to learn that on release, “Vertigo” was a bit of a dud, barely recouping its costs and generating only mixed reviews. This tangled tale of murder and obsession may simply have been too twisted for Eisenhower-era audiences to accept.

Did you know that both Lincoln and Kennedy have 7 Letters? Did you know that both were shot on a Friday? Just as uncanny is the connection between genial superstar Tom Hanks and his folksy predecessor, James “Jimmy” Stewart.   If there was any question that the two share cinematic auras for their respective generations, it was blown away when Hanks inhabited Stewart’s role from “The Shop Around the Corner” in the slick remake “You’ve Got Mail”. Their parallel command performances – studies in “aw shucks,” regular guy humility – make them both exasperatingly lovable middle-class heroes – everymen doing extraordinary things. The two stars’ respective charm-laden film careers have a great deal in common too, running the leading man gamut from drama to thriller to comedy (Stewart’s “The Philadelphia Story” is a little classier than Hanks loving on a sheep in “Bachelor Party,” but you get the idea).

Katharine Hepburn, whose birthday falls today, remains the only actor or actress to be awarded four Oscars. Yes, Meryl has long since surpassed her on nominations, but Kate still leads on wins. Few people now realize that by the end of 1938, after just six years in Hollywood, pundits were saying Kate was all washed up. In 1939, the year many point to as Hollywood’s finest, Kate didn’t have a single movie credit.  True, she got her first break early enough, as talking pictures in the early ‘30s were always searching for young, attractive Broadway-bred comers who could actually speak. Kate made an auspicious debut in 1932’s “A Bill Of Divorcement," opposite the aging, alcoholic John Barrymore (who played her father).

With this year’s Oscars just days away, in the media and around the water cooler we engage in the recurring debate about which films deserve to win, and which, in fact, will.

We're sad to report that legendary character actor Bob Hoskins passed away last night at the age of 71. Though he became a household name playing gumshoe Eddie Valiant in the ultimate "Odd Pair" film, "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?", Hoskins's original breakout role was in the tightly wound British Crime thriller, "The Long Good Friday."   "Friday" was a perfect role for the undersized British Bulldog. His delivery on lines like "Shut up, you long streak of paralyzed piss!" in the film's final monologue made that role unforgettable. Ever since, he's been stealing scenes in dozens of movies, turning smaller, flatter roles (often villains) into memorable, well-rounded characters using his trademark growl and receded hairline.  In 1986, he was nominated for an Oscar (winning a BAFTA and Golden Globe) for his role in the noir mystery "Mona Lisa" (which we've belatedly slated for the site!), but it was his gruff-and-tough role in "Roger Rabbit" that launched him into Hollywood's upper-echelon of go-to character actors. Since then, he's appeared in everything from "Mermaids" alongside Cher to the beautifully crafted "Paris, Je T'Aime." 

Frank Pavich’s documentary, “Jodorowsky’s Dune,” tells the remarkable story of director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s failure to make an adaptation of the sci-fi classic, “Dune.” But it’s also about the eternal conflict between art and commerce in Hollywood, and what can happen when an artist’s uncompromising vision of a film causes those opposing forces to collide.  In the end, what was to be Jodorowsky’s crowning achievement instead became a heartbreaking episode that truncated his career as a director.  The director and his producing partner, Michel Seydoux, had secured the rights to Frank Herbert’s wildly popular book and raised about $10 million to produce it. Jodorowsky was ecstatic, even manic. He scoured Europe for the finest artists to visualize the narrative he had pouring out of his mind. Every character, costume, spaceship, and set was meticulously designed and catalogued.