News

"Joker 2," or "Joker: Folie à Deux" as absolutely nobody calls it, is finally here! And the results ... are mixed (although you can read our pretty positive review right here). For the sequel to his billion dollar hit "Joker," director Todd Phillips has made a film that deliberately sets out to interrogate the audience of the first film. "Oh, you liked Arthur Fleck?" Phillips is asking here. "Why??" In theory, this is a fascinating idea. I'm all for sequels that try to deconstruct and re-contextualize what came before. On top of that, "Joker 2" is a musical! All of this sounds great on paper.

Unfortunately, the film is a bit of a slog. It's so joyless and dour that watching it begins to feel like a chore. On top of that, Phillips seems genuinely afraid of embracing the musical aspect of the movie — which makes you wonder why the hell...

India Adams, the Hollywood "secret singer" who performed in MGM musicals for Cyd Charisse in The Band Wagon and for Joan Crawford in Torch Song, has died. She was 93.

Adams died Saturday at Providence Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center in Los Angeles after a short illness, a family spokesman announced. She was still performing as recently as last year.

In the classic The Band Wagon (1953), it was really Adams, not Charisse as ballerina Gabrielle Gerard, who is heard singing "New Sun in the Sky" and "That's Entertainment," the latter performed with Fred Astaire, Oscar Levant, Jack Buchanan ...

India Adams, the Hollywood "secret singer" who performed in MGM musicals for Cyd Charisse in The Band Wagon and for Joan Crawford in Torch Song, has died. She was 93.

Adams died Saturday at Providence Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center in Los Angeles after a short illness, a family spokesman announced. She was still performing as recently as last year.

In the classic The Band Wagon (1953), it was really Adams, not Charisse as ballerina Gabrielle Gerard, who is heard singing "New Sun in the Sky" and "That's Entertainment," the latter performed with Fred Astaire, Oscar Levant, Jack Buchanan ...

This sublime 1952 movie musical, in cinemas again, puts the artistry of Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds and co on full, joyful display

You can charm the critics but have nothing to eat! That’s the shrewd warning from Donald O’Connor’s character Cosmo Brown in his legendary song Make ’Em Laugh, in the equally legendary 1952 musical Singin’ in the Rain, written by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and now being rereleased. Forget about the hoity-toity critics and the clueless highbrows, Cosmo proclaims: the real duty – and real artistry – lies in entertaining people.

To some extent, cinema’s crisis of self-doubt is part of what drives this incredible film. Kathy Selden, played by Debbie Reynolds, is the wannabe actor and stern ingénue who lectures Gene Kelly’s genially complacent silent movie star Don Lockwood about the superiority of the legitimate theatre over the movies when they meet-cute. Nobody really believes that – not even Kathy,...

Fred Astaire ca. 1935. Fred Astaire movies: Dancing in the dark, on the ceiling on TCM Aug. 5, '15, is Fred Astaire Day on Turner Classic Movies, as TCM continues with its “Summer Under the Stars” series. Just don't expect any rare Astaire movies, as the actor-singer-dancer's star vehicles – mostly Rko or MGM productions – have been TCM staples since the early days of the cable channel in the mid-'90s. True, Fred Astaire was also featured in smaller, lesser-known fare like Byron Chudnow's The Amazing Dobermans (1976) and Yves Boisset's The Purple Taxi / Un taxi mauve (1977), but neither one can be found on the TCM schedule. (See TCM's Fred Astaire movie schedule further below.) Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals Some fans never tire of watching Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing together. With these particular fans in mind, TCM is showing – for the nth time – nine Astaire-Rogers musicals of the '30s,...

The Musicals Collection Blu-ray set from Warner Home Video contains four Hollywood classics of the genre, at least two of them among the greatest of all time: Kiss Me Kate, Calamity Jane, The Band Wagon, and Singin’ in the Rain. And all except for Singin’ in the Rain are making their Blu-ray debut. While the films may not rank equal in terms of quality—those latter two titles are the all-time greats—each of the transfers are outstanding, the movies themselves are still nevertheless enjoyable, and the set is a terrific bargain.

Kiss Me, Kate

Written by Dorothy Kingsley

Directed by George Sidney

USA, 1953

Kiss Me, Kate is offered in 2-D and 3-D versions. Though the 3-D is certainly not the best to grace a Blu-ray, it’s still the version to watch, even with the clichéd, though occasionally amusing gimmick of characters throwing things at the camera. However, it...

Diana Dors may be famous for all those flirty, saucy one-liners, but she had a sharp, knowing wit of her own, and was more serious an actor than she gets credit for

The early 50s is remembered as an era smeared with boredom, with Billy Cotton on the wireless and rationed gruel for dinner. In such a country, the beauty and easy charm of Diana Dors must have seemed like an insult to many people.

Dors is frequently referenced as Britain's "answer" to Marilyn Monroe, but a brace of Dors's films – My Wife's Lodger (1952) and Is Your Honeymoon Really Necessary? from 1953 – set for DVD release by the BFI – show a vibrant and underrated star with a decidedly English sass. Aside from her role as a convicted murderer in Yield to the Night, it is usually assumed that her acting talent was wasted on fripperies, yet she also had hefty roles in another prison drama,...

By Michael Atkinson

The idea of a "national" cinema, expressive of a particular and coherent cultural esprit, is a standard of most cinematic intercourse . until you confront the real map, in which Kosovar cinema is now primed to forge an identity of its own (as the Serbs and Slovenians have done), the ex-Soviet nations of the Silk Road are struggling to differentiate themselves from Russian film and the nationless movies of the Basque, the Romany and the Palestinians still hunt for footing and voice. Add to this gray zone the films of Kurdistan, a non-country standing nevertheless with its own army, government and debatable borders, and a nascent cinema rising with the ascent of the Iranian new wave and from the crater of the American occupation. Even within this context, Hiner Saleem is filmmaker on the roam . an Iraqi Kurd long expatriated to France, Saleem has made seven features, two in France,...