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Gia Coppola’s “The Last Showgirl” follows a week in the life of a Las Vegas showgirl named Shelly as she prepares to take her final curtain call. In its examination of the cost of living for your art and the toll of being undervalued by the world around you, it recalls another feminist showbiz classic, Dorothy Arzner’s “Dance, Girl, Dance,” which also centers on a pair of showgirls (played by Maureen O’Hara and Lucille Ball). In both films, women must navigate the male-dominated capitalist system in which they live, using their beauty as currency. Both films also confront the male gaze that supports and consumes them.

Coppola’s film begins with an empty black screen and the sound of high heels clacking on the floor. Soon, a close-up of Shelly fills the frame. She sports a baby pink cap bedazzled with rhinestones and full face of makeup. Coppola...

Francis Ford Coppola is nothing if not nostalgic. His work, from “The Godfather” to “Megalopolis,” echoes not only past periods of history, but also the cinema that’s influenced him since he was a child. In entering the Criterion Closet, Coppola didn’t come to simply select a few films to take home, but to also pay homage to those helped shape him and to his own work that took time to find appreciation. He started his visit by grabbing the Complete Jacques Tati set and comparing Tati’s experience financing “Playtime” to his own recent gamble on “Megalopolis,” acknowledging that many didn’t consider it a “masterpiece” at the time, whereas now they do.

“More than a masterpiece because it’s a gift of a really good time,” said Coppola, “a lot of fun for everybody.”

Coppola went on to take his own film, “Rumble Fish,” starring a young...

Laura Karpman will compose the score for Marvel’s “Captain America: Brave New World.“

Karpman is no stranger to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, having scored the music to the Disney+ series, “What If…?” and “The Marvels.”

The fourth Captain America film stars Anthony Mackie as flying superhero Sam Wilson, formerly known as Cap’s sidekick the Falcon. Mackie takes the mantle over from Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers, who starred in the previous three “Captain America” movies and the four “Avengers” movies.

This time around, Sam is greeted by Harrison Ford’s U.S. President Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, who wants to make Captain America a U.S. agent. The action heats up quickly as the superhero stops a would-be assassin at the White House. As previously confirmed, Ford’s Thunderbolt Ross will indeed, be transforming into the Red Hulk in the film.

The film set to be released in 2025, is directed...

Whether a viewer in 1896 or 2020, cinema has always been a dynamic and variable experience. Cinema as an event—as a manifestation of a meeting point between the art of moving images and an audience, big or small—has never fit any one definition, and this last year, so severely disrupted by a global pandemic, has deeply underscored the versatility and resilience of our great love.Our viewing this year, like that of so many, has been strange: compromised, confrontational, escapist, euphoric, painful, revelatory—encompassing all of the reactions one can have to film. How we encountered our favorite movies and most meaningful cinematic experiences of the year was hardly new: A by-now-normal mix of festivals, theatres, various subscription and transactional streaming services, as well as private screener links and gems buried on over-stuffed hard drives. But for most of the year, the communal experience shrunk to living rooms and glowing screens.