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The Turner Classic Movies (TCM) network unveiled themes, spotlights, and stars it will feature in 2025, as well as the year’s tentpole events and returning podcasts. Last year the network celebrated its 30th anniversary.

Among offerings this year will be 31 Days of Oscar, the second iteration of Two-for-One films, Summer Under the Stars and monthly birthday celebrations of the legends who made their mark on the industry. Also announced during the festival was the renewal of Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg and Paul Thomas Anderson’s stewardship to TCM through 2025.

TCM will celebrate a different star every month, including Elvis Presley on what would have been his 90th birthday, Peter Sellers, Angela Lansbury, Rock Hudson, Paul Newman, Tony Curtis and Donald O’Connor on what would be their 100th birthdays, as well as Dick Van Dyke, on his 100th birthday in December. Other stars featured throughout the year include George Raft, Barbara Stanwyck,...

Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg and Paul Thomas Anderson have renewed their commitment to Turner Classic Movies, and George Stevens Jr. and Michael Schultz will be honored at the TCM Classic Film Festival in April, it was announced Saturday.

TCM also noted that new episodes of Two for One will return to the channel in April, with filmmakers and Ben Mankiewicz co-hosting a double feature on Saturday nights. Joe Dante, Kathy Bates and Jamie Lee Curtis will be among the guests.

TCM will continue to celebrate a different star every month, like Elvis Presley on what would have been his 90th birthday; Peter Sellers, Angela Lansbury, Rock Hudson, Paul Newman, Tony Curtis and Donald O’Connor on what would have been their 100th birthdays; and Dick Van Dyke on his 100th birthday in December.

George Raft, Barbara Stanwyck, Red Skelton, Mae West, Gary Cooper and Merle Oberon will also be featured throughout 2025.

During its 31st year,...

In the entire history of the Academy Awards, only six Best Picture winners have been 100 minutes or less. It seems that traditional, Oscar-bait "prestige" pictures tend to run long, attracting Academy voters with their sheer volume. Extra-long films are also a little rare, though, as only five Best Picture Winners are 200 minutes or more. Additionally, a whopping 18 Best Pictures have been between 160 and 195 minutes, so voters clearly don't mind longer movies. Indeed, the average length of a Best Picture winner is 136 minutes. In terms of cinematic storytelling, that seems to be the sweet spot. 

Of course, Roger Ebert's adage needs to be mentioned. The famed critics once posited that no good movie is too long, and no bad movie is short enough. The actual length of a film doesn't really matter, so long as it's a quality picture, and it makes good use of its time. Personally, I feel...

Sabrina Carpenter spent 2024 giving fans exactly what they didn’t know they needed — high-octane singles fueled by a singular aesthetic between camp and erotic. Forget Madonna; Carpenter might well be the modern Mae West, serving bombshell attitude while sending up the image of a sexy blonde.

Is it any wonder that Jason Sherwood landed the job as production designer of her Netflix holiday special, “A Nonsense Christmas with Sabrina Carpenter,” based partly on a photo of Rosemary Clooney in a black gown against a hot pink backdrop in “White Christmas”?

“ It’s Easter egged to hell and back,” Sherwood told IndieWire over Zoom. “The tiered cake is a pretty direct reference to a Busby Berkeley number that’s pretty famous. ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’ was on the mood boards. Almost everything has a reference to ‘White Christmas.'” Sherwood also looked to classic holiday specials from Judy Garland and Andy Williams...

Judy Garland‘s most iconic role is Dorothy Gale in “The Wizard of Oz” (1939), and her most acclaimed is Esther Blodgett/Vicky Lester in “A Star Is Born” (1954). But this Judy fan of more than 40 years picks “Meet Me in St. Louis” as her favorite. Beautifully filmed in Technicolor, with one of Garland’s best soundtracks, as well as a film that changed the actress’s life in many ways, the Vincente Minnelli-directed Christmas musical film debuted eight decades ago on Nov. 22, 1944, in St. Louis, and had its New York premiere on Nov. 28. Read on for more about the “Meet Me in St. Louis” 80th anniversary.

Based on a series of stories by Sally Benson, “Meet Me in St. Louis” depicts a year in the life of the Smith family through a series of vignettes, from the summer of 1903 until the spring of the following year, culminating at the 1904 World’s Fair in St.

Recently, Nicole Kidman took a sly jab at Martin Scorsese for lacking female leads in his films, sparking a renewed debate on does Scorsese really lack powerful female leads?

Nicole Kidman in Just Go with It (2011) | Credits: Columbia Pictures

While it’s not exactly a new topic, Scorsese has been peppered with this question for years, and his responses have been pretty blunt. So, let’s put this debate to rest once and for all with a list of powerful female leads that prove otherwise.

Nicole Kidman Subtly Slams Martin Scorsese!

Nicole Kidman has truly done it all, building an impressive career working alongside some of the best names in the industry every actor dreams of. In her AFI Lifetime Achievement Award speech, she highlighted directors who “took a bet” on her, including Stanley Kubrick, Sofia Coppola, Gus Van Sant and many more.

Related “It’s a question I’ve...

Stars: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Edgar Ramírez, Ariana Greenblatt, Florian Munteanu, Gina Gershon, Jamie Lee Curtis | Written by Eli Roth, Joe Crombie | Directed by Eli Roth

Directed by Eli Roth, Borderlands is an adaptation of the popular video game series developed by Gearbox Software. Essentially an action thriller about a rag-tag gang of space mercenaries, it tries hard to generate Guardians of the Galaxy vibes, but is let down by a lack of chemistry between the cast, largely flat direction and a series of uninspired fight scenes.

The story centres on kick-ass bounty hunter Lilith (Cate Blanchett), who’s hired to find Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), the missing daughter of business tycoon Atlas, the richest and most powerful man in the universe. To do so, Lilith has to return to her home planet of Pandora, where she quickly finds Tina and discovers that she may be a long-prophesied...

The Young and the Restless brings the fun at Halloween time. Genoa City characters dress up for a night of parties and trick-or-treating with their families. From fictional monsters to real-life celebrities, there’s been lots of inspiration for costumes. Here’s a look at some of the best Halloween outfits.

Devon As The King Of Pop

Tune in Alert from @camryngrimes & @BrytonEjames! The Halloween fun continues tomorrow on #Yr! pic.twitter.com/nVuRsMOjX0

— Young & The Restless (@YRInsider) October 31, 2017

Music executive Devon (Bryton James) dressed as the iconic Michael Jackson for the 2017 Halloween festivities. Devon had the look down pat with black pants, a white shirt, a black sparkly jacket, a hat, and a glove. The costume was a fitting tribute to James’ real-life friendship with the singer.

Jill Proves She’s The Real Queen

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In 1991, Genoa City...

As surreal as the 1408 movie's storyline may seem, it is based on a true story. Directed by Mikael Hfstrm, 1408 was released in 2007 and is hailed as one of the best horror movie adaptations of Stephen King's books. It featured John Cusack as Mike Enslin, a paranormal skeptic who pens books that debunk supernatural occurrences. His latest investigation takes him to a grand New York City hotel named The Dolphin that accommodates a haunted room, 1408. Despite warnings from hotel manager Gerald Olin (Samuel L. Jackson), Mike insists on staying in 1408 and finds his skepticism tested.

The Stephen King movie is based on the short story of the same name. The story first appeared in his self-narrated audiobook Blood And Smoke and later in his short story collection Everythings Eventual. In the movie, Mike records his thoughts on room 1408, stating, Hotel rooms are a naturally creepy place, dont you think?...

Get the latest scoop on everything you need to know about today’s Jeopardy! episode airing on Thursday, 26 September 2024 including the Final Jeopardy, contestants and today’s winner!

Today’s Final Jeopardy 9/26/2024 (Stars of the 20th Century) – Thursday, 26 September 2024

A 1927 N.Y. Times Headline: “Witness Testifies” this woman “rewrote play and insisted on the spicy scenes because city liked them”

Today’s Final Jeopardy Answer – Thursday, 26 September 2024

The Final Jeopardy Answer is: Mae West

Final Jeopardy Explanation – Thursday, 26 September 2024

The woman referred to in the 1927 New York Times headline, “Witness Testifies [she] rewrote play and insisted on the spicy scenes because city liked them,” is Mae West. Mae West, a famed actress, playwright, and screenwriter, was known for her bold, controversial style and her flair for incorporating provocative themes into her work. She often faced censorship challenges due to the risqué nature of her plays and performances, which were considered daring and ahead of their time.

Sean Baker has carved a niche as a filmmaker powered by empathy for the overlooked and forgotten corners of American society. Through his lens, we are allowed to immerse ourselves in worlds that most other movies would paint in the broadest strokes, or reduce to simple cliches. His compassion is a cornerstone in films like "Tangerine" and "The Florida Project," where the marginalized take center stage and are allowed to be as messy and complex as anyone with a movie built around them.

But Baker's work is also funny. Riotously so. And while his subject matter demands a sharp edge (which he certainly supplies), he's a storyteller with one foot proudly rooted in tradition. His latest film, "Anora" is an instantly towering work that's as empathetic and as moving as always. Yet it's also content to often be just a good time at the movies: an increasingly ludicrous odyssey...

Stars: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Edgar Ramírez, Ariana Greenblatt, Florian Munteanu, Gina Gershon, Jamie Lee Curtis | Written by Eli Roth, Joe Crombie | Directed by Eli Roth

Directed by Eli Roth, Borderlands is an adaptation of the popular video game series developed by Gearbox Software. Essentially an action thriller about a rag-tag gang of space mercenaries, it tries hard to generate Guardians of the Galaxy vibes, but is let down by a lack of chemistry between the cast, largely flat direction and a series of uninspired fight scenes.

The story centres on kick-ass bounty hunter Lilith (Cate Blanchett), who’s hired to find Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), the missing daughter of business tycoon Atlas, the richest and most powerful man in the universe. To do so, Lilith has to return to her home planet of Pandora, where she quickly finds Tina and discovers that she may be a long-prophesied...

Bruce Timm, creator of the beloved and influential “Batman: The Animated Series,” re-teams with Warner Bros. Animation for the highly-anticipated “Batman: Caped Crusader.” Dropping on Prime Video, the noir-inspired series offers a fresh take on the Dark Knight with top voice talent like Minnie Driver transforming classic villains in surprising ways.

Timm, who first helped define the Dark Knight for a generation with his Emmy-winning 1992 series, was initially hesitant to revisit the character. “We’d been there, we’d done that. I wasn’t interested in just revisiting that world,” Timm told The Wrap. However, the opportunity to develop a wholly new vision for the Caped Crusader eventually drew him back to Gotham City.

Driver landed the standout role of fan-favorite villain The Penguin, though with a gender-bending twist. Now going by Oswalda Cobblepot, Driver promised Comic-Con fans that while the character is redesigned, her essence remains intact. “She skims...

One of the oldest restaurants in Los Angeles, once frequented by stars like Mae West, prominent politicians, and the city’s powerbrokers, was severely damaged by fire during the early morning hours Saturday.

The Pacific Dining Car restaurant, a century-old a building on the outskirts of downtown Los Angeles, was a replica of a railway train car. In its heyday, it was a fixture of fine dining in L.A. and appeared in television shows and movies, including 1974’s Chinatown starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway, and the 2001 film Training Day, with Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke.

The restaurant was shuttered during the pandemic, but the family vowed to bring it back, even after auctioning off items from it. Last year, the vacant building officially became a historic cultural monument in the city of Los Angeles.

Firefighters responded to the site around 1 a.m. Saturday, and found a blaze that...

On Friday nights, IndieWire After Dark takes a feature-length beat to honor fringe cinema in the streaming age.

First, the spoiler-free pitch for one editor’s midnight movie pick — something weird and wonderful from any age of film that deserves our memorializing.

Then, the spoiler-filled aftermath as experienced by the unwitting editor attacked by this week’s recommendation.

The Pitch: After Dark but Make It for Gays of a Certain Age

When I was pressed into service for IndieWire After Dark, I hesitated all of five seconds before I screamed, “What’s the Matter With Helen?” at Ali. Partly because it’s a truly bonkers hagsploitation movie but mostly because I greedily grasp at every excuse to discuss Curtis Harrington’s examination of what the mothers of thrill killers Leopold and Loeb might have done with their lives after their sons’ convictions.

Move from the Midwest to Los Angeles to...

The preview opening of the new exhibit Meet the Stars: 100 Years of MGM Studios and the Golden Age of Hollywood on Thursday night was a crowded, buzzing affair. Held at the Hollywood Heritage Museum in the historic Lasky DeMille Barn across from the Hollywood Bowl, the event showcased the items of over 20 movie collectors. Memorabilia hunters, dressed in fedoras and flirty ’40s dresses, gabbed about their latest finds with others who have a similar passion.

The highlight of the night was when the crowd sang “Happy Birthday” to former MGM child star Cora Sue Collins (who played a little Greta Garbo in 1933’s Queen Christina), the last surviving MGM contract player from the 1930s. Sitting at a tableau that recreated a party thrown for her by MGM in 1935, Collins elegantly thanked everyone for their well wishes. Actor George Chakiris was also in attendance, and he posed next to a costume...

A slew of Marilyn Monroe and Hugh Hefner collectibles sold at auction over the weekend, including a pink Pucci dress worn by the actress and a smoking jacket and slippers worn by the Playboy founder.

The three-day auction, which ended Saturday, saw the long-sleeved silk jersey Pucci dress go to the winning bidder for $325,000, which set a record for a Pucci dress sold at auction, according to organizer Julien’s Auctions.

Also sold were the one-space mausoleum crypt at Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park & Mortuary in Los Angeles, located near the final side-by-side resting places of Hugh Hefner and Marilyn Monroe, for $195,000; a grave marker from Monroe’s crypt, for $88,900 (constant touching from fans led to minor wear, causing it to be replaced); Hefner’s burgundy smoking jacket, slippers, pajamas and tobacco pipe ensemble ($13,000); and a circular mansion bed custom-made for Hefner as a backup to his primary bed...

As The Holdovers star Da’Vine Joy Randolph heads into the home stretch of awards season (and her continuous sweep of trophies), her red carpet glam sessions with stylists Wayman + Micah reflect the exhilaration.

“Cocktails, good music and laughter,” says Micah McDonald — who co-styles Randolph, along with fellow first-time Oscar-nominee Colman Domingo, with Wayman Bannerman — of the experience of working with Randolph ahead of the 2024 Screen Actors Guild Awards. “We’ve done the work. She’s done the work. The time calls for celebration.”

Da’Vine Joy Randolph at the 2024 SAG Awards

During her pre-carpet practice of staying present and focused, Randolph maintains her tried-and-true rituals of FaceGym, gua sha routines, wood therapy and lymphatic massages. “It hasn’t changed much,” says Randolph of her routine as she also credits “connecting with people” along the way with keeping up her energy. “For me, consistency is key.”

For the SAG Awards, the...

Christina Aguilera is deep in rehearsals for her Las Vegas residency, and she’s hinting at the show’s setlist.

On Wednesday (December 20), she took to social media to share a video from rehearsals. In it, she’s belting out a song that she has never performed live before!

Head inside to watch Christina Aguilera’s rehearsal footage…

Christina shared a clip of her singing “Guy What Takes His Time” on Instagram. In it, she is dressed all in black, wearing an oversized t-shirt, matching hat and thigh-high boots with sunglasses.

A band performs behind her, and her vocals sound just as perfect as you’d expect.

If you forgot, “Guy What Takes His Time” was originally performed by Mae West in the ’30s. Christina covered it for her movie Burlesque back in 2010.

By the looks of it, fans can expect the song on the final setlist. This appears to...

Fittingly for a series in which everybody seems to be engaging in some form of Classic Hollywood cosplay, the Rosebud moment in BritBox’s Archie is delivered by an actor playing comedy icon Danny Kaye.

Affecting a stereotypical German therapist accent — accents on top of accents on top of accents is the Archie way — Kaye cautions young Dyan Cannon (Laura Aikman) that her relationship with the more seasoned Cary Grant (Jason Isaacs) is destined for complications with the warning, “Men who have difficult relationships with their mothers always carry it over to the women that they love.”

There’s no reason for Kaye to make such an observation if he hasn’t been watching the two previous hours of Jeff Pope’s four-episode production. But for the series’ actual audience, his analysis will come across as both obvious and superficial — a bit like Archie itself.

Ultimately, it’s a bit more complicated than that.

As Mae West once declared, “When I’m good, I’m very good. But when I’m bad, I’m better.”

That might also be the case when it comes to British actress Rosamund Pike, who just won a Best Actress trophy in the musical or comedy category for the darkly comic “I Care a Lot.” Her win was a bit of a surprise since newcomer Maria Bakalova, who plays Sacha Baron Cohen’s daughter Tutar in the “Borat” sequel, was considered the favorite. But she was no match for Pike’s wicked-smart turn as a stylish hoaxer who legally becomes a guardian for seniors who supposedly can’t take care of themselves and end up seizing their assets for her own gain.

There are echoes of Pike’s performance as a sly and tricky femme fatale Amy in David Fincher’s twisted popcorn thriller “Gone Girl” as a wife...

Michael Chow is meant to be in Riyadh. But as drones spell out his name in the sky above Saudi Arabia’s capital, heralding the Oct. 5 opening of the latest outpost of his eponymous restaurant, the charismatic restaurateur, artist and bon vivant is in his Los Angeles home, grounded with a positive Covid-19 test. He is in good spirits nonetheless. “My name is Gatsby,” Chow says with a laugh, invoking the name of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s tragic hero, known for hosting extravagant parties but not necessarily attending them. “When he gives a party, they always turn up.”

Of course, Chow, 84, has long been known for his hosting prowess, with more than five decades of feeding the A-list legions of Hollywood, fashion, art, politics and beyond at his Mr. Chow restaurants. Now numbering seven locations, his empire launched with a London spot that opened in 1968, followed by Beverly Hills in...

HBO has set an October premiere for Aka Mr. Chow, the original documentary film directed by Nick Hooker (HBO’s AgnelIi). The film debuts Sunday, October 22 at 9 Pm on HBO and will be streaming on Max.

Produced by Oscar-nominated Diane Quon (Minding The Gap), executive produced, written, and edited by Emmy-winning editor Jean Tsien, and executive produced by Emmy-nominated Graydon Carter and Annabelle Dunne (HBO’s Everything Is Copy), Aka Mr. Chow details the life of Michael Chow. Born Zhou Yinghua in 1930s Shanghai, he would use creativity to triumph over childhood trauma, personal loss, and systemic prejudice, growing up to become the actor and artist before inventing a new identity, Mr. Chow, when he opens the first of his iconic restaurants. Having found fame and fortune in the West, Mr. Chow celebrates his Chinese roots and finds catharsis by returning to painting, reemerging as the artist M.

Mae West in Night After Night Photo: Irving Lippman Mae West, who was born 130 years ago this month, made a career out of being funny, smart, and sexy in an industry that doesn’t often give women the space to be more than one thing at a time. Both on screen and off,...

Graphic: Getty Images

Mae West, who was born 130 years ago this month, made a career out of being funny, smart, and sexy in an industry that doesn’t often give women the space to be more than one thing at a time. Both on screen and off, West turned sexism...

The 26th San Francisco Silent Film Festival was another joyous gathering of silent cinema fans, historians, scholars, and all stripes of movie buffs. Launched in 1995, the festival has grown from a single-day event to—excluding two years of Covid shutdowns—an annual, five-day celebration. It’s about the movies, of course, and this year Sfsff presented 20 features and seven shorts. But it’s also about the silent movie experience. All shows were accompanied by live music, from solo piano to small combos to a 10-piece mini-orchestra for the closing-night event, playing both archival music and original scores, many composed for the screenings.

Allan Dwan’s The Iron Mask, from 1929, opened the festival with a bittersweet farewell to the silents. The film, the swashbuckling final silent feature to star Douglas Fairbanks, has added resonance for Sfsff audiences because of the legacy of the Castro Theatre, the festival’s home for its entire 26 years.

Ted McGinley, Julia Montgomery, Robert Carradine in Revenge Of The Nerds. Image: 20th Century Fox In No Hard Feelings, Jennifer Lawrence plays Maddie, a floundering 32-year-old so down on her luck she’s willing to make a deal with the parents of a sheltered 19-year-old to “date” him in exchange...

Jennifer Lawrence and Andrew Barth Feldman in No Hard FeelingsPhoto: Macall Polay/Sony Pictures Entertainment

In No Hard Feelings, Jennifer Lawrence plays Maddie, a floundering 32-year-old so down on her luck she’s willing to make a deal with the parents of a sheltered 19-year-old to “date” him in exchange...

(Welcome to Animation Celebration, a recurring feature where we explore the limitless possibilities of animation as a medium. In this edition: "Lackadaisy.")

Since its inception, the Animation Celebration column has been a way to showcase animated feature films across a multitude of genres, specifically with projects that utilize the medium for adult audiences. Animation offers limitless possibilities for creators choosing to work within the medium and advancements in technology have increased the accessibility for independent animators to create and distribute their own work without needing the backing of a big studio. One of those examples is the ridiculously impressive pilot for "Lackadaisy," which has already amassed over 5 million views since it was uploaded to YouTube on March 29, 2023.

The pilot was directed and produced by Fable Siegel and is based on Tracy J. Butler's award-winning webcomic of the same name. "Lackadaisy" is a prohibition-era crime series featuring anthropomorphic cats. Set in St.

March is Women’s History Month which commemorates and encourages the “study, observance and celebration of the vital role of women in American history.” And who better to study, observe and celebrate than Mae West and her place in movie history.

Talk about pushing the envelope. West wrote plays-usually revolving around sex-which landed her in jail. She never met an innuendo she didn’t like. West film comedies were popular and controversial. She was banned from NBC Radio-her name couldn’t even be mentioned-for over a decade. West even guest starred on a 1964 episode of CBS’ “Mr. Ed.” West has inspired several female performers over the decades including Madonna and remained true to herself up until her death in 1980 at the age of 87.

West didn’t look at any other actress of the day. Sources say she was 5’ to 5’ 2” (rumor is that she wore eight-inch platform heels on stage...

Cary Grant was a one-of-a-kind movie star. Sure, there have been others who have reached his level of fame, acclaim, and stature, but in terms of what made Grant a movie star, there has been no one like him before or since. His ability to seamlessly shift between a Hitchcock noir like "Notorious" to a total goofball comedy like "Monkey Business" remains unparalleled. Add to that his dashing good lucks, tall, athletic frame, and signature mid-Atlantic accent, and you have one of the greatest Hollywood icons of all time, if not the greatest.

For someone with such a distinctly defined movie star persona, his malleability as a performer was rather unusual. In the classic Hollywood era, the major studios were the ones molding stars. They had performers under long-term contracts, allowing them to basically plug in anyone they wished into certain projects. Actors would be paid like regular salaried employees...

It's not a secret that Hollywood has a really sordid history with the way transgender characters have been presented on film. While bigoted pundits like to pretend that trans people and trans representation in entertainment is somehow a new concept, films like "Myra Breckinridge" were shocking and subverting audience expectations over half a century ago. Unlike the transgender media of our current era that often put cis men like Jared Leto, Eddie Redmayne, and Jeffrey Tambor in drag, "Myra Breckinridge" instead chose to cast Raquel Welch, an international sex symbol at the time, in the titular role.

The film was an adaptation of Gore Vidal's controversial book of the same name, a title that was equal parts bestseller and banned text. It's one of the earliest known novels to feature a protagonist who has undergone gender affirmation surgery and dissects themes of feminism, gender performance, America's unhealthy relationship with toxic masculinity,...

Raquel Welch had a 50-plus year career in film and television, starring opposite Marcello Mastroianni, Edward G. Robinson, Robin Williams, Jimmy Stewart, Faye Dunaway, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Farrah Fawcett, Jim Brown, Burt Reynolds, Dyan Cannon, James Coburn and many others.

Her breakout role came as Cora in the wild 1966 sci-fi pic Fantastic Voyage, opposite Stephen Boyd, Edmund O’Brien and Arthur Kennedy. Welch then starred as a cavewoman in the 1966 film One Million Years B.C. Her next major film was with Mae West and John Huston in the title role of Myra Breckinridge. She later starred opposite Richard Chamberlain, Oliver Reed and Michael York in 1973’s The Three Musketeers, for which she won a Golden Globe.

Related: Raquel Welch Dies: ‘Fantastic Voyage’, ‘One Million Years B.C.’, & ‘Myra Breckinridge’ Star Was 82

While often celebrated for her appearance, Welch also essayed more serious roles such as the 1987 television drama Right to Die,...

Raquel Welch, the big-screen star of the 1960s and ’70s who gained fame in movies including Fantastic Voyage, One Million Years B.C., Myra Breckinridge and many others, died today after a brief illness. She was 82.

Her death was confirmed by her reps at Media 4 Management.

Related: Raquel Welch: A Career In Photos

Welch’s career spanned more than 50 years, 30 films and scores of TV series and appearances, including about a dozen visits to The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson spanning two decades. She also received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Imagen Foundation in 2001.

From left: Stephen Boyd, Raquel Welch and Donald Pleasence in ‘Fantastic Voyage’ (Everett Collection)

Born Jo Raquel Tejada on September 5, 1940, in Chicago, Welch’s family moved to San Diego when she was a toddler. She attended San Diego State on a theater arts scholarship and got her start as a local TV weathercaster before starting to...

Natasha Lyonne's leading roles are pretty unconventional female characters. They have a rugged androgyny that comes naturally to the actress, but it's not just Lyonne that gives them a sort of gender-transcendent quality. These characters break out of the traditional archetypes that most actresses are restricted by. In fact, they more closely resemble classic male characters — like Martin Sheen's Benjamin Willard in "Apocalypse Now."

Willard's descent into madness is memorable because it happens inwardly. We've seen women devolve into hysteria in cinematic masterpieces like "A Woman Under the Influence," but rarely do we take a female character's passivity to indicate introspection. Lyonne hoped to break out of this trope when she took the creative reigns on projects like "Russian Doll" and Rian Johnson's new series "Poker Face."

Even when women are protagonists, they are often "defined by an outer life," Lyonne pointed out in an interview with Time.

People have been pondering for some time whether or not too much of a good thing can be bad. Consuming an excess of candy, for example, can be bad because it can upset your stomach. On the other hand, Mark Twain and F. Scott Fitzgerald have said that too much of their drink of choice is never enough. And then there's that one episode of "How I Met Your Mother" where the gang has to tell Neil Patrick Harris' Barney that if every day is legendary, then none of them are.

But when it comes to comic book movies, specifically those that are based on superheroes, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige doesn't subscribe to that belief. Like Mae West, he's in a camp that believes an abundance of a good thing can be wonderful, and over the course of the past 15 years, True Believers and the box office figures have...

Tom Hanks believes Mae West got it wrong. Goodness has something to do with it.

Hanks has waded into the ongoing controversy over nepotism in Hollywood with a few thoughts. In an interview with the UK’s The Sun, Hanks – whose son Truman stars with him in the new film A Man Called Otto – insisted that Hollywood is no different from a plumbing supply business.

“Look, this is a family business,” Hanks said. “This is what we’ve been doing forever. It’s what all of our kids grew up in. If we were a plumbing supply business or if we ran the florist shop down the street, the whole family would be putting in time at some point, even if it was just inventory at the end of the year.”

Hanks said that talent ultimately determines how far you’ll go.

“The thing that doesn’t change no matter what happens,...

The Hollywood Reporter‘s designers in 2022 commissioned more than 100 illustrations from more than 80 artists for stories across all genres. Below is a selection of the art team’s favorite pieces over the last year.

Beverly Hills Spy: How a WWII-Era James Bond Betrayed the Allies

Illustration by Barbara Gibson

Art direction by Peter Cury

Read the full article

Immunity Building: Hollywood Doctors on Upping Your Well-Being Amid Omicron

Illustration by Maite Franchi

Art direction by Nicholas Brawley

Read the full article

Why Rihanna, Kevin Hart and More Stars Are Rushing to Buy the House Next Door

Illustration by Audrey Malo

Art direction by Kelsey Stefanson

Read the full article

Guest Column: How ‘Tick, Tick … Boom!’ Revealed the Power of Collaboration

Illustration by Ana Miminoshvili

Art direction by Kelsey Stefanson

Read the full article

2022 Oscars Issue Cover

Illustration by Yadi Liu

Art direction by Peter Cury

How Superstars Can Now Make...

Click here to read the full article.

An old Cadillac hearse parked on Sunset is a portal into the town’s dark past, and Dec. 12 marked the revival of Grave Line Tours, a ghost and celebrity-murder tour company.

The “Divas, Drag Queens and Decay” experience begins at the Chancellor Apartments, where the Black Dahlia once lived; passes by the former Richfield Gas Station at 4777 Hollywood Blvd., where gigolo and pimp to the stars Scotty Bowers plied his trade; moves on to El Coyote, where Sharon Tate had her last meal; stops at a storefront on Beverly Boulevard that was once a bathhouse frequented by Rock Hudson; idles in front of the WeHo apartment where Sal Mineo lived and was fatally stabbed in the driveway; and passes by The Beverly Hilton, where Whitney Houston was found.

Qr codes inside the limos direct riders to photos and audio clips — everything from a...

Beloved actor and comedian Mario Cantone was revealed to be Maize on The Masked Singer season 8, and he now shares why he wanted to join the singing competition. During Andrew Lloyd Webber Night, Mario performed an incredibly rousing rendition of "Heaven on Their Minds" from Jesus Christ Superstar, which blew away Andrew and the rest of the panel. Jenny McCarthy was the only one who guessed the Sex and the City and And Just Like That star correctly. Robin Thicke thought he might be Nathan Lane, while Ken Jeong guessed Bowen Yang. Nicole Scherzinger wondered if he was Jonathan Groff, while Andrew theorized that he was Jack White. Although Mario gave a stunning performance, he was the first contestant to be unmasked, followed by Mermaid, who was disco queen, Gloria Gaynor. Only Robo Girl made it through to the next round, which will be Muppets Night.

In an interview with Hollywood Life,...

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Madame Sylvia Wu, whose iconic restaurant Madame Wu’s Garden served Hollywood A-listers for decades, has died. She was 106.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the famed restaurateur died on Sept. 29.

When Wu, her husband and their three kids moved from New York to Los Angeles, she was shocked to find inauthentic Cantonese dishes in the city, and she wanted to change that. So, she opened up her first restaurant in Santa Monica in 1959, once her children went off to boarding school, and she had some free time on her hands.

Madame Wu’s Garden began in a small location and then upgraded to a much bigger site once it picked up steam. According to the Times, Wu drummed up business for her new restaurant by writing a letter to members of her church and asking one of her friends, who was a studio executive,...

Madame Sylvia Wu, whose Santa Monica Chinese restaurant served generations of Southern Californians and many celebrities, died on Sept. 29 at 106, her family confirmed.

In her later years, Wu stayed in the West side’s mind with cookbooks, television shows, and charity work, particularly at the City of Hope cancer center.

Her restaurant was one of the first in Southern California to offer a stylized cuisine beyond Chop Suey (although she did cater to conventional tastes as well). She was a fixture at her business, even taking telephone orders for take-out while working the room.

Frank Sinatra, Mia Farrow, Mae West, Paul Newman, Princess Grace and many more dined at Madame Wu’s over the years. She closed the original Wilshire Boulevard restaurant in 1998, but then opened Madame Wu’s Asian Bistro & Sushi in newly opened Grove. That venture was not as successful, but Madame Wu remained dear to her longtime customers.

Saucy pre-Code entertainment frequently served up risqué dialogue, with edgy content like promiscuity and drug use. Mitchell Leisen’s 1934 murder mystery goes straight for a supposed family-industry no-no: Broadway-revue near-nudity featuring Earl Carroll’s ‘Most Beautiful Girls In The World’. Victor McLaglen is an inept detective and Jack Oakie a wise-cracking impresario. Gertrude Michael and Kitty Carlisle carry the musical numbers, the most famous being an ode to the still-legal Sweet Marijuana. Showgirls like Lucille Ball possess the daring to don the skimpy costumes, even if they hadn’t yet learned what Marijuana was. Duke Ellington and his orchestra sit in for Ebony Rhapsody, a mixed-race musical number with room for ‘guest dancers from Harlem.’

Murder at the Vanities

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1934 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 89 min. / Street Date October 11, 2022 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95

Starring: Carl Brisson, Victor McLaglen, Jack Oakie, Kitty Carlisle, Dorothy Stickney, Gertrude Michael, Jessie Ralph,...

Karina Longworth’s house is, quite possibly, haunted. This is not necessarily something she has experienced herself, she tells me of her pale-pink 1926 Mediterranean, where Longworth could be found one July morning on the frond-shadowed patio. But it is something she has on authority from a friend who drunkenly stumbled in from the pool one night and heard, in the empty home, a dinner party going on in the dining room upstairs. Since then, the hauntedness or unhauntedness of Longworth’s abode has become a matter of some debate. “My...

When Batman & Robin came out 25 years ago in the summer of 1997, it pretty much acted as the death knell for the Dark Knight on the big screen. Following on the heels of 1995’s Batman Forever, this silly, sub-juvenile horror show from director Joel Schumacher killed any good will built up by the earlier Tim Burton Batman movies and created such an awkward situation for Warner Bros. that they ultimately decided it would be better to reboot the franchise eight years later by letting Christopher Nolan go in startling new directions with Batman Begins (2005).

Since then we’ve had Christian Bale as Nolan’s Batman, Ben Affleck as an older, more vengeful Caped Crusader in the Snyderverse, and most recently Matt Reeves and Robert Pattinson’s ultra-dark take about a younger Batman still finding his way. Each of them has had their supporters and detractors, but all have managed to...

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Late in 1971, a shaggy, 23-year-old college student and aspiring screenwriter was toiling away at his master’s thesis at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. Born Feb. 2, 1948, in Waukegan, Illinois, David Ray Johnson displayed nothing particularly remarkable at first glance. He stood about 5-foot-7, had long brown hair and a thick mustache, and was “your basic Midwestern kid,” as one friend would later describe him.

But he was not entirely basic. Johnson was openly gay and rather flamboyant. He was entranced by drag queens. He spoke with a breathy, halting affectation. He’d often declare of things that met his approval, “What a hoot!”

And he was obsessed with Mae West.

The pioneering sex symbol was the subject of Johnson’s film studies thesis. The 72-page dissertation, “An Historical and Interpretive Analysis of the Development and Perpetuation of the Mae West Phenomenon on...

It’s been almost five years since The New Yorker published Ronan Farrow’s first exposé of Hollywood’s ugliest open secret, that Harvey Weinstein was a sexual predator, taking the #MeToo movement worldwide and forever shifting the conversation around the film industry’s horrifying treatment of women. The flurry of similar allegations that followed has slowed to a trickle, but there are many women in Hollywood who want to keep the issues front and center. The message is loud and clear in “Body Parts,” a clever and damning documentary about the history of nudity, sex scenes, and women’s bodies on film.

In a brisk 86 minutes, “Body Parts” mashes together interviews with the likes of Jane Fonda and Rosanna Arquette, analysis from film historians, intimacy coordinator trainings, and whirlwind montages from both classic and contemporary films. There’s a lot of ground to cover, and Guevara-Flanagan runs a tight ship.

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There aren’t too many things that terrify Maya Rudolph. The list is basically black widow spiders, stand-up comedy and walking into a roomful of people she doesn’t already know and having to introduce herself.

The first on that list could actually kill her, and the latter two require her to be herself, which is “just so naked and vulnerable,” she says as she forks into a Goop Kitchen salad on an overcast afternoon this spring. It’s fitting, then, that Rudolph has devoted so much of her existence to becoming other people: a collection of divas on Saturday Night Live, the briefly incontinent bride in Bridesmaids, a hormone monstress on Big Mouth and, soon, a billionaire divorcée on the Apple TV+ comedy Loot.

The wigs, the voices, they’re all armor, she acknowledges. “Deep down, it’s probably all those years...

May Fung Lee Pang will be 72 in October, but was barely out of her teens when she boldly entered Apple’s New York offices, lied about being able to type, and secured a job at the Beatles’ multimedia company. She would soon become famous for a much more intimate tie to the group than that, as her very public 18-month affair with John Lennon in the mid-’70s is still a subject of great fascination to his fans, 50 years later.

“Music was my passion,” explains the Spanish Harlem-born author and subject of the upcoming documentary, “The Lost Weekend: A Love Story,” premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival for a sold-out show on June 10. “It was something I loved. I had no real abilities,” she admits of getting her start at Apple, “but answering the phone was easy enough. My mother used to tell me, ‘You have a mouth. You speak English.

You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man

Blu ray

Kino Lorber

1939 / 1.33:1 / 79 Min.

Starring W.C. Fields, Charlie McCarthy, Edgar Bergen

Written by Charles Bogle

Directed by George Marshall, Edward CLine

Charlie McCarthy was W.C. Fields’ most formidable antagonist—a wide-eyed charmer with a bright (not to mention permanent) smile, Charlie was everything the great comedian wasn’t. One thing Fields had that Charlie didn’t was flesh (admittedly sagging) and blood (80 proof on the best of days). The diminutive McCarthy was made of wood—only a dummy in top hat and tails but the most famous puppet on the planet, and operated by the worst ventriloquist in Hollywood, Edgar Bergen. Though Bergen couldn’t keep his own mouth from moving when he spoke for Charlie, the little fellow’s dialog still packed a punch. Indeed, the reason the duo proved so effective in their skirmishes with Fields was because their humor,...