Hollywood

John Podhoretz on what makes a movie stand the test of time.

James Bowman on judging a classic Hollywood director by the standards of the wrong era.

Given their comparable movie careers, why is John Wayne still an icon while Gary Cooper is all but forgotten?

Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper shine in ‘A Star Is Born’—and Hollywood should make more melodramas.

John Podhoretz on the creaky, predictable return of the ’90s sitcom ‘Murphy Brown.’

John Podhoretz on overlooking the identity-politics marketing to just enjoy the movie’s old-school fun.

John Podhoretz explains how The Rock's poorly chosen star vehicles risk squandering fans’ affections.

Daniella Greenbaum left her job for defending Scarlett Johansson's.

Sequel to ‘The Karate Kid’ is a hit, may be good for some kicks.

It's been a while since we talked; have you caught up yet? The second season of Jessica Jones was bonkers; did you manage to make it through The Punisher and The Defenders? What about the new season of Black Mirror—that one episode where they warned against the dangers of technology outpacing our…

Rejected by more than two dozen publishers in the early 1960s, A Wrinkle in Time was itself a work of its own time and entirely out of time—a sophisticated and original intellectual coming-of-age story featuring speculative science fiction, anti-Communist dystopia, and Christian hermeneutics. There…

Today on the Daily Standard Podcast, reporter Andrew Egger and staff writer Alice Lloyd discuss whether President Trump will follow through on his proposed tariff plan and how the Oscars fit fish people into intersectional feminism.

At last night’s Academy Awards, Frances McDormand used her time on-stage accepting the Best Actress award to issue a call for more actors to demand “inclusion riders” in their contracts. As #InclusionRider began trending on Twitter, Phillip Atiba Goff of John Jay College of Criminal Justice…

Sunday’s Oscar telecast was a little bit like a State of the Union address given by a president in the final year of a failing administration.

The Oscars couldn’t stray far from politically tense themes; in fact, the ceremony strained to fit in almost all of them.

In 1960, already a movie buff, educated by Bill Kennedy, the ex-film-actor host of CKLW’s programs featuring old Hollywood classics, I took the bus from my east-side Detroit home to the Fox Theatre downtown. I vividly remember watching Victor Mature, all muscles, and Hedy Lamarr, all allure, in…

In Brave, a book she was writing even before Harvey Weinstein’s reckoning kicked off last fall, actress and activist Rose McGowan tells her life’s story as a series of brain-washings: “Here’s the thing about cults,” she begins, “I see them everywhere.”

For Rose McGowan, it was only a matter of time. She’s an ice-cold operator who’ll verbally shiv with military precision anyone who crosses her. She’d have to be, to survive the hellhole of Hollywood hypocrisy with her sanity mostly intact. It was only a matter of time, then, before she’d turn on…

In the late 1930s, or perhaps it was as late as 1940, my father and uncle, the screenwriters Philip and Julius Epstein, sought to join the American armed forces. The Army turned them away; it apparently considered their anti-fascism premature. That, at any rate, is family lore, and I have every…

Before there was MERYL STREEP! there was Meryl Streep: a sensitive, subtle actor who gave terrific performances in movies like Sophie’s Choice, A Cry in the Dark, and the Bridges of Madison County. But some time around the turn of the century, it became impossible to see her name in anything but…

We are living in the age of the retread. From Beauty and the Beast to Baywatch, 2017 saw a Hollywood bereft of ideas and artistic courage rehashing—er, sorry, “rebooting”—long-since retired films and franchises.

As we prepare for 2018—which absolutely, positively, has to be better than 2017—we’ve followed the example of the great Chris Wallace and asked the TWS staff for predictions for next year along four vectors: politics, sports, entertainment, and foreign policy.

Hollywood these days is investing more and more resources into rebooting old franchises. And not just in movies. Last week, a new blue-ribbon committee to investigate and eliminate sexual harassment in Hollywood announced that its chairwoman would be Anita Hill.

In its early, scrappy days, Twitter captured the hearts of Americans with a seductive promise: famous celebrities tweet, you can tweet back at them, and if you’re lucky, they might read your tweet. Such interactions seemed to offer a peek behind the curtain into the world of Hollywood spangle. We…

One of the rituals of Thanksgiving weekend is heading out to see a movie. And so, with that in mind, let me do you a mitzvah: Do not see Justice League. Under any circumstances do not go to see Justice League.

Richard Rushfield is a maverick.

Half a century ago, fashionable young moviemakers looking for new ways to separate themselves from old Hollywood fuddy-duddies—and to épater la bourgeoisie even though it was that very bourgeoisie they needed to become rich and powerful—sank their teeth into the notions that America and capitalism…

You don't have to be a liberal or conservative, woman or man, to find Harvey Weinstein's conduct repulsive. Weinstein, co-founder of Miramax Films and the eponymous Weinstein Company, producer of dozens of well-known, well-regarded, and multiple-Oscar-winning movies over the past three decades,…

The New York Times last week broke the story of Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein’s long record of sexual harassment. Actresses including Rose McGowan and Ashley Judd came forward to detail Weinstein’s depredations, and so did former employees of the man who founded one of the most important…

As we go to press, Donald Trump is visiting Paris. His visit can’t help but remind us of a famous trip to Paris by an American over three-quarters of a century ago. That American businessman, Rick Blaine, had little in common with Donald Trump—except perhaps a propensity to brand businesses with…

As we go to press, Donald Trump is visiting Paris. His visit can’t help but remind us of a famous trip to Paris by an American over three-quarters of a century ago. That American businessman, Rick Blaine, had little in common with Donald Trump—except perhaps a propensity to brand businesses with…

A good many books are interesting, but far fewer are charming. That, however, is what Wear and Tear is. Tracy Tynan is the only child of the celebrated British drama critic Kenneth Tynan, the wittiest 20th-century critic in any genre, and his American wife Elaine Dundy, author of the novel The Dud…

A good many books are interesting, but far fewer are charming. That, however, is what Wear and Tear is. Tracy Tynan is the only child of the celebrated British drama critic Kenneth Tynan, the wittiest 20th-century critic in any genre, and his American wife Elaine Dundy, author of the novel The Dud…

Editor's note: The piece below first ran on THE WEEKLY STANDARD's website in May 2002, upon the release of Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones. It is reprinted here to commemorate Friday's release of the latest Star Wars movie, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which serves as a standalone…

One of the weirder aspects of anti-Trump mania is its sniffy tone. And it's especially weird coming from card-carrying liberal Democrats. For two generations our culture and its institutions have been living under a liberal ascendency. The country's elites—the Bigs of the news media and Hollywood…

Vincent Hanna was strung out on coke. If that means anything to you, read on. (And if it doesn't, read on, anyway. I need the clicks.) This was just one of many revelations during a panel discussion following a Wednesday night screening of Heat, a remastered 20th anniversary edition of Michael…

Gene Wilder, the comedic actor and director who died Monday at the age of 83, had the qualities of a good character actor: an idiosyncratic voice, a mop of curly hair, and a familiarly quirky manner. But somehow, he became a star in a string of successful comedies in the 1970s and 1980s, including…

We mourn those closest to us when they die: parents, relatives, family, friends. When a leader or athlete dies, an obituary is good; it's something to share.

A class action lawsuit against the Motion Picture Association of America—claiming "tobacco imagery" in Hollywood movies brainwashes our youth—would have every film with as much as puff receive an R rating.

The main tropes and mechanisms of “reality" television lend themselves awfully well to the world of politics. Just take Survivor (the groundbreaking series produced by Mark Burnett, who, tired of living in jungles while filming, would go on to create a New York-based show called The Apprentice).…

Michael Cimino died last weekend. If you recognize his name at all, it's probably because you remember that he was the guy who won the Best Picture and Best Director Oscars for The Deer Hunter in 1979.

Hollywood is nominating former Gov. Sarah Palin for a seat on the courtroom TV bench.

Screenwriter Dalton Trumbo died in 1976, but Hollywood still hasn’t gotten over its high regard for him. He is the subject of a new movie, Trumbo, that lionizes him as a passionate supporter of the First Amendment and free speech, a true patriot. But that defines Trumbo only in terms congenial to…

Like a lot of people my age and older, I first discovered Dalton Trumbo through Metallica. Spurred on by many late night viewings of the haunting video for the band’s anti-war single “One,” I discovered Johnny Got His Gun—Trumbo’s 1939 novel that inspired the 1971 film adaptation, which in turn…

Have you ever wondered what would happen if the conservative fantasy of taking over the culture came to pass? What if one major movie studio, and a few popular actors, comedians, writers, directors were conservative?

As the negotiations over a nuclear deal with Iran drag on in Vienna, the Boston Globe's Matt Viser provides an inside look at how the United States delegation spends its time as the top diplomats confer. Among the details about snacks and American officials falling asleep is a nugget about the U.S.…

In October 1940, Americans flocked to movie theaters to see Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator, mocking the most powerful tyrant on the globe. In December 2014, movie theaters and then the production company cancelled the release of The Interview because of threats of terror from a tinpot, though…

It’s easy to see how Mississippi attorney general Jim Hood—a Bible-reading, pro-gun, pro-life, Democrat—has survived in statewide office even as his already conservative state has turned a deeper shade of red. Quite simply, he’s a likeable, quotable guy who doesn’t seem to have forgotten his roots…

Open enrollment for health insurance plans under Obamacare is currently underway, and some of the biggest celebrities in Hollywood and elsewhere are out there promoting it on Twitter. Furthermore, it appears there could be some coordination with the White House, with top Obama aide Valerie Jarrett…

A new video by the Environmental Policy Alliance mocks Hollywood celebrity Leonardo DiCaprio for being "just another celebrity hypocrite" when it comes to the topic of climate change:

The host gushed at the sight of President Obama. The setting was a Democratic fundraiser at the home of Hollywood star Gwyneth Paltrow.

Beverly Hills has banned fracking. Which makes it "the first municipality in California to prohibit the controversial technique for extracting natural gas and oil from underground rock deposits," according to Reuters.

A top of advisor to President Barack Obama is in Los Angeles to try to get Obamacare written into scripts of TV shows and movies. Valerie Jarrett explained in an appearance on Top That! on PopSugar.com:

The federal agency that oversees the Voice of America is seeking someone to produce a TV entertainment show to be broadcast in Iran in the Farsi language that includes "Hollywood news" and "other interesting aspects of life on the West Coast of the United States." The Broadcasting Board of…

Hollywood, Fla.

One industry badly hit last month was "the motion picture and sound recording industry," according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. From the jobs report released this morning:

Roberta Rampton of Reuters reports:

According to a recent Gallup poll, 42 percent of Americans believe that the Affordable Care Act will make their family's financial situation worse.  Almost half of those surveyed believe that it will make the nation's overall health care situation worse.

On Barack and Michelle Obama's schedule for today, this event is listed:

President Barack Obama will tomorrow host a screening of the sitcom 1600 Penn, according to the White House.

President Barack Obama was so impressed with Anne Hathaway's performance as Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises that he described her as "spectacular… the best thing in it." Hathaway was "leather-clad" in the movie, according to the Telegraph, which reports on the nugget:

Actor Jackie Chan has committed to visiting the rogue Iranian regime, according to a report from the Iranian outlet ISNA. The story is headlined, "Jackie Chan: I will definitely come to Iran."

In response to a report that classified information had been leaked to the makers of the Hollywood movie Zero Dark Thirty, Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal, Congressman Peter King, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, says he's concerned.

At a candlelight vigil for Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez in Bolivia, actor Sean Penn offered great praise for the sick strongman:

We learn from the Times that:

Thank goodness the everyday Americans of Main Street, U.S.A. have someone to run on their behalf against the out-of-touch rich guy.  As the Hollywood Reporter writes, the candidate of the exceptionally rich and famous is arriving in town tonight for a $25,000-a-plate fundraising dinner (nearly half…

Vice President Joe Biden was mocked at a fundraiser he held this evening with donors in the Hamptons. “Welcome to Joe Biden, unchained,” the person introducing Biden said, mocking the vice president for his recent controversial comments.

We received another mysterious invitation in our mailboxes today. This one, addressed to William Kristol, reads: "The Supreme Leader for Life of the Democratic Republic of Wadiya Admiral General Aladeen Cordially compels you to attend the Blu-ray & DVD launch party for His latest Award-Winning…

First Lady Michelle Obama is at pop star Gwen Stefani's Beverly Hills home to take part in "Sunday of Fun," according to the report. The event is a fundraiser for President Obama's reelection effort.

Can the Colorado shootings be blamed on the culture?  On too much violence in the movies? The argument is made all the time. But it is surprising to hear someone like Harvey Weinstein—who has made a career and a fortune turning out spectacularly violent movies—say it's time for Hollywood to address…

Jen Rubin makes the case today that the anti-piracy bills pending in the House, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), and Senate, the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), are likely unconstitutional. The bills essentially call for censorship of online speech in such a way, and with so little…

Frank Miller has a rant about Occupy Wall Street that’s going around this morning. It’s not a real shock—Miller has been on the side of law and order since The Dark Knight Returns and earlier this year he published a graphic novel, Holy Terror, about the clash of Islam and the West. So he’s been a…

We are either in the third or fourth year of the great economic crisis, and Hollywood’s response has been, quite simply, to act as if there isn’t one. To date, there has been one movie—let me repeat that, one movie—that has made the effect of the crisis its central subject. And that film, The…

I haven’t seen The Help; I keep meaning to, but I also keep meaning to get my shoes shined and my receipts filed according to month, and I haven’t done those either. The Help strikes me, a male entering my sixth decade, as a movie to be seen more out of duty than out of desire, and I understand…

Jon Stewart skewers the Obama administration on Solyndra.

Did the Obama administration compromise intelligence and sensitive military information by giving a Hollywood director high level access to details of the killing of Osama bin Laden? That’s what Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, wants to investigate.

Like most Americans, I suspect, I have no strong feelings in any direction on the subject of Charlie Sheen. I am neither a fan nor habitual detractor.

On January 18, MTV premiered “Skins,” an egregiously semi-pornographic television show featuring underage kids engaging in drug deals, sex, and sex talk of every sort, while consistently outsmarting their enraged and clueless parents. The reaction on the right has been predictable: Parents…

Last April, when I was in Sarajevo, the Bosnian metropolis, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt happened to make a quick tour of the country, coming by private plane from Venice, where Jolie was filming The Tourist, a mystery pic with Johnny Depp. The arrival of the superstar couple was itself somewhat…

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