Pauline Kael

Film critic Andrew Sarris began his rise to prominence in the early 1960s when, fresh off an extended visit to Paris, he became a primary spokesman for a theory that would reverberate throughout the cinema world. Screenwriters and producers may have...

Ernest "Chick" Callenbach, a film scholar and environmentalist who created a cult favorite in "Ecotopia," a 1975 novel that predicted with uncanny accuracy a world where recycling is commonplace, food is locally grown and energy comes from the sun, died...

As 2011 comes to a close, we take a minute to reflect on the year's best in the world of publishing. Here is the list of our favorites, all published this year: FICTION "The Paris Wife" by Paula McLain This gorgeous novel portrays the whirlwind...

Theater book suggestions for the holidays....

Ken Russell, the often controversial British director known for his flamboyant visual style in films such as "The Devils," "Altered States" and the Who's rock opera "Tommy," has died. He was 84. Russell, who lived in Lymington in southern England, died...

Turner Classic Movies has unveiled a list of the 10 most influential silent films....

The Age of Movies The Selected Writings of Pauline Kael Edited by Sanford Schwartz Library of America, $40 Witty, entertaining and often exhilarating, this wide-ranging collection of pieces captures the film critic at her best. Alice James A...

Mark Swed looks at how Ken Russell was influenced by music and how he influenced music....

Mark Swed reviews the Hollywood Bowl premiere of the film version of "West Side Story" with live orchestra...

From the lofty perch of this magazine or that one, most notably The New Yorker, Pauline Kael presided over the Golden Age of Film Criticism, producing essay length appreciations of individual films, filmmakers and actors, or bemoaning the state of...

In the middle of Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris,” Owen Wilson’s character finds himself mysteriously transported to the Paris of the 1920s, which is populated with a host of cultural icons, including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott...

Zelda Rubinstein, the diminutive character actress with the childlike voice who was best known as the psychic called in to rid a suburban home of demonic forces in the 1982 horror movie "Poltergeist," died Wednesday. She was 76. Rubinstein, who also...