Should we call him “Spartacus”? Or “Champion”? Both names certainly fit the man. Kirk Douglas turns 95 tomorrow, and he is still very much with us. (Over the past couple of years, I’ve spotted him and his beloved wife Anne twice in New York City, once in a restaurant and once at the theatre.) He embodies the American Dream because … More Details

To feed my all-consuming, ongoing obsession with great movies, I asked myself the following question: which Hollywood director actually made the most great movies? It’s astonishing to me that my answer will likely have lots of people scratching their heads. In the Alsace area of Germany, on the first of this month early in the last century, future director William … More Details

On the first of this month, Walter Matthau, who left us just a decade ago, would have turned ninety. Ruminating on this unnoticed milestone made me consider anew what a unique and gifted screen actor he was. Matthau was never endowed with the superficial attributes of your typical Hollywood star: he had a pronounced New York accent, a stooping gait, … More Details

Welcome to those post-Labor Day blues, when the days dwindle down and chilly evening breezes return. Often at this time, we enjoy a heady dose of Indian summer, but even these sweet moments are tinged with melancholy, serving as sweet yet fleeting reminders of what we’re about to lose. Almost instinctively, we re-immerse ourselves in our professional lives, the activities … More Details

It all started with the hardboiled detective fiction which exploded onto the American popular culture way back in the roaring twenties, and which portrayed America’s evolving urban landscape as vividly as the Western genre did the rural frontier. The originators of this type of fiction – notably James M. Cain, Dashiell Hammett, and Raymond Chandler – got their start writing … More Details