During Hollywood’s silent era, most people remember Rudolph Valentino as cinema’s reigning “Latin Lover.” But there was another dashing, dark-eyed actor who, though now mostly forgotten, regularly challenged Valentino for the crown. Ramon Novarro was for many years in the 1920s a hot property in Hollywood and one of the industry’s most sought-after romantic leading [...]

BY GENE TRIPLETT Newspaper movies were almost a genre unto themselves once upon a time, like Westerns, romances, sci-fi epics and cop thrillers. Intrepid reporters — self-described “ink-stained wretches” — were the heroes (or villains) of such classics as “His Girl Friday,” “The Harder They Fall,” “All the President’s Men” and, as recently as 2007, [...]

This week, the oddest DVD to appear on release lists is: “Rat Scratch Fever” Writer, director, cinematographer, editor, actor, special-effects tech Jeff Leroy is the very epitome of do-it-yourself, micro-budget filmmaking. A veteran of the horror and Z-movie fringes with a dozen or so schlocky credits on his resume, Leroy’s most buzzed-about work of cobbled-together [...]

The “American Pie” series developed a cult following by serving up steamy, seamy helpings of juvenile angst, adult insecurity, sexual humiliation and outrageous potty gags, always leavened with forgiving dollops of sweet sentimentality on top. But “American Reunion,” the fourth slice in the unabashedly cringe-inducing franchise – after “American Pie 1 and 2” and “American [...]

There’s a picture of Sean Connery in white shirt and tie riding a vintage Schwinn bicycle around the Universal back lot during the filming of “Marnie.” There’s Glenn Ford and Rita Hayworth pedaling a French-made tandem bicycle on a break from shooting “The Lady in Question.” There’s a photo of Ray Walston and Anthony Perkins [...]

He’s an oddly named London copper with a tragic past and an avuncular, plodding way of getting at the solution to a crime. And he’s shipped off to the foggy northern provinces where he’s partnered with an ambitious, quick-on-the-trigger young detective sergeant who’s brashly impatient with his boss’s old-school ways. That’s the essential set-up for [...]

Stephen King once said of novelist Donald E. Westlake that on sunny days he wrote comic crime novels under his real name about a hapless crook named Dortmunder, and on dark and rainy days he wrote serious pulp fiction under the pen name of Richard Stark about a hardboiled heister named Parker. At one point [...]

This week, the oddest DVD to appear on release lists is: “Anatomy of a Bigfoot Hoax” “Finding Bigfoot,” one of the big-buzz shows on cable’s Animal Planet, is just the latest evidence of our endless fascination with the notion that something big, hairy and mysterious lurks in the deepest, darkest forests. And in 2008, that [...]

BY DENNIS KING NEW YORK – Liam Neeson is no stranger to portraying mythical characters on screen. The Irish-born actor with the craggy countenance, husky Celtic brogue and raspy, baritone voice is familiar to many moviegoers as the Jedi knight Qui-Gon Jinn in “Star Wars Episode I – The Phantom Menace” and as the wizened [...]

What is it about ripe, stinky Hollywood cheese that makes so many grand, respected actors willing to cast off all ego and make zestful fools of themselves? Every actor worth his salt has made them – big, overblown, blockbusters glutted with spectacular set pieces, half-baked stories and incessantly intrusive special effects. So perhaps we might [...]