Saving Private Ryan (movie)

Everyone has at least one skill that doesn't have a practical use. Mine is the ability to name every movie ever to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. I absorbed that knowledge from years of reading critical studies of the Oscars, to the point...

On Sunday, Hollywood celebrates itself and honors its own. All eyes (or most of them anyway) will be on the presentations of the Academy Awards. But do the Oscars always end up in the right hands? Opinions abound on this topic, and what follows is only...

The news media has been abuzz recently about the Motion Picture Assn. of America's decision to adopt an R rating for the film documentary"Bully,"and understandably so. School bullying has reached epidemic proportions, and with the rise in social media,...

In a globalized age, Chinese and American pop culture mix in unexpected ways. Taiwanese singers borrow from hip-hop and R&B. Locked-out NBA players join mainland basketball teams. And Batman — or, at least, the man who plays him — is called...

Actor Tom Sizemore is writing a memoir of his drug use and recovery for Atria Books. Sizemore, whose acting chops landed him roles in the Academy Award-winning "Saving Private Ryan" and "Black Hawk Down," has had very public struggles with cocaine and...

The quietest room in Hollywood may be the office where John Williams composes. In a bungalow on the Universal Studios lot, steps from the production company of his most frequent collaborator, director Steven Spielberg, Williams works alone at a 90-year-...

War films have always been a staple of cinema — providing the inspiration for some of the greatest and most honored films ever. During the silent era there were D.W. Griffith's controversial "The Birth of a Nation" (1915), King Vidor's "The Big...

The Chicago International Film Festival didn’t have to look far when choosing a movie to kick off its 47th annual edition. “The Last Rites of Joe May” — starring Dennis Farina as an aging con man with little to his name besides...

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- Last May 1, President Barack Obama addressed the nation and said Osama Bin Laden had been found and killed.  A new graphic novel coming out soon looks to give some insight as to what might have happened. The last time we talked...

Steven Spielberg once got on the wrong side of truckers with his debut as a director, in a mediocre 1971 movie called "Duel." This was before many terrific Spielberg films, from "Jaws" to "The Color Purple" to "Schindler's List" to "Saving Private Ryan."...

Harrowing and unflinching, a savage nightmare so consuming and claustrophobic you will want to leave but fear to go, "City of Life and Death" is a cinematic experience unlike any you've had before. It's a film strong enough to change your life, if you can...