You have to laugh to keep from crying, the saying goes. Black comedies give us the luxury of doing both. Gallows humor isn’t merely a coping mechanism; laughter can be empowering. By pushing the comic possibilities of the tragic and the taboo, filmmakers such as Joel and Ethan Coen or Todd Solondz don’t conceal uncomfortable…

Cinema excels at depicting dysfunctional marriages, but much less so at portraying the other kind. Make of that what you will. Of course, the warts-and-all approach might be preferable to the days back when the Production Code governed onscreen social norms. According to the Hollywood of yesteryear, happily married couples slept in separate twin beds…

Cole  Porter called friendship the perfect blendship, but the movies haven’t painted it as quite so rosy, at least not in the decades since Bob Hope and Bing Crosby charmed 1940s-era audiences with their popular “Road to …” pictures. Films about male friendships often feel elegiac, as if male bonding cannot possibly last. When they’re…

With 2025 almost in the rearview mirror, it’s as good a time as any to assess the year in film, particularly since it has been a considerable improvement over the comparatively listless 2024. Not that one would necessarily know it’s been a positive year from box-office receipts. It’s no secret that moviegoing has been on…

10. Zombieland (2009) 9. Casino Royale (2006) 8. Do the Right Thing (1989) Spike Lee discovered Rosie Perez on a New York dance floor when he was casting for Do the Right Thing. Her moves here, coupled with Public Enemy’s anthemic “Fight the Power,” is electric. 7. Deadpool (2016) Irony Man. 6. Se7en (1995) Creep…

Giving credits where credits are due (see what I did there?) has changed dramatically in cinema over the years. While 20th century offerings generally ran their main titles at a picture’s start, most modern-day blockbusters these days save credits for the end. Moreover, astounding advances in CGI have upped the creative ante beyond simply boasting…