Attendees line up to enter the theater for a screening of the new NASA+ documentary “Cosmic Dawn: The Untold Story of the James Webb Space Telescope,” Wednesday, June 11, 2025, at the Greenbelt Cinema in Greenbelt, Maryland. Featuring never-before-seen footage, Cosmic Dawn offers an unprecedented glimpse into the assembly, testing, and launch of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.
Read More
Some of the greatest characters in television and cinema are architects. For example, Ted Mosby in How I Met Your Mother is an architect. He’s always going off about old buildings and whatnot. Or Laszlo Toth in the Oscar-nominated feature, The Brutalist, a Hungarian architect trying to make his as an immigrant to America after the Second World War. Architecture is a very compelling visual storytelling device. And I don’t know about you, but I love a compelling visual storytelling device.
Architecture is all around, literally. It’s easy to forget (if you’re me) that somebody had to design and build… all of this. The office you’re sitting in, the apartment you’ll go home to, the corner store you’ll stop in for a bag of chips. They were all once ideas, and then drawings, and then meetings with engineers.
Veteran filmmaker Shyam Benegal, who ushered in parallel cinema in India, passed away at 90. Known for his realism and depth, his acclaimed works include Ankur, Nishant, and Zubeidaa. Honored with Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan, Benegal’s contributions to Indian cinema remain unparalleled. His death signifies the end of a pioneering era in filmmaking.
Read More
Put on your red dress and get ready to be kissed, because Hallmark movies are back on the air for the Christmas season!
I don’t personally watch Hallmark movies for reasons I’ll divulge later, but I learned recently that whenever the female protagonist puts on a red dress, there’s a 100% chance that romance is on the way. How do I know? My hyper-masculine, tough-as-nails, biker dad told me. In a shocking plot twist, it turns out he’s something of a Hallmark movie expert…
I started this deep dive into the Hallmark genre as a quest to understand the reasoning behind the raving success of these inherently “cringey” movies. I wondered why my father, a man who’s spent his whole life as a construction contractor–covered in sawdust, motor oil, plumbing fluid, mystery sap, and at least 100 splinters–would even glance at a film that looked more like a snowglobe from Disneyland rather than the Sons of Anarchy aesthetic he usually embraces. I wondered why anyone would bring such soulless garbage onto their screens when there are so many highly rated, critically acclaimed, and artistically stimulating content to view. But that’s exactly it, nobody wants thought-provoking, Oscar-worthy artistry after a really long day at work, they want to just feel good and relax… They want Hallmark.
Sean Penn talks about his life and times in cinema at the Marrakech International Film Festival
Read More
The company behind hits like Wall Street, American Psycho and Conan the Barbarian has a fresh take on how to bring daring cinema to life. Here’s Sam Pressman to explain.
Read More
