After seven movies, the "Paranormal Activity" franchise doesn't frighten audiences the way it once did " that is, through the power of suggestion, using home security cameras, smartphones an…
SOURCE: Variety at 04:38PM[SHARE]In "Working Girl," an upwardly mobile Melanie Griffith embodied Tess McGill, a secretary from Staten Island with big hair and even bigger dreams. She thought her new boss (played by Sigourne…
SOURCE: Variety at 06:52PM[SHARE]Witticist-lyricist Lorenz Hart would cringe at the pun, but "Blue Moon" is nothing if not a funny valentine to the tortured (closeted, Jewish, alcoholic, diminutive) songwriter who died in 1…
SOURCE: Variety at 02:50PM[SHARE]Boundaries are constantly blurring in "Kiss of the Spider Woman," the revolutionary mid-'80s film that became a Kander and Ebb musical, and that cunningly (and stunningly) morphs back to the…
SOURCE: Variety at 06:26AM[SHARE]In "The Wizard of Oz," there can be no doubt which witch is the worst witch: That would be the one with the army of flying monkeys, who melts upon contact with water. But in "Wicked," the gr…
SOURCE: Variety at 03:00PM[SHARE]A hundred years ago, before email and social media found ways to slap us in the face with unsolicited obscenity on a daily basis, the quiet English town of Littlehampton was scandalized by a…
SOURCE: Variety at 11:30PM[SHARE]All for one and … two for all? In a bold move, French film studio Pathé (together with partners in Germany, Spain and Belgium) bet nearly $80 million on an all-star, double-barreled adapt…
SOURCE: Variety at 02:00PM[SHARE]As a critic, I'm always looking for a fresh challenge, which is one reason I took up writing about theater: It still has the capacity to scare me. I've reviewed nearly 1,700 movies in my tim…
SOURCE: Variety at 04:30PM[SHARE]If you've ever seen Mike Birbiglia before, whether on stage or screen (or a couple months back, filling in for Jimmy Kimmel), then "The Old Man and the Pool" feels like catching up with an o…
SOURCE: Variety at 10:19PM[SHARE]The trick of stage acting comes in playing the same thing every night as if it were happening for the first time, right there in front of the audience's eyes. But once-controversial American…
SOURCE: Variety at 07:00PM[SHARE]Debuting on opening night of the Cannes Film Festival a full year after it was originally expected to appear, "Annette" arrives on a pedestal from which it's too easily toppled. This latest …
SOURCE: Variety at 07:49AM[SHARE]Perhaps it's time for another meeting between officials from Israel and Palestine like the series of off-the-books negotiations that took place in Oslo, Norway, back in 1993. Those sessions …
SOURCE: Variety at 07:02PM[SHARE]Even after a year of indoor theaters being shuttered in Los Angeles, it's hard to imagine a future without the ArcLight Hollywood, the tony 15-screen megaplex that countless Angelenos consid…
SOURCE: Variety at 08:45PM[SHARE]Magic never works the same way in movies that it does in person, which is not to say that it doesn't work in movies. It just takes a different kind of finesse, typically relying on editing a…
SOURCE: Variety at 05:13AM[SHARE]It started with a hunch. Edith Pretty and her husband bought a house at Sutton Hoo, the estate of which contained several large mounds of earth. For years, there had been theories about what…
SOURCE: Variety at 06:26PM[SHARE]A colleague who teaches recently pointed out a surprising insight into the current generation of university-age students: According to an informal show-of-hands poll she conducted, hardly an…
SOURCE: Variety at 04:44PM[SHARE]What function do superhero stories play in American society? Are they merely escapist distractions for head-in-the-clouds teens, or could those same formats actually serve a practical functi…
SOURCE: Variety at 12:10PM[SHARE]How much can you change "Cinderella" before it is no longer "Cinderella"? In the case of choreography maestro Matthew Bourne " who, it should be said, first unveiled his spin on the classic …
SOURCE: Variety at 05:40PM[SHARE]When people say a movie feels like a play, they often mean it as a kind of insult " less showy than talky, self-contained, more concerned with ideas than authenticity " but in the case of "L…
SOURCE: Variety at 06:49PM[SHARE]Cooper may have achieved movie star status before getting the chance to direct "Â "luckily, in the end," he says " but that gave the actor time to find his voice before making "A Star Is B…
SOURCE: Variety at 11:20AM[SHARE]Anyone who loves musical theater owes it to themselves to see "Bathtubs Over Broadway," a delightful deep-dive documentary into one man's obsession with the obscure world of industrial music…
SOURCE: Variety at 07:24PM[SHARE]The question arises every year: When is the right time to toss the fake spider webbing and carved pumpkins in favor of inflatable snowmen and fiberglass reindeer? Must you wait until Thanksg…
SOURCE: Variety at 02:40PM[SHARE]The less you know about the Temptations, the more you'll get out of "Ain't Too Proud," a finger-snapping, hand-clapping new jukebox musical passing through Los Angeles' Ahmanson Theatre en r…
SOURCE: Variety at 06:16PM[SHARE]It's a credit to Denzel Washington's career choices that he's gone four decades without making a single sequel. That's not to say that breaking the pattern with "The Equalizer 2" means he's …
SOURCE: Variety at 01:00AM[SHARE]Before "Big," before "Bachelor Party" "Â heck, before even "Bosom Buddies" " Tom Hanks studied theater at Chabot College and performed three seasons in the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival…
SOURCE: Variety at 03:48PM[SHARE]On Wednesday, director Ridley Scott announced a plan that is virtually unprecedented in the history of Hollywood: With his new film "All the Money in the World" already in the can and less t…
SOURCE: Variety at 08:08PM[SHARE]While there are few who would dispute the place Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's "The Red Shoes" holds as the greatest dance film of all time " focusing as it does on the backstage en…
SOURCE: Variety at 01:00AM[SHARE]Where to begin with all that's wrong with Paul Rudnick's new play, "Big Night," which takes place in a swanky Hollywood hotel suite before and after the Academy Awards ceremony where a C-lis…
SOURCE: Variety at 01:14PM[SHARE]Lin-Manuel Miranda's hip-hop musical finally reaches L.A., celebrating a time when politics was about passion, and everyone was an immigrant.
SOURCE: Variety at 03:16PM[SHARE]Jimmy Fowlie imagines the one-woman Emma Stone performs off-screen in 'La La Land,' nailing the narcissism of a certain kind of actress.
SOURCE: Variety at 12:23PM[SHARE]Randall Arney Artistic Director Geffen Playhouse 10886 Le Conte Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90024 Dear Sir: First, let me just say that I am a great admirer of your institution, the Geffen Playhous…
SOURCE: Variety at 04:45PM[SHARE]
