Film

The "Barbie" movie, directed by Greta Gerwig, is a big topic of conversation this summer. But to a special subset of audience members, girls who played with Barbies, the movie can evoke a lot of pink-tinged feelings. Here's one of those girls, our book critic Maureen Corrigan.

TCM's ambitious 14-hour series showcases the work of female filmmakers from around the globe, and provides hundreds of examples of both artistic and technical achievement.

Near the beginning of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, a big black monolith appears in an African desert, leaving a group of prehistoric ape-men standing there baffled. And that was pretty much the reaction that greeted the film itself when it premiered 50 years ago this week.

Newly released on DVD and Blu-ray, the 1985 film follows a well-heeled LA couple who decide to become free-spirited wanderers. Critic John Powers says Lost In America is a comedy for the ages.

Film critic David Edelstein says in 2014 none of the great material came from Hollywood studios. But, he says, it was a "wonderful year" for indie films. He names Boyhood as the best of the year.

It's been more than 30 years since the rugged film star's death, yet he still looms large in the national psyche. Critic John Powers was surprised to find that the indomitable American fighting man was actually a hard-earned act of self-invention.

Critic John Powers compares the heroines featured in this summer's two cultural juggernauts -- Twilight and the Millennium Trilogy. And despite being almost diametrically opposed, the characters Lisbeth Salander and Bella Swan have more in common than you may think.

Celebrated salsa musician is the subject of the film El Cantante. Our music critic takes a look at his career, marked by dazzling musical highs and personal lows including heroin addiction and a suicide attempt.

Actress Betty Hutton died last weekend at the age of 86. Hutton was a singer and actress who starred in classic musicals and comedies of the 1940s and 1950s.

Several recent DVD releases feature great black entertainers of the 20th century. For classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz, his favorites feature the great tap dance team of Harold and Fayard Nicholas.