The upcoming movie, “American Gangster,” is a gripping real-life story about a Harlem drug kingpin who in the ’70s smuggled heroin out of Southeast Asia in the caskets of U.S. soldiers killed in Vietnam. The plot is dense, with lots of twists and turns. 
So is the saga of the movie’s three lives. 
Fraught with emotional trauma, [...]

Lately, Hollywood has turned its lens on the war in Iraq, shooting out movies — about returning soldiers, families of returning soldiers, people trapped in the “war on terror” — rapid-fire. Some of the movies are intimate and touching, some outraged, and some more worth your time than others. So, to help you tell your [...]

When the CBS series needs technical help, Caltech professor Gary Lorden figures out the solution.  As Professor of mathematics at Caltech, he is also the math consultant on “Numb3rs,” CBS’ FBI-centric series in which mathematics is used to help catch criminals and solve crimes.

Rob Morrow plays the FBI agent; David Krumholtz plays Charlie, his [...]

Ask Mardik Martin how tall he is, and the rumpled, white-haired, barrel-chested USC screenwriting professor replies good-naturedly: “5 feet 4. I used to be 5 feet 6 but had back surgery and they shortened me. I’m not joking. I lost a couple of spine rings, or whatever they call them. Look,” he pauses, “short isn’t [...]

True movie geeks are never happy with the here and now.  What really sets their beanie propellers spinning are thoughts of movies still in the works, where hopes and fantasies are untrampled by muddy boots of reality. 
What follows is my alphabetical and highly subjective list of the 10 coolest movies currently in production. They’re all [...]

Halle Berry breezed into the hotel restaurant beaming, her hair long and loose, her pregnant belly barely hidden under a snug black jersey dress, her glamour muted but still compelling enough to hush the jaded Four Seasons crowd and befuddle the waiter. She joked easily, but a bit self-consciously, about her pregnancy weight and her abundant [...]

AT the beginning of this season of “The Unit” (CBS, 9 p.m. Tuesday), its third, the special-forces outfit at the show’s center was in turmoil, the victim of a vast government conspiracy. Terrorist suspects were being taken from Guantanamo Bay and killed, then dumped in the north Pacific Ocean. The Unit was to be scapegoated. [...]

Petrificus totalus! Thanks to that little wizard and his pals, Hollywood is on fantasy franchise flick overdrive. But are these films the new Harry Potters or lairy rotters? Daniel Etherington gets down with the kids. 
(Source: The Guardian UK)

When Wes Anderson’s “The Darjeeling Limited” expands Friday to about 600-700 screens, moviegoers will get two unexpected treats: his 13-minute “Part 1″ intro to the film, “Hotel Chevalier,” and the first big-screen glimpse of star Natalie Portman’s bare derriere. 
Aside from providing a distraction from publicity over ” Darjeeling” star Owen Wilson’s late August suicide attempt, [...]

Director Francis Ford Coppola contended on Saturday that he has “nothing but respect and admiration” for Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and Jack Nicholson after he was quoted as scathingly criticizing the three stars in a magazine interview. 
“I was astonished because it wasn’t true, and I have nothing but respect and admiration” for them, Coppola [...]