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Comedy is back; Super Mario Bros has proved that laughs are good for a half billion dollars. The antihero business is intact. Both Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 and John Wick: Chapter 4 hit their marks. But affairs of the heart are still suffering at the movie box office. Love Again is the…

This is a dark moment for frazzled members of the writing fraternity. Picketers in Hollywood and New York fear a prolonged standoff gripping film and TV. Also troubling, their colleagues in digital media are patching together their résumés as Vice Media…

Will there ever be a great book about the film business as it is now? I still think not. What used to be called The Industry, as it exists today, might be grist for a eulogy, a festival panel discussion or possibly an online technical manual—10 steps to reboot the software that made your last…

Elon Musk and Bill Maher found common ground on Friday’s Real Time on HBO. Both have been damned if they do and damned if they don’t for various controversies. After a long recitation of Musk’s various business activities, Maher said he knows that Musk is okay because he does things with a sense of…

I have just spent a week at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. I saw no sunlight from Monday at around noon to Thursday, but I did see some movies — or at least part of them. It was, of course CinemaCon week, or as I like to call it, “the unofficial start to Oscar…

What is Rupert Murdoch up to? At age 92 he confronts the challenge of re-energizing Fox News, yet his stewardship remains as enigmatic as his politics. Hollywood remembers that for 30 years Murdoch owned, then dismembered, a major movie company, yet…

Tom Hanks has expertly re-invented himself over the years, moving from rom-com star (Big) to war hero (Saving Private Ryan) to character actor (Elvis), and as a writer-director with That Thing You Do! and Larry Crowne. His newest chapter: novelist. He's…

Michael Cieply writes a column of analysis and commentary each Sunday. UPDATED: The 96th Oscar cycle is upon us, and with it, something new—the mandatory representation and inclusion standards that require filmmakers and/or their storylines and/or their distributors to meet elaborate racial, sexual…

Bill Maher and his guests channeled Salt-n-Pepa Friday night on HBO’s Real Time, as the theme of the night was “Let’s Talk About Sex.” Specifically, who is a woman, who has the right to determine a woman’s health and athletic requirements, and whether it’s a smart move to go after Donald Trump over…

"Show me the money" was the memorable battle cry in Jerry Maguire, the 1996 movie about a sports agent who must "deliver" for his manic client. Matt Damon, the negotiator at the center of his and Ben Affleck's new movie, delivers big time for his client, and so does the film. Air is an angry…

One was fiercely focused, the other accident-prone. They both made it. The careers of Rob Lowe and Tom Cruise first collided exactly 40 years ago when the two very young but ambitious actors showed up at an Oklahoma location to assume their roles in The…

What do you want from the movies this year? Cheaper tickets? Smarter superheroes? A love story and five watchable Oscar films? Personally, I would settle for one great line. You know, the kind that immediately transcends whatever picture gave it birth. It is echoed, referenced, repeated…