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By John M. Whalen

In MGM’s 1958 Western “The Law and Jake Wade,” Robert Taylor rides down from the Sierra Nevada mountains early one morning into a small town and busts his old partner-in-crime, Clint Hollister (Richard Widmark), out of the hoosegow. Hollister is a nasty guy. Not satisfied with escaping a hanging, to Jake’s dismay, he clubs the sheriff and shoots a couple of people out in the street while he and Jake make their getaway. Jake has to take his rifle away from him to keep from killing more people.

Back up in the mountains Clint wants to ride on with Jake but Jake says no. He busted Clint out of jail because he figured he owed him for doing the same thing for him once. Now they’re even. Clint doesn’t agree. There’s that matter of the $20,000 they stole on their last job together.

When we asked our staff to vote on the best comic book movie adaptations, we were afraid the results would consist only of superhero films. While there are many superhero movies listed below, it is great to see a bulk of non-Hollywood films appearing on the list as well. We set out to compile a list of 50 movies but as it were, we ended up with 5 ties, and so the list consists 55 films instead. Let us know if you think we missed something. Enjoy!

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55. The Adventures of Tintin

Spielberg’s first venture into animation is one of his best. Taking notes from the classic Raiders of the Lost Ark playbook, Spielberg crafted another spirited, thrilling, and always entertaining adventure. The Adventures of Tintin is one of the most pleasurable, family-friendly experiences, that boils down to one grand treasure hunt. There’s much to admire on-screen, but it is the spectacular...

Robert Taylor, who served as the animator on Fritz the Cat, the first X-rated cartoon, and then directed and co-wrote its sequel, has died. He was 70. Taylor died Dec. 11 in Woodland Hills of complications from the lung disease Copd, his daughter-in-law, Sarah Kuchelmeister Taylor, an executive with Paramount Home Media Distribution, told The Hollywood Reporter. During his long career, Taylor also helmed and co-wrote the 1982 Hanna-Barbera feature Heidi’s Song and was the uncredited but widely acknowledged co-director of Rock Odyssey (1987), a H-b feature that traced American history through a

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One of my favorite activities each year is compiling a list of actors who really nailed their brief but not necessarily coveted roles. Oh sure sometimes a small part is a true get and key to the narrative. There's no way to watch 12 Years a Slave, for example, and miss the importance of "Mistress Shaw", so perfectly rendered by Alfre Woodard. And some tiny parts are designed as cameos for stars: think Jean DuJardin and Matthew McConaughey in The Wolf of Wall Street. But the bulk of small roles each year in any actor's medium, go unnoticed with the actors adding depth to the ensemble and colors to the director or writer or showrunner's palette. Me, I love looking at the peripheries and seeing which actors are hungry, which find ways to maximize their tertiary characters or simply inhabit them so well that you get everything you need in that one scene or,...

The son-in-law of a Tennessee couple killed when a package exploded at their home has been charged with first-degree murder in their deaths. State Fire Marshal's Office spokeswoman Katelyn Abernathy said Richard Parker is also charged with unlawful possession of a prohibited weapon. Reached by telephone the day before the arrest Thursday, Parker declined to talk about the deaths of Jon and Marion Setzer with the Associated Press. Parker ran Legacy Restorations, a business that specializes in historic restorations, according to its website. His house was just behind the Setzers' in a semi-rural area of Lebanon, about 40 minutes east of Nashville.

Sure, his most high-profile characters to date are as creepy as hell, but in reality, veteran actor David Dastmalchian is one of the coolest cats you could ever hope to chat with in an interview. I sensed a cool vibe mere moments into a recent phone conversation with Dastmalchian, who is fresh off another unnerving performance as the tech-savvy serial killer Simon on a recent episode of Fox's hit sci-fi series Almost Human. It's the second major project Dastmalchian been featured in the past four months, beginning with a pivotal supporting role opposite Jake Gyllenhaal in director Denis Villeneuve's spellbinding crime thriller Prisoners. And before that, of course, Dastmalchian was exposed to millions of movie fans worldwide in a small but mesmerizing turn as the Joker's thug, Thomas Schiff, in Christopher Nolan's 2008 Batman epic The Dark Knight. Dastmalchian in "Almost Human" (Series) Born and raised in Kansas, Dastmalchian...

Review by Barbie Snitzer

The title of the new French movie Populaire is not a marketing ploy to introduce American moviegoers to its male lead, Romain Duris, the most populaire French actor of recent years. As handsome as Brad Pitt, as appealing as Channing Tatum, and with the talent and versatility of Ben Foster, it’s surprising he’s not yet become familiar to American audiences. Perhaps he will become populaire with this movie.

Nor is the title a wish on the part of the filmmakers; it refers to a very important character in the movie -a specific model of typewriter. Stay with me here… I promise you this is not a movie about a typewriter, an idea that I would not put past the French, nor is it anything like the dreadful re-enactments of the shadowed man punching keys in Salinger.

I’m not the only reviewer who’s...

Boy meets girl meets typewriter in this thoughtful, witty French take on classic Hollywood romcoms

There was an old but not inaccurate joke that romantic movies from the Soviet Union were about triangular affairs between a boy, a girl and a tractor. The attractive new French movie Populaire, the feature-length debut as writer-director of Régis Roinsard, is about a boy, a girl and a typewriter. A typewriter originally meant the female operator, and the machine in this picture takes on a dramatic identity of its own.

In many ways Populaire is a companion piece to Michel Hazanavicius's Oscar-winning The Artist in its knowing love for American cinema. It also has the same star, Bérénice Bejo (though not here in the leading role), and the same photographer, Guillaume Schiffman, who grew up in the movie business as the son of Suzanne Schiffman, the long-time assistant to François Truffaut, with whom...

New York, May 23: A top executive has revealed that concert promoters were unable to buy insurance coverage for Michael Jackson, as the firms feared that he was suffering from cancer and other diseases.

Shawn Trell, Aeg Live's general counsel, told jurors that insurance companies had concerns about Michael's health but were unaware that he was suffering from insomnia and was using intravenous anaesthetics to go to sleep, the New York Post reported.

An e-mail - sent on June 25, 2009, hours before Michael died in his rented La mansion - from British insurance broker Bob Taylor was also shown to jurors, which read "The insurers.

The first time I saw him, he was striding toward me out of the burning Georgia sun, as helicopters landed behind him. His face was tanned a deep brown. He was wearing a combat helmet, an ammo belt, carrying a rifle, had a canteen on his hip, stood six feet four inches. He stuck out his hand and said, "John Wayne." That was not necessary.

Wayne died on June 11, 1979. Stomach cancer. "The Big C," he called it. He had lived for quite a while on one lung, and then the Big C came back. He was near death and he knew it when he walked out on stage at the 1979 Academy Awards to present Best Picture to "The Deer Hunter," a film he wouldn't have made. He looked frail, but he planted himself there and sounded like John Wayne.

John Wayne. When I was a kid, we said it as one word: Johnwayne.

Unlike Robert Taylor, who would have turned 100 today, or Ginger Rogers, whose centennial was last July 16, Lucille Ball is actually going to be remembered on the occasion of what would have been her 100th birthday this Saturday, August 6. Turner Classic Movies' "Summer Under the Stars" series continues with 14 Lucille Ball movies. All of them have been shown before on TCM. [Lucille Ball Movie Schedule.] As an actress working mostly at Rko (1935-42) and at MGM (1943-46), Lucille Ball has been a TCM regular, as the Time Warner library encompasses films made at those two studios. On Saturday, TCM will also show the United Artists' release Lured, a crime drama directed by Douglas Sirk, and co-starring George Sanders, and two comedies Ball made during her tenure at Columbia in the late '40s: Miss Grant Takes Richmond (1949), co-starring William Holden, and The Fuller Brush Girl (1950), a reboot of The Fuller Brush Man (1948), which starred Red Skelton.

Kisses flowed freely on So You Think You Can Dance Wednesday, but Thursday brought only two kisses - kisses goodbye. Three couples - Robert Taylor, Jr. and Miranda Maleski, Caitlyn Lawson and Mitchell Kelly, and Ashley Rich and Chris Koehl - danced for their lives Thursday before the judges decided who would receive the Kiss of Dance death. The decision was not made easily. Spoiler Alert: Show results about to be revealed. Related: So You Think You Can Dance Turns Into Kissing Contest"It was a little heated. We all wanted to take up for who we wanted. And it wasn't unanimous,...

Miranda Maleski and Robert Taylor Jr have become the fifth and sixth contestants to exit the eighth season of So You Think You Can Dance. The dancers were eliminated during tonight's live results show after they fell into the bottom six beside Ashley Rich, Chris Koehl, Caitlynn Lawson and Mitchell Kelly. Each of the contestants - who received the lowest number of public votes - had performed for the judges again with a solo routine in their specialised genre of dance in order to help the judges make their final decision. The dancers continuing with the competition are: Melanie Moore, Marko Germar, Ryan Ramirez, Ricky Jaime, Jordan Casanova, Tadd Guaddang, (more)...

On Wednesday night’s Top 16 episode of So You Think You Can Dance, highly entertaining guest judge Kristin Chenoweth declared that the night’s final two-person routine was “a dessert — and I liked every bite!” But if you think about it, her metaphor could’ve (and maybe should’ve) been expanded to describe the entire two-hour telecast, which offered one sweet treat after another, to the point where I was practically waving my arm at the TV screen and shouting “I’ll take one of everything!”

When it comes to confectionary indulgence, however, there’s always a price to pay.

It was clear we were in for a strange episode of So You Think You Can Dance on Wednesday night the minute guest judge Debbie Reynolds started cracking jokes about her limited time left on the planet. “It’s fantastic to be alive,” she declared, before host Cat Deeley encouraged the screen legend to try to “keep going for the next two hours.” Wowza. That early weirdness spilled over into the contestants’ confessionals (where they spilled “shocking” secrets about their partners), the performances (which included a wardrobe malfunction and a bloody nose), and especially to the judges’ table, where Nigel Lythgoe...

After the cameras stopped rolling on So You Think You Can Dance Thursday, contestant Jess LeProtto was bawling uncontrollably and Jordan Casanova screamed out, "What just happened?" as the audience sat stunned in the aftermath of a shocking first elimination for season 8's top 20 contestants. After a series of breathtaking solo dances from the seven dancers on the chopping block, the judges were at a loss as to who to send home. "It's crazy, they really are making the decision at the last second and there are these different ideas that were floated," guest judge Megan Mullally told reporters of...

Memo to Nigel Lythgoe: No more Saw movie marathons — or any other flicks from the torture-porn category — for the rest of the So You Think You Can Dance season. Because frankly, I’m not sure I can handle another result-show telecast in which our at-risk dancers get stretched on the emotional rack, herded over psychological hot coals, and starved for a final verdict — only to be told at the last minute that they’ll all be back to dance again next week.

Yes indeed, tonight’s results were as grueling as they were confusing, but the bottom line is no one got the boot,...

All contestants have been spared elimination this week on the eighth season of So You Think You Can Dance. Judge Nigel Lythgoe revealed that no dancers would be sent home on tonight's live results episode after Jordan Casanova, Tadd Guaddang, Clarice Ordaz, Jess LeProtto, Miranda Maleski and Robert Taylor Jr all fell into the bottom seven. Mitchell Kelly was also automatically placed in danger after an injury kept him from performing during last night's live show. Each of the contestants - who received the lowest number of public votes - had performed for the judges again, with Mitchell and Robert being asked to perform a second solo before the decision was announced. The dancers continuing with the competition are: Melanie Moore and Marko Germar, Missy Morelli and Wadi Jones, Iveta Lukosiute and Nick Young, Ashley (more)...

Lithe young bodies take flight with the power and grace of Pegasus. A hyperactive woman sits behind a rectangular table and squeals with delight. A British fashionista dazzles in a shimmering black minidress and silver stilettos from hell. And I’m awkwardly typing phone numbers containing the word “Tempo” into my cellular keypad. It can only mean one thing: The live rounds of So You Think You Can Dance, Season 8, are upon us. And based on Tuesday night’s mostly first-rate performances, I’d say we’re in for a heckuva thrilling summer. Ask 10 different folks who’s the competition’s current front-runner,...

We haven’t even reached the voting stage for the current installment of So You Think You Can Dance, and I’m about to do something profoundly presumptuous and undeniably stupid: In the wake of Thursday night’s telecast announcing the Season 8 Top 20 — a closely matched group that at first glance appears to be extraordinarily talented — I’ve decided to rest my neck on the guillotine and rank the contestants in order from least- to most-likely to win.

“It’s too early,” you say, and you are probably right. What’s more, a Top 20 ranking flies in the face of...

Jeff Neira/Fox Contestants show off their moves in New York on “So You Think You Can Dance.”

Auditions continue in New York and Salt Lake City.

First stop is the Capitol Theatre in Salt Lake, where the judges include Robin Antin, creator of Pussycat Dolls; ballroom pro Mary Murphy and show creator Nigel Lythgoe. Amazing auditioners get tickets for the next round in Vegas; those who “fail to impress” (there’s a euphemism for you) get sent home, and...

Vincentennial: The Legacy of Vincent Price Exhibit opened at the Sheldon Art Galleries in St. Louis last Friday, April 22nd. Despite tornado alerts and it being Good Friday, there was a turnout of over 250 enthusiastic people on hand for the opening night reception. The free wine, Stella Artois beer, and snacks were appreciated by the crowd who at one point were sent downstairs while the tornado alarms went off. Fortunately, the Vincent Price Exhibit was downstairs as well, and when the beer made it down there, it just became more of a party. I’m pretty sure Vincent Price was behind the wicked weather. The Sheldon is located at 3648 Washington Boulevard in Saint Louis. The exhibit is in the Ann Lee and Wilfred Konneker Gallery on the first floor and runs through August 6th. The exhibition is underwritten by Mary Strauss and curated by Tom Stockman.

Vincentennial: The Legacy of...

Vincentennial: The Legacy of Vincent Price Exhibit opens April 22nd at the Sheldon Art Galleries in St. Louis. The Sheldon is located downtown at 3648 Washington Boulevard (around the corner from the Fox Theater). The exhibit will be in the Ann Lee and Wilfrid Konneker Gallery on the first floor. There will be a free exhibit grand opening reception Friday April 22nd from 6 to 8pm at the Sheldon that will include free wine, hors d’oeuvres, and Stella Artois beer. The Exhibit runs through August 6th. The Gallery’s Hours are Tuesdays, 12 noon . 8 p.m, Wednesdays – Fridays, 12 noon . 5 p.m, and Saturdays, 10 a.m. . 2 p.m.

Vincentennial: The Legacy of Vincent Price is a one-of-a-kind exhibit of historical artifacts, movie memorabilia, and collectibles assembled from the collections of several Vincent Price fans from across the country. In honor of the upcoming centennial of his birth, this exhibit is designed to honor...

We look back at Farley Granger's movie career, from the two masterpieces he made with Alfred Hitchcock to Luchino Visconti's operatic melodrama Senso

Spotted doing a cockney accent in a play while still at high school, Farley Granger was signed to a seven-year deal by MGM in 1943 and soon put to work alongside Anne Baxter and Dana Andrews in The North Star, a pro-Soviet war film about the sufferings of a Ukrainian village under the Nazi yoke.

With a script by blacklistee Lillian Hellman, The North Star – later reissued under the title Armored Attack! – was cited by the House Committee on Un-American Activities as a prime example of Hollywood communist propaganda.

After one more film – The Purple Heart (1944) – and a spell in the navy where he discovered his bisexuality, Granger found himself cast in what would become his breakthrough film, They Live by Night. Shot in 1947, Nicholas Ray...

Well time is nearing to Zack Snyder and Chris Nolan’s casting net catching the new Man of Steel for their reboot of Superman and now we know they want some lesser known to unknown for the coveted role of Superman/Clark Kent. I thought I would take the time put some lesser known names out there that would be good to look at for this film. I have heard of these guys but that’s my job to know these names but to many out there these are dudes they have never heard of. So without furthur ado I think the best choice from all these candidates is Henry Cavill. I think he has the look, the chin, the height, the physical attributes in spades but he also has the acting chops that you’d want in newcomer actor. So who do you like out of our list?

Bryan Greenberg - Born in Omaha,...

The first time I saw him, he was striding toward me out of the burning Georgia sun, as helicopters landed behind him. His face was tanned a deep brown. He was wearing a combat helmet, an ammo belt, carrying a rifle, had a canteen on his hip, stood six feet four inches. He stuck out his hand and said, "John Wayne." That was not necessary.

John Wayne died 30 years ago on June 11. Stomach cancer. "The Big C," he called it. He had lived for quite a while on one lung, and then the Big C came back. He was near death and he knew it when he walked out on stage at the 1979 Academy Awards to present Best Picture to "The Deer Hunter," a film he wouldn't have made. He looked frail, but he planted himself there and sounded like John Wayne.

John Wayne. When I was a kid, we...