Karina Longworth

The morality of the mad-scientist tale has remained more or less fixed since the beginning of sound cinema: From Dr. Frankenstein's hubristic claim to "know what it feels like to be God," to Jurassic Park's criticism of "scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could that they didn't stop to......

In 1967, USC student George Lucas was one of four young filmmakers assigned to make a documentary short on the Arizona set of MacKenna's Gold, the 1969 Western starring Gregory Peck. While his peers went through the usual behind-the-scenes motions, Lucas went off by himself and made 6.18.67, a human-free......

Thurs., Oct. 13 The new Film Independent screening series at LACMA, curated by controversial film critic Elvis Mitchell, gets under way tonight with a screening of Bruce Robinson's long-delayed Hunter S. Thompson adaptation The Rum Diary. Tickets for tonight's movie sold out long ago, but as of press time, Sunday's......

Footloose, starring dancer Kenny Wormald and directed by Craig Brewer, is an extraordinarily faithful remake, recycling four songs from Herbert Ross's 1984 Footloose, plus plot, characters, and iconography. (The main dude rocks skinny ties and drives Kevin Bacon's yellow Beetle.) A smart aleck city teen (Wormald) moves to a tiny......

The mad-scientist tale has remained more or less fixed since the beginning of sound cinema: From Dr. Frankenstein's claim to "know what it feels like to be God," to Jurassic Park's criticism of "scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could that they didn't stop to think if they should,”......

In hindsight, the 1984 hit Footloose -- starring Kevin Bacon and directed by Herbert Ross -- along with its contemporary, Flashdance, can be seen as the link between the old Hollywood model of a let's-put-on-a-show musical, based on original songs brought to life in elaborate choreographed numbers, and the later......