Nathaniel Bell

Until his untimely death at 54, Bill Gunn was a talent to be reckoned with. A celebrated playwright and screenwriter, he also directed three features, including Personal Problems, a rarely seen 1980 "experimental soap opera" co-written with Ishmael Reed....

The American Cinematheque's rare tribute to Czech animator Jirí Trnka continues with a program headlined by A Midsummer Night's Dream, a phantasmagoric Shakespeare adaptation performed entirely by puppets....

REDCAT's International Children's Film Festival is such a good idea it's a wonder there aren't more like it. Essentially a highbrow immersion in international cinema (except, you know, for kids), the fest spans three weekends of short subjects from around the globe....

The slow-burn farces of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are timeless in their exuberant silliness. That's why they seem to play better to kids today than some of the other geniuses from the Golden Age of Comedy. The Old Town Music Hall in El Segundo comprehends their appeal, as evidenced by its annual Laurel & Hardy Festival....

The summer of Bergman continues with a citywide celebration marking the Swedish director's centennial. The American Cinematheque has a doozy of a triple feature: Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light and The Silence. And LACMA shows Wild Strawberries....

Le Corbeau, Henri-Georges Clouzot's scathingly cynical thriller about a provincial town terrorized by a series of poison-pen letters, has outlived its initial controversy to become an era-defining classic. Shot in France during the German occupation, the film was criticized for its misanthropic depiction of French corruption at a moment when morale was already in the gutter....

UCLA's tribute to Ida Lupino concludes with a classic film noir double feature, starting with The Hitch-Hiker, a tense B-thriller recently restored by the Library of Congress....

Noir City heads into its final weekend of classic crime movies with a humdinger of a Joseph Losey triple feature. The Prowler, which premiered at the American Cinematheque several years ago, is still one of the most significant "finds" in its class — a downbeat yet gripping thriller with deep insight into the postwar American psyche....

This unabashed celebration of noir — a term coined by French critics to describe a film style derived from hardboiled American fiction and characterized by low-key lighting, doomed protagonists and fateful narratives in urban settings — is the fruit of a cinematic triumvirate: the Film Noir Foundation, a nonprofit founded by author-programmer-historian Eddie Muller; biographer-programmer-historian Alan K. Rode; and the American Cinematheque, whose Egyptian Theatre hosts the annual event....

Hollywood movie star and trailblazing director Ida Lupino was born 100 years ago. To celebrate her centennial, UCLA will present a series of double bills featuring the British-born Lupino both in front and behind the camera....