You could choreograph the entire plot outline of Step Up after hearing only a brief description of the movie’s premise, but the dancing is another matter entirely. This follows the cliched, Romeo-and-Juliet romance between a criminally inclined Baltimore street dancer (Channing Tatum) and a high-strung ballet student (Jenna Dewan), but rather than concentrating on the

One of Shelley Winters first significant roles – long before The Poseidon Adventure – was that of Alice Tripp, a factory girl who falls for Montgomery Clift’s George Eastman. George, however, has higher goals – especially when he meets a stunning socialite played by Elizabeth Taylor. It’s a love triangle that turns criminally complicated when

This means to be James Franco’s An Officer and a Gentleman and Top Gun all rolled into one, but I don’t remember Tom Cruise grimacing much in Top Gun, which is about all Franco manages. As a young welder who has grown up across the water from the U.S. Naval Academy and has been given

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington runs on just the sort of idealism that gave director Frank Capra (It’s a Wonderful Life) his reputation for cornball sentimentality. Yet Capra could pull this tone off better than anyone, especially when he teamed up with James Stewart, an actor of towering sincerity. Stewart stars here as Jefferson Smith,

Along with 1951’s A Streetcar Named Desire, also directed by Elia Kazan, this announced Brando as the new paragon of screen acting. His was a raw, unpredictable talent, one of guttural bursts, not crisp line readings. Here he plays Terry Malloy, a former boxer and current longshoreman caught between a corrupt union and his conscience.

Youth, beauty, love, fame – all of these fade, as La Dolce Vita so poignantly reveals, but thankfully the movies never do. Director Federico Fellini’s epic account of our endless chase of “the sweet life” looks as shimmering and feels as vital as ever – even though its ironic message is that the party always