Before Spielberg, Scorsese and Coppola, there was Sidney Lumet. The six-time Oscar-nominated director brought us the best films in almost every genre including mystery (“Murder on the Orient Express”), courtroom drama (“The Verdict”), crime (“Dog Day Afternoon”), political thriller (“Fail-Safe”) and even musical (“The Wiz”). He’s also perhaps the only director whose career is bookended by two great films

Who is Jeremiah Tower? Does anyone know? Jeremiah Tower is the first American celebrity chef, a culinary pioneer of American cuisine who started rising to fame in the seventies and has been recognized amongst foodies and culinary circles as the genius behind the style of cooking known as California cuisine. A solitary, outrageous and charismatic figure, Jeremiah Tower makes for a fascinating documentary subject 

Screen Comment met with Director David Oelhoffen to discuss his newest film: Far From Men starring Viggo Mortensen and Reda Kateb. Over a good steaming cup of coffee, he explains how a short story: L’Hote, written sixty years ago by Albert Camus, needed to be made into a film because of the original text’s potency with today’s world. Two men journey to Tinguit, at the break of the Algerian War

Sharon Greytak’s “Archaeology of a Woman,” now playing in New York, is a scintillating, intimate look at the horrors of dementia crossed with a purposefully disorienting murder mystery. Margaret (Sally Kirkland in riveting form) is a septuagenarian prone to automotive scrapes and violent temper tantrums. Her fortysomething daughter Kate (an equally fine Victoria Clark) is understandably worried after the police begin calling her

For some time I’ve been highlighting the great and underrated work of female directors in cinema. Kim Rocco Shields, who I recently got a chance to sit and talk to, is not just a female director: she’s a director, pure and simple, and for my money Rocco is capable of pushing the envelope further than many male directors. Proof of this is her recent short film “Love is All You Need,” which (at present) has not only garnered over thirty million

So you want to be a filmmaker. Here’s something to keep etched away in your mind, courtesy of writer-director-producer Gabriel Cowan: ‘Just do something’ and ‘make it work.’

Those phrases have kept Gabriel Cowan going for years. He probably felt thus gratified, then, when passing on this advice to an aspiring filmmaker at a recent Q&A here at the Tribeca Festival.

As part of my ongoing series on Women Filmmakers I got to meet Gillian Greene after the screening of her feature-length debut “Murder of a Cat." She proved to be as charming as her film was compelling and humorous.

Greene is the the wife of director Sam Raimi and the daughter of legendary actor Lorne Greene, so her connection to show-business is deep. But although she expresses some pride about it, she's clearly emerged as

A Neil LaBute play or film isn’t complete, typically, unless one of its central characters turns out to be outlandishly evil (and they weren’t that nice to begin with). Think of Aaron Eckhart as the oily corporate ladder-climber in “In the Company of Men,” who convinces his weaselly co-worker to take revenge on the jilting females of the world by cruelly deceiving a vulnerable deaf woman. Or Jason Patric’s creepy monologue in “Your Friends

Italian, sybarite, lover of beauty, jaded, intellectual, addicted to work, professional, charismatic. I picture myself shaking these words in a tumbler and throwing them onto the rug to see how they will land.

Asia Argento's influences, whether in music or in film, run the gamut, but only insofar as it is worthy of being called art. She's stuck to her guns, having appeared in films by Gus Van Sant, Sofia Coppola

Even Sam Neave is quick to admit that the material of “Almost in love,” his latest romantic dramedy, is shared by countless films that have come to disenchant him with their overdone depictions of the afflictions of yuppiehood. And yet, ten years later Neave returns to the universe of urban sophisticates his debut “Cry Funny Happy” depicted in 2003 intent on exploring the depths of the everyday. Working with a cast comprised mostly of friends–