There are no chipper raindrops falling on the head of Sam Shepard’s rueful, graying outlaw Butch Cassidy in “Blackthorn,” a lovely, melancholy speculation on the aftermath of director George Roy Hill’s Oscar-adorned 1969 classic “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” Unlike the...

This week, the oddest DVD to appear on release lists is: “Tucker & Dale vs. Evil” While there has been no shortage of efforts to spoof slasher movies in recent years (“Scary Movie 5” will totter into theaters in 2012), “Tucker & Dale vs. Evil” – due out on DVD Tuesday...

The lowly hedgehog, as described in Muriel Barbery’s whimsical, best-selling novel “The Elegance of the Hedgehog,” is a prickly creature that is “falsely lethargic, staunchly private and terribly elegant.” The same can be said of freshman writer-director Mona Achache’s delicate and...

The best literary and psychedelic bridge between the last-gasp era of the beatniks and the rainbow-hued reign of the hippies was laid down by author Tom Wolfe in his epochal work of New Journalism, “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.” It was a richly detailed, verbally exuberant, eyewitness...

This week, the oddest DVD to appear on release lists is: “ThanksKilling” Just in time for Thanksgiving, a profane, ax-wielding turkey takes its revenge in the loony, micro-budgeted horror spoof “ThanksKilling,” due out on DVD Tuesday. This bizarre 2009 comedy was reportedly made...

Most young would-be rockers aspire to stardom for fame and fortune — and, of course, love for the music — but for the brothers and cousin in Kings of Leon it was an angry rebellion, and a desperate means of escape from oppressive and threadbare beginnings. That much is clear from...

As a clown prince of the hippie movement in the 1960s, Wavy Gravy is probably most recognizable as the loosey-goosey, snaggle-toothed master of ceremonies at the Woodstock Music Festival. (“What we have in mind is breakfast in bed for 400,000,” he announced over the P.A. system to the soggy...

The two couldn’t appear to be more different – Kevin Clash, a somewhat shy, smiling, middle-aged African American man with a linebacker’s physique, and Elmo, the pimento-red, squeaky-voiced little bundle of shag that embodies childish glee, mischief and innocence for generations of fans on...

BY GENE TRIPLETT Many a seasoned actress might be daunted by an identity-challenged character named “Martha Marcy May Marlene,” not to mention a player who’s still in drama school. But Elizabeth Olsen, 22, slipped into the title role of Sean Durkin’s psychological thriller like a...

This week, the oddest DVD to appear on release lists is: “Half Pint Brawlers: Season 1” The politically correct term is “little people,” but the tiny professional wrestlers of “Half Pint Brawlers: Season 1” (due out on DVD Tuesday) are anything but politically correct. They...

Elizabeth Olsen steps out of the twin shadows of her famous older sisters and establishes herself as an actress gifted with perception and emotional depth beyond her years in the gripping psychological thriller “Martha Marcy May Marlene.” First-time writer-director Sean Durkin displays...

While “The River Why,” a visually burnished film adaptation of David James Duncan’s 1983 “trout cult” novel, never found a major theatrical distributor (perhaps due to prolonged legal tussles with the author), the movie’s biggest problems occur on screen. The novel – a thoughtful...

The fiery death last month of British IndyCar racer Dan Wheldon serves to underscore the urgency, foreboding and poignancy that propels “Senna,” director Asif Kapadia’s riveting portrait – at once timely and timeless – of the man widely considered the world’s greatest racecar driver...

This week, the oddest DVD to appear on release lists is: “Not Another B Movie” “Not Another B Movie,” yet another self-referential “movie” movie with the distinctive Troma Entertainment imprimatur, hits the DVD shelves on Tuesday. Produced by West Bridge Entertainment and...

The 2012 edition of the popular Fly Fishing Film Tour gained an influential new sponsor this month when Trout Unlimited signed on as one of the show’s major underwriters. Trout Unlimited is a private non-profit organization with more than 140,000 members dedicated to conserving, protecting...

In his heyday Danny Kaye was a hugely popular, multi-threat performer – actor, singer, dancer, lithe mime, rubber-faced clown, limber-tongued monologist and charming raconteur. As a performer from his early teens, he rose from the Borscht Belt vaudeville of Jewish resorts in the Catskills to...

This week, the oddest DVD to appear on release lists is: “How the States Got Their Shapes: Season 1” Ever wonder why Oklahoma has a panhandle? Or why is Texas so darned big? Well, curious map lovers can luxuriate in the wealth of cartographical, topographical, geographical and...

Some iconic movie directors’ off-screen lives seem so large, dramatic and event-packed that they threaten to overshadow their works on screen. Big, brawling, boozing, men’s-men directors such as Raoul Walsh, John Ford, Nicholas Ray and Howard Hawks boast colorful, rousing, trouble-filled...

BY GENE TRIPLETT GRAPEVINE, Texas — You can light up a cigarette in a smoke-free hotel when you’re as big as Antonio Banderas. Who can say no to the voice of Puss in Boots, the feline fighter, lover and outlaw, or the man behind “The Mask of Zorro,” or the guitar-strumming,...

BY GENE TRIPLETT Stefanie Powers never really was a globe-trotting spy, she just played one on TV. But if she ever decided to become a secret agent for real, she certainly has a lot of the right qualifications. The actress lives in three different countries, speaks eight languages, is a...