Film Criticas Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Guy Lodge Film CriticAs a chef, Julia Child made no claims for herself as an innovator: Her mission was not to create new recipes, but to interpret and archive age-old French ones in ways the average American home cook could tackle without fear.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film CriticAs an actor, Matt Damon has always had two sides: the light and the dark, the noble and the furtive, the boyishly winning and the ominously coldhearted. Early in his career, when he was that cute kid with the shiny hair and the big grin, he played characters who had a troubled layer or two, like the hero of “Good Will Hunting” (1997), but mostly he projected a decency that was unmistakable.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film CriticAs a filmmaker, Sean Penn has always had a flinty integrity, but the movies he directs work so hard to channel the values of ’70s films — they’re moody and fatalistic, with furrowed brows, and move at a pace of drop-dead deliberation — that early on, in the days of “The Indian Runner” (1991) and “The Crossing Guard” (1995), you could just about feel the sweat of his downbeat virtue.

Peter Debruge Chief Film CriticAs a critic committed to maintaining a certain professional distance with those whose work I might review, I don’t often play the fan in the presence of filmmakers.

Guy Lodge Film CriticAs the director of the best-dressed films in contemporary Italian cinema, it’s not surprising that Luca Guadagnino was the man approved by the Salvatore Ferragamo luxury goods brand to make a devoted documentary ode to its long-deceased founder.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film CriticAs an actress, Kelly Preston, who died Sunday at 57, was the soul of likability, and that’s no small thing. When she showed up in a movie, she lit it up; she also grounded it.