This is the way the world ends, or starts to end, in George Clooney’s “The Monuments Men”: with a bang. In the film’s opening scenes, Hubert and Jan van Eyck’s “Ghent Altarpiece” is loudly dismantled, panel by panel, and prepared—too late, though—for a secret hiding place. The clock is ticking for its fellow masterpieces. World War II is raging and Hitler, an unpromising art student before he became Der Führer, fancies himself

The character of The Tramp, played by Charlie Chaplin, turned 100 today. He was born on February 7th, 1914 in the short film by Henry Lehrman called "Kids auto races at Venice, Cal." Sir Charles Chaplin performs the character that would make him famous for the very first time. In the film he is seen wandering randomly in the middle of a car race and starting--as would be predicted--all kinds of shenanigans, provocatively walking in the middle of traffic

Of course we like them, we love them, we are grateful to them, these stage and film actors who give us so much. When we occasionally hear bad news--an overdose, an accident, an unforgiving illness, a suicide--as the case may be, we’re surprised at how young they were or how untimely their deaths--Heath Ledger comes to mind. All we can do is keep the memories and have a warm thought for them when we come across an image or hear their name.

Transformations rarely come as thick as the one made by Vanessa Hudgens for "Gimme Shelter." The sweet-cheeked kids-show chanteuse tosses on the hoodie from the bottom of the pile of dirty clothes. She becomes Apple, a teenage wretch escaping from her life with an abusive mom. This street child isn’t above cutting her hair in clumps or eating pizza out of a dumpster. That was not a skill learned on the set of High School Musical. "Gimme Shelter" starts out looking like "The Blind Side"

The shadows for “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit” fall over the movie and the actors themselves. When did Kevin Costner become an old man? What happened to Keira Knightley’s rise to stardom? Why has a relaunch of Tom Clancy’s heroic CIA analyst fallen into the January dump period, especially when it, at least, is not a disaster? There’s certainly nothing shadowy about the chosen story for this intended reboot. This isn’t the first time

In “August: Osage County,” we enter the story (based on the Tracy Letts play), of the appalling Westons who live in Oklahoma. The disappearance of the patriarch, a poet and a drunk (Sam Sheppard), brings together the members of this spectacularly dysfunctional family. In the stifling heat, they claw and tear each other to pieces, they cuss, yell, and throw at one another’s face awful revelation after awful revelation. Intelligent writing and great ensemble acting make “August” fascinating.

[jwplayer config=”Default-Post-Player” mediaid=”18337″]