By Danny Peary Until she recently won Golden Globe as the Best Actress in a Drama Series for Showtime’s “The Affair,” Ruth Wilson was known best in the US for her TV work at home in England: “Suburban Shootout,” “Jane Eyre,” and as Alice Morgan opposite Idris Elba in “Luther.”  That didn’t change despite her [...]

Back in the long-ago days before movie trilogies meant four films, Evangeline Lilly became a huge television star in Lost as the clever, sexy, and gutsy Kate, who two male rivals voted “Coolest Female to Be Stranded on an Island With.” Now she’s establishing herself as an action movie star as the formidable wood elf Tauriel in Peter Jackson’s two-part final chapter of The Hobbit, and the upcoming Ant-Man. The “defining” fourth film in Jackson’s trilogy, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies had its top box-office spot taken by Taken, but it is still attracting large audiences in many Long Island theaters, including in Hampton Bays, and in New York City. So I am posting this one-on-one with Lilly that I did for the Australian magazine FilmInk prior to its release. For those who ask, “What’s Evangeline Lilly really like?,” my answer is, She couldn’t have been nicer.

I hope all movie fans are aware of the extraordinary retrospective, “Orson Welles 100,” that began at the Film Forum on January 1 and concludes Tuesday February 3. Every theatrical feature Welles directed will be screened, some in different versions. We can see reconstructed versions of various films and several newly restored prints.

something, anything fits my category Movies That Should Play in Sag Harbor.  Until now Knoxville writer-director Paul Harrill’s impressive, thought-provoking feature debut has played in festivals from Austin to Madison, Wisconsin, to Edinburgh. And beginning this Friday you can see it at IFP’s Made in NY Media Center at 30 John Street in Brooklyn. Peggy [...]

One of the most anticipated films of the season, Big Eyes opens nationally on Christmas Day, including at the UA Southampton 4. I suspect that it is on your list of must-see movies. Its stars Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz are doing the talk show circuit and Adams is hosting Saturday Night Live, and it’s likely you’ll hear their names a lot at award shows, but its main drawing card is its celebrated director. Big Eyes is being promoted as a “Tim Burton film,” and surely his fans will attempt to confirm his auteurship by pointing to the twisted story and slightly surreal imagery, hallmarks of Burton’s work. Burton’s influence is undeniable, but in truth Big Eyes is the brainchild of its screenwriters extraordinaire, Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski.

Sure, you’ve watched or plan to watch It’s a Wonderful Life on television for the fifteenth or twenty-fifth consecutive December. But did you know that that you can also see Frank Capra’s incomparable Christmas classic in 35mm in a theater in New York City? The IFC Center at 323 Avenue of the Americas, off 4th Street, has been showing it several times a day and that will continue through holidays.

If you’re looking for the perfect stocking stuffer for a friend or yourself, I can confidently recommend Criterion’s new Blu-ray and DVD box-sets of a terrific double feature directed by Monte Hellman, who provides audio commentary. Unique to their genre, The Shooting and Ride in the Whirlwind are exciting and thought-provoking cult westerns that were filmed back-to-back in Utah for only $150,000 combined of penurious producer Roger Corman’s money.

By Danny Peary Miss Tibet: Beauty in Exile fits my category Movies That Should Play in Sag Harbor.  I expect it to play at various festivals, but the enthusiastic reception it had at a recent sold-out screening at Doc NYC indicates that a smart distributor might snap it up and you’ll be able to see [...]

By Danny Peary Food Chains fits my category Movies That Should Play in Sag Harbor.  This week this important documentary (which is narrated by Forest Whitaker) about the exploitation of farm workers in America, opens nationally, including at the IFC Center and Quad Cinema in New York City.  You may have seen executive producer Eva [...]

By Danny Peary Le Jour Se Lève [Daybreak] fits my category Movies That Should Play in Sag Harbor.  But I’m thankful that the once heavily censored and then banned and then lost 1939 French masterpiece is playing anywhere. I am excited to be able to see “the Unseen Complete Restoration” print that will be showing [...]