George Kuchar, a prolific filmmaker whose campy yet heartfelt low-budget films inspired legions of followers like John Waters, died in San Francisco. His twin brother Mike confirmed the news last night, saying the cause was prostate cancer. Kuchar was 69. more ›

Fans of the fantastically twisted brain of director Terry Gilliam, who's been laying relatively low since the 2009 release of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and last year's Arcade Fire concert, tentatively rejoice! The auteur has announced plans to bring New York author Paul Auster's Mr. Vertigo to the big screen. Maybe. more ›

We think it's pretty safe to say that most people agree that our collective indulgence of director M. Night Shyamalan has gone too far. Some may argue when the fall happened (post Sixth Sense? Exactly 2/3 of the way into Unbreakable?), but we have yet to meet anyone who has anything nice to say about The Last Airbender. Finally, someone has gotten so fed up with Shyamalan's twist-filled, narcissistic brand of hokey cinema, they're trying to raise enough money to send him back to film school. more ›

Could it be that the Broadway-bound musical adaptation of The Addams Family is just a tad dysfunctional? Reviewing the production's Windy City debut, The Chicago Tribune wrote, "Someone needs to stick a sharp pair of fireplace tongs into all the Gothic clutter that surrounds them in their overly weighty new musical." Other reviews were more positive—Variety calls it "theatrical comfort food, providing value for the consumer dollar"—but with $16.5 million sunk into the Broadway opening, producers aren't taking any chances. So they've brought in the big gun. more ›

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is unmistakably the work of Terry Gilliam, the wide-eyed auteur behind such classics as Time Bandits, Brazil, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The movie, which opens Friday, tells the story of the wizened Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) and his extraordinary Imaginarium, a traveling show where members of the audience pay to pass through a magic mirror and enter a world of their own imagination. But times are tough for Parnassus and his troupe when the film begins (the public is more interested in iPods than imagination), and it only gets tougher with the appearance of Tom Waits, who's perfectly cast as the devil to whom Parnassus wagered his daughter's life, centuries ago. more ›

Colorful and controversial former Metropolitan Museum of Art director Thomas Hoving died in his Manhattan home yesterday of cancer; he was 78 years old. Hoving headed the museum between 1967 and 1977 and wrote in his memoir, Making the Mummies Dance that he had to be "a gifted connoisseur, a well-trained scholar, an aesthete, a patient diplomat, a deft fundraiser, an executive, and a conciliator" as well as “part gunslinger, ward heeler, legal fixer, accomplice smuggler, anarchist, and toady." more ›

None of the reports about director John Hughes's death specified exactly where in Manhattan he collapsed from a heart attack, and you can see conspiracy theories already sprouting on the internets, with one Hollywood Elsewhere commenter wondering, "I have been trying to discover WHERE in Manhattan he dropped dead since the day he died... Is he, in fact, not even dead yet? I'm not entirely joking." Well, Movie Line has just pinpointed where he passed away on the morning of August 6th: 60 West 55th Street, outside Alain Ducasse’s brasserie Benoit; there is now a small shrine with a photograph of Hughes and sixteen candles on the sidewalk. But that's probably not going to satisfy Michael Wolff, who's written a provocative essay titled "Who Killed John Hughes," which posits: "Certain deaths do something weird to the media mind and temperament. John Hughes, a maker of what are essentially genre slapstick films, has, by his early death the other day, become a great auteur and, as well, a saint, without anyone seeming to be remotely nosy about the strange circumstances of his life and untimely end... So, come on, what happened to the guy?" Let us know who you think killed Hughes, preferably IN ALL CAPS. more ›

Thornton Wilder's groundbreaking 1938 play Our Town has been almost irreparably scarred by unbearably earnest high school drama club productions over the years. So it came as a bit of a surprise that Chicago director David Cromer—who won an OBIE for his rather sensational adaptation of The Adding Machine last season—would be reviving this old relic here in New York. But since opening Off Broadway all the way back in March, the production, night after night, has been eradicating any misconceptions that Our Town is just a hokey, Norman Rockwell Hallmark card to small town America. more ›

Kathryn Bigelow's directorial visions have spanned genres, from the freewheeling surfing bank robbers of Point Break to heady science fiction voyeurism in Strange Days, from the police thriller Blue Steel to submarine intrigue in K-19: The Widowmaker. We spoke with the former painter this week about her new movie, the Venice Film Festival Grand Prize-winning The Hurt Locker, which is set in a land that Americans seem increasingly inclined to look away from: Iraq. more ›

Watchmen hasn't been getting the best reviews, but Slate thinks it could be worse. What if Woody Allen directed it! Allen's would be set on the UWS, of course, and the site imagines a romantic comedy "where wealthy dermatologist Dr. Herbert Manhattan (Allen) suffers a freak accident with his dermabrasion machine. How will his blue skin and omnipotence affect his relationship with beautiful but scatterbrained silk importer Laurie Juspeczyk (Scarlett Johansson)?" Other what-if scenarios include the bromance-obsessed Judd Apatow, Quentin Tarantino, Tyler Perry, Sofia Coppola and Pedro Almodóvar—but who else would(n't) you like to see reinterpret it? How about a Danny Boyle and Loveleen Tandan directed Bollywood take on the comic? A Dr. Mumbai dance number may be just what this movie needs. more ›

Henry Selick's new 3D stop-motion animation film Coraline is adapted from a story by Neil Gaiman, who's perhaps best known for his groundbreaking graphic novel series The Sandman. Gaiman began writing the story in the early '90s at the request of his daughter Holly, who desired a narrative about a little girl whose mother gets kidnapped by evil witches resembling her mother. Happy to oblige, Gaiman created an inquisitive girl named Coraline who finds trouble behind a forgotten doorway in her drafty old house that leads into a seemingly better version of her current, dreary home. more ›

In her new movie Wendy and Lucy, filmmaker Kelly Reichardt follows a desperate young woman (played by Oscar nominee Michelle Williams) as she attempts a perilous journey from Indiana to Alaska in search of employment, accompanied only by her dog. more ›

Earlier this year the Guggenheim's notoriously-hated director, Thomas Krens, announced his departure from the museum (which many blame him for turning into a McGuggenheim). The NY Times announces today that the Guggenheim is now ready to name Richard Armstrong as the next director, saying the final board meeting regarding the decision will be held on or before September 23rd.

The choice was considered a safe one after nearly 20 often tumultuous years of Mr. Krens’s maverick vision. In addition to being criticized for his globe-trotting ways, in which he created an array of satellite institutions, Mr. Krens was known for dipping into the museum’s endowment to cover operating costs and for mounting exhibitions from motorcycles to of-the-moment artists like Matthew Barney.

Director David Gordon Green, called "one of the most interesting and idiosyncratic independent filmmakers of the last decade" by The Believer, will be sharing his lyrical take on southern culture with Brooklyn moviegoers starting Thursday, when BAMcinematek kicks off All the Real Americans: The World of David Gordon Green. more ›

The Dia Art Foundation announced the hire of a director yesterday; Philippe Vergne, will be joining Dia starting September 15th. Vergne co-curated the Whitney Biennial in 2006, and will be leaving his position at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis for the job. While Dia has one area of New York covered with a sprawling space in Beacon, their Chelsea space closed in 2004. Vergne's main challenge will be to find a permanent place to exhibit in New York City. He told the Times that with the ever-changing art world, “the sky’s the limit.” more ›

(Photo © Robin Holland) Born in Munich in 1942, Werner Herzog grew up in a remote mountain village in Bavaria, where he never saw any films, television, or telephones until he was 17. The effects of this isolated childhood can be seen in many of his films, which often focus on the struggles of independent dreamers who deliberately square off against impossible circumstances. Herzog has directed more than 40 films over the course of his career, and although the subject matter varies wildly, one always senses Herzog's uncompromising persona embedded in each one like a watermark. His latest documentary, the transporting Encounters at the End of the World, is no exception. Shot at various locations throughout Antarctica, the film finds Herzog very much in his element: the extreme, inhospitable and almost otherworldly sun-drenched South Pole. more ›

The Oscar-winning director Sydney Pollack whose films include Tootsie, Out of Africa, The Way We Were and They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, died this afternoon in his Los Angeles home. The cause was cancer. more ›

The art world is breathing a sigh of relief today as the announcement of The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation's director stepping down was announced. For many, Thomas Krens has been more of a dictator than director; with a focus on franchising a "McGuggenheim" business over exhibiting modern art or focusing on the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed building itself.

The Guggenheim flagship -- one of New York's top tourist attractions -- was falling apart. (Its crumbling facade is currently undergoing renovation.) Krens wasted considerable time and money trying to get the city to accept a second Gehry Guggenheim in Manhattan when he failed in his attempt to attract either steady streams of visitors or compelling exhibitions to a SoHo branch. (The space is now a Prada store.)

The construction worker who killed Adrienne Shelly in her West Village office pleaded guilty to manslaughter - and gave new details about why he killed the actress-director. Diego Pillco will receive 25 years in prison; as an illegal immigrant from Ecuador, the Post says his sentence will be "almost certainly followed by deportation." more ›