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‘The Last of Us’ Season 2 is finally here! Max is set to release a variety of new content in April 2025. This includes both returning series and new movies coming to the platform.

‘Y2K,’ a horror-comedy movie, is coming on April 4, starring Rachel Zegler and Jaeden Martell, set during the Y2K scare of 1999. On April 10, ‘Hacks’ Season 4′ returns. On April 13, the biggest Max’s release of the month (year?) is here – ‘The Last of Us’ Season 2. ‘The Rehearsal’ Season 2 premieres on April 20. The month ends with ‘Babygirl’ on April 25, an A24 thriller starring Nicole Kidman.

Coming To Max in April 2025

April 1

A Kind of Murder (2016)

A Stolen Life (1946)

Aftersun (2022)

All I See Is You (2017)

Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (2011)

April in Paris (1952)

Bad Santa (2003)

Bad Santa 2 (2016)

Black Death (2010)

Brittany Murphy: An ID Mystery (ID)

Chopped After Hours, Seasons 1-3 (Food Network)

Chopped Junior, Food Network, Seasons 6 & 7 (Food Network)

Chopped Next Gen,...

Even those who have never seen a single Bette Davis film know her name and that her legacy represented movie stardom in its purest form. With eyes so striking there were songs written about them, Davis burst into Hollywood as an uncompromising actress, unafraid to look brash and aggressive in the name of playing compelling, sardonic, and occasionally unlikable characters. With an ability to capture the highs and lows of heartbreak and sorrow while having a nuanced understanding of when to play it big for the cameras and when to pull back, Davis was truly an icon of cinema.

While the best Bette Davis movies rank among the greatest films ever produced, her career also featured plenty of ups and downs as her relationship with stardom was complex and inconsistent. Davis achieved widespread recognition through Oscar-winning roles in the 1930s, had an all-time career high with All About Eve in...

Meg Bennett, the Daytime Emmy winner who did double duty as an actress and writer on the daytime soap operas The Young and the Restless, General Hospital and Santa Barbara, has died. She was 75.

Bennett died April 11 after a battle with cancer, her family announced.

Bennett portrayed Marty Maraschino for more than two years during the original Broadway run of Grease that kicked off in 1972, then began her long run in daytime two years later with a turn as Liza Walton on CBS’ Search for Tomorrow, where Kevin Kline and Morgan Fairchild were castmates.

She joined CBS’ The Young and the Restless in 1980 as Julia Newman — wife of Eric Braeden’s Victor Newman — but as her character was being written off, she was asked by Y&r creator Bill Bell to stick around as a writer.

“I’d been acting on the show for almost two years when this happened, so I knew the characters,...

Among the myriad reasons we could call the Criterion Channel the single greatest streaming service is its leveling of cinematic snobbery. Where a new World Cinema Project restoration plays, so too does Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight. I think about this looking at November’s lineup and being happiest about two new additions: a nine-film Robert Bresson retro including L’argent and The Devil, Probably; and a one-film Hype Williams retro including Belly and only Belly, but bringing as a bonus the direct-to-video Belly 2: Millionaire Boyz Club. Until recently such curation seemed impossible.

November will also feature a 20-film noir series boasting the obvious and the not. Maybe the single tightest collection is “Women of the West,” with Johnny Guitar and The Beguiled and Rancho Notorious and The Furies only half of it. Lynch/Oz, Irradiated, and My Two Voices make streaming premieres; Drylongso gets a Criterion Edition; and joining...

Movie-lovers!Welcome back to The Deuce Notebook, a collaboration between Notebook and The Deuce Film Series, our monthly event at Nitehawk Williamsburg that excavates the facts and fantasies of cinema's most infamous block in the world: 42nd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues. For each screening, my co-hosts and I pick a flick that we think embodies the era of all-night bumping & grinding and present the theater at which it premiered.Over the years, we’ve amassed a wonderful collection of devoted regulars who frequent our screenings, and, this month, we welcome one such friend, Caroline Golum, to guest-write for us. Caroline is a filmmaker, writer, and programmer whose first film, A Feast of Man, is now available on Amazon Prime… You can check out her film production work at Cinema Firmament; visit Screen Slate and her Notebook page for her writing, and Spectacle Theater, where she programs.Caroline takes...

As the coronavirus pandemic still rages on, precious few remain skeptical about going to the movies. But while your AMCs and others claim some godlike safety from Covid, there remains a chunk of people still uncomfortable hitting up theaters. To them, we bring you the September 2020 Criterion Channel lineup.

It starts off with quite the swath of content too. Béla Tarr’s Sátántangó hits the service on September 1, and its seven-plus hours should take up a large chunk of your day. Coming soon after is a collection of more than a dozen Joan Blondell starrers from the pre-Code era, including Howard Hawks’ The Crowd Roars, three collaborations with Mervyn LeRoy, and Ray Enright & Busby Berkeley’s Dames.

For some stuff released almost a century later, the service also sees the addition of documentary bender Robert Greene. His Actress, Kate Plays Christine, and Bisbee ’17 join soon after. Janicza Bravo, director of Lemon,...

What does a working girl have to do to get ahead, when all she has in her favor is an incredible face, a lavish wardrobe, and a pair of legs to make any executive wolf howl? Loretta Young juggles two egotistical swains, while Joan Blondell shines as an enticing all-pro homewrecker.

Big Business Girl

DVD-r

The Warner Archive Collection

1931 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 74 min. / Street Date September 14, 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Loretta Young, Frank Albertson, Ricardo Cortez, Joan Blondell, Frank Darien, Dorothy Christy, Oscar Apfel, Judith Barrett, Mickey Bennett, George ‘Gabby’ Hayes, Virginia Sale.

Cinematography: Sol Polito

Film Editor: Pete Fritch

Written by Robert Lord, story by Patricia Reilly & H.N. Swanson

Produced and Directed by William A. Seiter

Let’s hear it for the Warner Archive Collection’s voluminous vault of early ’30s Warners, MGM and Rko entertainments, which has given us a real education about this era of filmmaking.

Updated: Following a couple of Julie London Westerns*, Turner Classic Movies will return to its July 2017 Star of the Month presentations. On July 27, Ronald Colman can be seen in five films from his later years: A Double Life, Random Harvest (1942), The Talk of the Town (1942), The Late George Apley (1947), and The Story of Mankind (1957). The first three titles are among the most important in Colman's long film career. George Cukor's A Double Life earned him his one and only Best Actor Oscar; Mervyn LeRoy's Random Harvest earned him his second Best Actor Oscar nomination; George Stevens' The Talk of the Town was shortlisted for seven Oscars, including Best Picture. All three feature Ronald Colman at his very best. The early 21st century motto of international trendsetters, from Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro and Turkey's Recep Erdogan to Russia's Vladimir Putin and the United States' Donald Trump, seems to be, The world is reality TV and reality TV...

It's another Q & A. Ask it and it shall be er... might be answered. When I started typing this week I couldn't stop and before I know it there were thousands and thousands of words. So that takes care of two Q&As .

Here's the first half of the mad scribblings typings then.

What is your favorite non-nominated performance from each of the five titans of the acting nominations? (Meryl Streep, Katharine Hepburn, Jack Nicholson, Bette Davis and Laurence Olivier) - Sean

Nathaniel: Oh this is a tough one since those people were Oscared for breathing. Okay. Let's take them in reverse order of preference as actors...

Sir Laurence Olivier. Weirdly I was just watching As You Like It (1936) just the other day. I wasn't all that impressed though he definitely had an easier time with the material and the medium than the other stagebound performers. I have seen several of his non-nominated films,...

People who discover the provocative pre-Code movies made in the early 1930s inevitably become fans of leading man Warren William, an urbane actor (sometimes referred to as the poor man’s John Barrymore) who starred in so many memorable films of that period: Beauty and the Boss, Skyscraper Souls, The Mouthpiece, Employees Entrance, The Dark Horse, Three on a Match, The Match King, and many more. He also gave fine performances as Dave the Dude in Frank Capra’s Lady for a Day and served Cecil B. DeMille well as Julius Caesar in Cleopatra. He played a number of prominent detectives including Philo Vance and lawyer/sleuth Perry Mason before starring in his own B movie series as The ...

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Fearless editor Jette has indulged my love for classic film by allowing me to look into older movies which have Texas connections -- mostly through the people involved in making them. We'll call this new column The Stars at Night (thanks to my sister for the title idea). For my first selection, I chose a Joan Blondell film. Blondell's family lived in Texas during her teenage years -- she was even crowned Miss Dallas once upon a time.

The beautiful blonde with big eyes and a wry delivery tended to be placed in supporting roles during the half-century of her career. I hoped that with her top credit in 1932's Three on a Match, Blondell would have a larger role here... but no such luck. The melodrama includes such notables as Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart, along with Blondell, in the cast. However, it is early enough in their careers...

Tod Browning’s “Freaks”

Before R-ratings, anti-heroes and gratuitous violence and nudity in mainstream Hollywood movies, there was the Hays Code. As a form of self-policing the industry, virtually every movie released up until 1968 needed that stamp of approval if it wanted distribution. And while it helped produce all of Old Hollywood’s true classics for several decades, it often included ridiculous rulings like not being able to show or flush a toilet on screen, not allowing married couples to be shown sleeping in the same bad or always making sure criminals, even protagonists of the movie, got punished in the end.

But before the Hays Code was nothing, and it was a gloriously weird, scandalous time for the movies. Certain Hollywood films in the early ’30s as “talkies” were rapidly taking hold have since been labeled “Pre-Code” films that never received Hollywood’s stamp of approval.

Every Friday in September,...

The best movie culture writing from around the internet-o-sphere. There will be a quiz later. Just leave a tab open for us, will ya? “Pre-Code: Hollywood before the censors” — Mike Mashon and James Bell at Sight and Sound go longform to celebrate the sexy, gangster-y glory of a storytelling system before the ethical handcuffs were slapped on. “Even when prostitution isn’t obviously suggested, the pursuit of other vices could bring women characters low. Among the rawest of all the pre-Code pictures, Mervyn LeRoy’s Three on a Match (1932), about the varying fortunes of three women (Ann Dvorak, Joan Blondell and Bette Davis), crams a roll-call of forbidden themes into little more than an hour: infidelity, alcoholism, child abuse, gangsterism, undressing, drug use… The magnificent Dvorak steals the show as the lawyer’s tragic wife who sinks into a life of vice and crime.” “Adam Sandler’s Bad New Movie Made Me Cry Like Nothing Else Before...

The best movie culture writing from around the internet-o-sphere. There will be a quiz later. Just leave a tab open for us, will ya? “The Paradox of Art as Work” — A.O. Scott wrestles with art and commerce and the greater view that creation is somehow difficult yet frivolous. As someone who makes a comfortable salary writing about how Spider-Man could have fought better, I’ll be forwarding this along to my mother along with a copy of my tax return. “The idea that everyone can be an artist — making stuff that can be shared, traded or sold to a self-selecting audience of fellow creators — sits awkwardly alongside the self-contradictory dream that everyone can be a star.” “Three on a Match is one of the darker, more depressing Pre-Code pictures” — Vanessa Buttino at Verite profiles the 1932 story where Joan Blondell, Ann Dvorak and Bette Davis team up for an adventure in humanity featuring drugs, gambling...

Icymi - We announced last week that as a sidebar series to Anne Marie's "A Year With Kate", Nathaniel will be discussing each of the Oscar Roles of Bette Davis, 11 in total or 10 if you're a purist, as they appear within Kate's chronology. There will be spoilers.

You should know as we begin this new mini-series that I am not, like Anne Marie with Kate, a Bette historian. My knowledge of Bette Davis is something like the cliff notes version that most people who love movies absorb along the way. The earliest and only pre-Jezebel (1938) Bette Davis performance I had seen before beginning this series was Three on a Match (1932) which didn't, in any way, prepare us for the Bette we know; she's not the Mvp of that racy pre-code girls-gone-bad drama. So I'm happy to report that Of Human Bondage (1934) gives us the Full Bette-of-Legend Arc. She goes...

I must have been about 12 years old when I first saw Tarzan and His Mate. I loved the Tarzan movies. Tarzan was the undisputed King of the Jungle and was the greatest, Cheetah was man’s best friend, Boy was annoying, and Jane was the Queen of the Jungle and a young male’s introduction to the allure of the female. The uncensored version, with a naked Jane silhouetted while changing clothes in a backlit tent and the spectacular underwater ballet scene would have been a revelation to me; Tarzan and Jane are frolicking in their favorite swimming hole, Tarzan in his usual loincloth and Jane naked – not naked from the waste up, or presumed naked as they hid her behind some lake flora or rocks – Jane was naked.

Madam Satan

Most film fans knowledge of Pre-Code Hollywood movies doesn’t go much further than King Kong, Frankenstein, and a few other titles.

Bette Davis. No doubt the name instantly brings to mind Kim Carnes’ earworm ‘Bette Davis Eyes’, which has been covered by artists ranging from Gwyneth Paltrow to Brandon Flowers and Taylor Swift. Ah yes, those spellbinding, haunting heavy-cast eyes. They bewitched countless men and are part of our cultural zeitgeist. Bette Davis was so much more than the sum of her parts though. Her tenacity, independence, unique idiosyncrasies, and artistic instincts had and have no equal, even today. She has been labeled a diva and an outright bitch, but she is unquestionably a trailblazer and an icon in every sense.

This “Noirvember” Tiff Cinematheque’s senior programmer James Quandt has curated a divine tribute to the classy dame (labeled The Hard Way:The Films of Bette Davis), highlighting fifteen of her most memorable roles.

Some crowning films of the tribute include (In chronological order):

Three on a Match (1932)-Now...

Natalie Wood movies: From loving Warren Beatty to stripping like Gypsy Rose Lee Three-time Academy Award nominee Natalie Wood, one of the biggest Hollywood stars of the ’60s, is Turner Classic Movies’ "Summer Under the Stars" performer today, August 18, 2013. TCM is currently showing Elia Kazan’s Splendor in the Grass (1961), a romantic drama written for the screen by playwright William Inge (Picnic, Bus Stop). Wood is fine as a young woman who loses her emotional balance after she’s seduced and abandoned by the son (Warren Beatty) of a wealthy family in Kansas shortly before the Great Depression. For her efforts, she received a Best Actress Oscar nomination. (Sophia Loren was that year’s winner, for the Italian-made Two Women.) (See “TCM movie schedule: Natalie Wood Hot Hollywood Star.” Next in line is Richard Quine’s feeble attempt at screwball comedy, Sex and the Single Girl (1964), a movie that promises much more than it delivers,...

Bob Stewart, the prolific creator and producer of some of the biggest game shows in TV history, died Friday of natural causes. He was 91. Working at first for Mark Goodson and then for his own Bob Stewart Productions, Stewart created such popular game shows as The Price Is Right, To Tell The Truth and the various Pyramid games. The New $25,000 Pyramid earned Stewart nine Daytime Emmys for best game show. It was hosted by Dick Clark, who died April 18. Other titles Stewart produced include Password, Three On A Match, You’re Putting Me On and Jackpot. One quality of Stewart-created shows was their mix of celebrities and regular folk. Betty White was a frequent guest on his shows and, according to the Television Academy, often joined Stewart in playing poker. In 2009, he was inducted into the Academy’s Hall of Fame.

Now, theres a movie star quoth Eileen Anjelica Huston of Rebecca Duvall special guest star Uma Thurman following her breathy and spastic performance of a new JuliaTom musical number for the Marilyn Monroe-based musical-within-the-show on Smash - Bombshell - titled Dig Deep. While last nights The Movie Star episode of NBCs musical dramedy series Smash was light on the musical numbers - only Karen Katharine McPhee and Rebecca managed a musical moment - the drama was dense and delectable, with the rapport between the motley crew of characters comprising the enterprise improving by the week and it started strong. Yet, despite the best efforts of Eileen, Tom Christian Borle, Julia Debra Messing and Derek Jack Davenport in attempting to create a new version of the Marilyn musical that showcases her best and limited abilities. Rebecca is a tentative talent who lacks a lot in the vocal and dance departments...

Is everyone excited for the big guest starring appearance of movie star Uma Thurman as movie star Rebecca Duval? Well, don't be. She doesn't appear until literally the last minute. In the 59 minutes preceding The Presence:

We open on the rehearsal space, loaded with potential investors. As they natter-grommish Karen leans into Jessica to ask what happens if “she” doesn't show and Jessica's delighted that Karen's still after the role.

Eileen strides in and confabs with the rest of the cabal. Derek rises to announce that the star is delayed and calls for a short break. The room is awash in rhubarb as Julia incredulously says “She's not in New York?” Eileen confirms that she's in Cuba and Julia busts out “Cuba?!” loud enough for the potential investors to overhear.

Eileen walks a couple of potential investors out, who advise her that just because they say they're in it doesn't mean the money's in.

Fade in. Against a black background, the name of the series is spelled out in lights: Smash.

Ok, hold on, before we begin can I just say one thing? Despite every lazy critic in the country writing that Smash is “Glee for adults” Smash is not Glee for adults. Glee is Glee for adults and there's no reason to insult adult Glee fans by saying otherwise. That said, comparisons of the two series are probably inevitable. Just, try to be nice about it, Ok?

The title card fades out and we fade in on a woman in a sparkly dress standing on a bare stage in front of a sparkly background. The music swells and she begins to sing “Over the Rainbow”. The first verse is lovely but as she heads into verse two a ringing cell phone interrupts her. Transition to an audition room where the director (a cameo...

Ann Dvorak, Three on a Match publicity shot Ann Dvorak Pt.4: Warner Bros. Co-Stars, Three On A Match, Later Years What about Ann Dvorak's relationship with Warner Bros. boss Jack Warner? I think Jack Warner was fond of Ann and had a great deal of faith in her abilities as a dramatic actress. After Howard Hawks brought her to Warner Bros. for The Crowd Roars, the studio immediately negotiated a deal with Howard Hughes to borrow her exclusively for six months. As part of the deal, Hughes had script approval for any movie Ann was to make, which Warners agreed to, even though their lawyers advised them against it. Giving Dvorak the title role in The Strange Love of Molly Louvain, and choosing her for the heaviest part in Three on a Match over two of their own contract players demonstrates how confident they were in her ability to carry a movie,...

Ann Dvorak, Paul Muni, Dr. Socrates Ann Dvorak Pt.3: Scarface, Warner Bros. Leading Lady, But Never a Star Ann Dvorak played opposite most big names at Warner Bros. in the 1930s. In addition to the aforementioned Joan Blondell and Bette Davis, there were Warren William, Paul Muni, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., James Cagney, Dick Powell, Pat O'Brien, and Richard Barthelmess, among others. How did she get along with her leading men? Was she easy to work with? As far as I can tell, Ann was very easy to work with. I got the chance to speak with both Jane Wyatt and Hugh O'Brian, who made movies with Ann, and while neither one had much to say, the phrase they both used to describe her was "very professional." According to Warners' production logs, she was always on time and for the most part did not miss work. Despite the headaches she...

Ann Dvorak, Rudy Vallee, Sweet Music Ann Dvorak Pt.2: Film Career, Private Life Ann Dvorak's best-remembered film is probably the 1932 Scarface, starring Paul Muni, directed by Howard Hawks, produced by Howard Hughes, and released by United Artists. What was that experience like for her? Making Scarface must have been a very exciting experience for Ann. I don't think a lot of people realize this was Ann's first real acting role and that she had just turned twenty when she made it. At the time she was signed to play Cesca Camonte, Ann had been working at MGM for over two years in the chorus and as an assistant choreographer to Sammy Lee. Despite being championed by Joan Crawford for more substantial parts, MGM did nothing more with Ann than give her extra work. It must have been a thrill for her to land a challenging role in such a significant film.

Ann Dvorak Ann Dvorak: Hollywood's Forgotten Rebel – Introduction Inevitably, my first question is, Why Ann Dvorak? I've definitely been asked that more than once! I rented Three on a Match around 1995 and was blown away by Ann Dvorak in it. She projected so much nervous raw energy, and even though the film was made during the pre-Code era I was still caught off guard by how edgy her performance was. I subsequently watched Scarface and G Men, not realizing Ann was in either one, and was impressed enough to try to find out more about her. I soon realized that no writer had really delved deep into her life or career, and that most of her films were not readily available. I also realized that since she was relatively obscure, I could afford to collect vintage posters from her films, even though I was a starving college student at the time.

Ann Dvorak The name Ann Dvorak wouldn't ring even a faint bell for most people around at the beginning of the 21st century. Most people, I said — but definitely not everyone. [Ann Dvorak Movie Schedule on Turner Classic Movies.] A while back, author James Robert Parish heard a loud gong when I told him during lunch at a West Hollywood restaurant that I had been working on a q&a with collector-turned-biographer Christina Rice (right), who has been writing Ann Dvorak's life story. "I love Ann Dvorak! I still remember her in I Was an American Spy, when the Japanese villains stick a hose down her throat. I never forgot that!" I haven't watched I Was an American Spy (it will be on TCM at 11 p.m. tonight), but I remember being impressed by Ann Dvorak's work in Mervyn LeRoy's hard-hitting 1932 melodrama Three on a Match, in which she plays a beautiful woman whose life is destroyed by ambition,...

Bette Davis, Joan Blondell, Ann Dvorak, Three on a Match Ann Dvorak on TCM Part I: Scarface, I Was An American Spy Another cool Ann Dvorak performance is her drug addict in Mervyn LeRoy's Three on a Match (1932), which features a great cast that includes Warren William, Joan Blondell, and a pre-stardom Bette Davis. Never, ever light three cigarettes using the same match, or you'll end up like Ann Dvorak, delivering a harrowing performance without getting an Academy Award nomination for your efforts. As Three on a Match's young Ann Dvorak, future Oscar nominee Anne Shirley is billed as Dawn O'Day. (And for those who believe that remakes is something new: Three on a Mach was remade a mere six years later as Broadway Musketeers: John Farrow directed; Ann Sheridan, Marie Wilson, and Margaret Lindsay starred.) I've never watched David Miller's family drama Our Very Own...

Each year New York residents can look forward to two essential series programmed at the Film Forum, noirs and pre-Coders (that is, films made before the strict enforcing of the Motion Picture Production Code). These near-annual retrospective traditions are refreshed and re-varied and re-repeated for neophytes and cinephiles alike, giving all the chance to see and see again great film on film. Many titles in this year's Essential Pre-Codeseries, running an epic July 15 - August 11, are old favorites and some ache to be new discoveries; all in all there are far too many racy, slipshod, patter-filled celluloid splendors to be covered by one critic alone. Faced with such a bounty, I've enlisted the kind help of some friends and colleagues, asking them to sent in short pieces on their favorites in an incomplete but also in-progress survey and guide to one of the summer's most sought-after series. In this entry: what's playing Friday,...

We hit 600 trailers and we put up a lot of stuff on the blog. Did you miss anything? Read on to find out!

Trailers

We started the countdown to 600 trailers on Monday, June 20, with Allan Arkush as he spent Two Weeks in Another Town.

Then on Wednesday, June 22, Josh Olson told us to never put Three on a Match, but to definitely see the film of that name.

And, finally, on Friday, June 24, we hit the big 600 and we did it with the biggest trailer ever: Larry Cohen’s ten-minute impromptu treatise on The Ten Commandments.

Residuals

Elsewhere on the site, we kicked the week off exactly how I wished we’d kick off every week: Joe Dante pointing out some fascinating knowledge about an obscure film talent. In this case, he’s talking William Cameron Menzies.

Then Joe introduced us to another week of TCM’s drive-in double features.

Josh gets a little superstitious and a little bit bawdy when he puts Three on a Match.

The largely forgotten Ann Dvorak sizzles in this snappy 63 minute pre-code Warner Bros. melange of booze, drugs and gambling. Scarface star Dvorak still has a cult following, which has gotten a modern boost from recent dvd releases of her films by Warner Archive. As a result, Turner Classic Movies has scheduled a Summer Under the Stars 24 hour tribute, coming up on August 24.

Click here to watch the trailer, then follow on for a little bonus linkage.

First of all, this is the second mention of The Hollywood Production Code (aka The Hays Code). You should really know all about that ifyou’re here, but, if you don’t, here’s a mighty nice primer from a few years back.

Second of all, check out this website devoted to all things Anne Dvorak, the...

Above: Publicity still from John Parker's Dementia (1955).

Rep houses in San Francisco, like those in most American cities, are struggling to stay open. But for something like thirty nights a year, the clouds lift and big crowds materialize for films of the past: call it the noir exception. To be sure, one needn’t actually attend the Film Noir Foundation’s annual Noir City festival at the Castro or Elliot Lavine’s grittier programs at the Roxie to know that the generic fantasy of film noir (style, sex and violence washed together) still holds powerful allure. You could hardly miss the bus stop advert for Rockstar Games’ latest blockbuster, L.A. Noire, outside the Roxie during Lavine’s latest marathon, “I Wake Up Dreaming: The Legendary and the Lost”. For those of us still invested in the non-interactive cinema experience, however, the popularity of these series is a remarkable if curious thing.

Your cinematic birthdays for 12/02. If it's your big day, let us know.

Steven, Lucy and Warren

1894 Warren William, charming snake, pre-code movie star who was often paired with formidable actresses like Claudette Colbert (Imitation of Life, Cleopatra), Joan Blondell (Gold Diggers of 1933, Stage Struck) and Bette Davis (Three on a Match, Satan Met a Lady)

1914 Ray Walston, the Damn Yankees! devil had a lengthy career on screens small and large

1914 Adolph Green, musical giant of 'Comden & Green' fame. I can't even begin to choose a favorite song by that duo. Plus they wrote the screenplay to Singin' in the Rain!

1923 Maria Callas, La Divina. Fanny Ardant recently played her in Callas Forever. The next actress who'll have a go at her is Eva Mendes in Greek Fire

1925 Julie Harris was Oscar nominated for her film debut (The Member of the Wedding), co-starred with James Dean (East of Eden) and...

Former child star Virginia Davis, known as Walt Disney's first movie star, has died. She was 90 years old.

The actress passed away of natural causes on Saturday at her home in Corona, California.

Davis was just four years old when she was hired by struggling filmmaker Disney in 1923 to star in Alice's Wonderland, becoming the first actress to take the title role in his pioneering Alice silent movies.

She went on to star in 13 Alice comedies before her contract was dropped and she was replaced by other girls.

Davis also appeared in films like 1932's Three On A Match before finding work as an interior decorator and magazine editor later in life.