Lainie Kazan

With the succcess of Judd Apatow's movies, one stample of romantic comedies has become the loser adult guy who finds love. Once, that guy was a 40-year-old virgin working in an electronics store. Another time, he was a slacker on a bong water-stained...

Dale Olson, an elder statesman of the Hollywood publicity corps whose assignments over a four-decade career included representing Rock Hudson during the last months of the actor's struggle with AIDS, died Thursday of complications of liver cancer. He...

After a hugely successful eight-year run that earned numerous Emmy, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild wins, ABC's “Desperate Housewives” wraps production on its final episode this week. The two-hour series finale, slated to run on Sunday,...

Friday April 24, 1998      Hong Kong director Che-Kirk Wong's first American feature, "The Big Hit," is that rarest of all genre hybrids, the screwball-romantic-action-situation-black comedy. Rare for good reason. Who'd want to see a thing like that?   ...

Friday August 25, 2000      A shaggy-dog story in support hose, "The Crew" should effect a marked upswing in the opening of IRAs, Keoughs and contributions to 401(k)s. After all, who wants to end up like its four hotel-dwelling wheeze-guys, standing in...

"What's Cooking?" is a sure-fire winner, an endlessly inventive serious comedy that zeros in on four Los Angeles families--the Avilas, the Nguyens, the Seeligs and the Williamses--as they prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving.      Co-writer and director...

There's not a lot of voice-over narration in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding." But what little there is convinces you that the original stage monologue by Nia Vardalos would have been a hoot to hear. You don't have to be Greek to chuckle at the affectionate...

By midnight Sunday it was clear that, war or no war, some Oscar traditions cannot be compromised. And so the golden-statuette set headed to the Vanity Fair party at Morton's for their final victory lap. There was a beaming Nicole Kidman shaking everyone's...

"A Good Night to Die" is a great movie to miss. It is the latest smudged carbon of "Pulp Fiction," mistaking sentimentality for wit and drawing from other movies rather than reality. The result is lifeless, numbskull nonsense that gets not only...

Francis Ford Coppola has reworked somewhat and meticulously restored his ambitious 1982 romantic musical fantasy "One From the Heart," out of circulation for more than 20 years, but for all his efforts it stubbornly remains a bold experiment in style...

Friday March 28, 1997      Renee Taylor and Joseph Bologna's "Love Is All There Is" keeps saying that love isn't enough when it's their movie that's not enough.      The only way this old-fashioned romantic comedy would have had a prayer of making it is...