Conrad L Hall

Thursday, when Heath Ledger's family landed at LAX airport to begin their march to the podium to pick up his inevitable supporting-actor Oscar for "The Dark Knight" this Sunday, a reporter asked Ledger's dad if Heath's daughter Matilda will get the...

Conrad L. Hall, one of the giants of Hollywood filmmaking whose death from cancer in January at age 76 was mourned throughout the world of cinema, posthumously won the Academy Award on Sunday evening for best cinematography for his dark and gritty...

In an evening filled with raw emotion, stunning surprises and even a little '60s-style peace protests thrown in for good measure, "Chicago," the Roaring '20s musical morality tale, won the Oscar for best picture Sunday evening at the 75th Academy Awards....

Friday September 11, 1998      Great athletes are of life and larger than it. Their personal dramas are acted out in public, their starkly outlined victories and defeats written in large, unmistakable letters. We watch their struggles with something like...

Friday December 25, 1998      "A Civil Action" comes close, achingly close, to greatness. Finely cast, classically shot, written and directed with sureness and skill and based on a book compelling enough to stay on bestseller lists for two years, it's...

Wednesday September 15, 1999      Unsettling, unnerving, undefinable, "American Beauty" avoids quick and easy categorization. A quirky and disturbing take on modern American life energized by bravura performances from Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening,...

3 stars (out of 4) Haskell Wexler, now 80, is one of the great cinematographers of the American cinema, an Oscar-winning master ("Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?," "Bound for Glory") and avowed left-wing social activist. Mark S. Wexler, born in 1958,...

Half a century ago, James Stewart, at that point the most beloved of American leading men, decided it was time for something completely different. In a series of bitter, disturbing, early-1950s westerns directed by Anthony Mann--"Winchester '73," "The...

Beware any movie that wears its art on its sleeve. That advice, however, is rarely heeded by Oscar voters, who are all too easily impressed by vaulting ambition and precious, highfalutin technique. It's understandable that they might be inclined to...