Directed by J.J. Abrams Paramount Pictures When he’s not couch-jumping or helping Katie Holmes through her silent birth, Tom Cruise likes to make big-budget special effects movies such as “Top Gun,” “Mission: Impossible II” and “War of the Worlds.” Add “Mission: Impossible III” to the list. Read more...

For one day this year, Superman, Batman and Spider-Man will join forces. Free Comic Book Day will sweep the nation Saturday, leaving at least one comic in the hands of every man, woman, child and college student who walks into a comic store, or at least the ones participating in this year’s nationwide event. Read more...

When he came to speak at UCLA several months ago, performance artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña probably never realized his words would fuel an elaborate film festival. World arts and cultures students listening to his lecture were struck by a single, much-debated question Gómez-Peña posed to them: “Is the classroom an activist space?” JoAnn Staten, a culture and performance graduate student, used Gómez-Peña’s question as inspiration for the theme of this year’s Vitas Film Festival. Read more...

When visiting a modern-art exhibit, one inevitably hears remarks such as, “I just don’t get it,” or “They paid millions for that? I could have done that with Crayolas!” Indeed, 20th-century modern art is grossly misunderstood and thus greatly underappreciated. Read more...

For decades, foreign filmmakers like Sergio Leone have adopted the uniquely American genre of the western and transformed it into a concept that reaches beyond a game of cowboys and Indians. Read more...

At first glance, “Art School Confidential” appears to be the conventional teen romantic comedy: nerd meets girl, girl likes buff blond, girl realizes she likes nerd and they get together in the end. Read more...

May is a month of potential and doubt. Named after Maia, the Roman goddess of growth, the month can suggest the coming of new and better things just as plants that sprout in April usually flower about now. Read more...