...was a wry and civilized man who took the job seriously but didn't take himself too seriously," said critic and film historian Richard Schickel. "He had a kind of balance in his view of movies that was particularly useful for a critic appearing...

...didn't that seem to make a great deal of sense to you when you were young? "Star Wars" (1977) Its legacy: Film historian David Thomson, for one, lumped it in with "Jaws" when he asked, "Who killed the movies?" Its offenses? The...

...golden years of the silver screen, memorable dialogue - and classic films - are also a connection to the past, says film historian Jeanine Basinger, chairwoman of the Film Studies Program at Wesleyan University. "Watching old movies is like unpacking...