Want to know the real story behind Marilyn Monroe’s dress flying in the air? Or why Katharine Hepburn didn’t like Meryl Streep? Contact Dan at dan@hudakonhollywood.com for details on how to bring our lectures to you!

“Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.” These words were spoken by circa 500 BCE Chinese philosopher Confucius. Even if they did make their way to Nordic countries circa 900 CE, it’s clear from the behavior of…

One of the silver linings of getting older is obtaining the sense of what was important to you as a child. The test is a simple one. Ask yourself: How fondly do you remember it? Then if the answer is a…

As a genre, superhero movies tend to have a lot in common with each other. They’re all stories about heroic (or sometimes anti-heroic) crusaders (sometimes caped and sometimes not) with dual identities (sometimes secret and sometimes not) battling evil in the name of good.

Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson revisits two of his favorite subjects—the 1970s and California’s San Fernando Valley—in “Licorice Pizza,” a movie that, as far as I observed, featured neither licorice nor pizza.

Nintendo has Mario. Sega has Sonic. Microsoft has Master Chief. Sony, for their video game console Play Station, has Nathan Drake, protagonist in their numerous “Uncharted” games. So who better than good ole reliable Nathan to kick off a movie franchise…

Sometimes I like being wrong. When Disney/Pixar’s animated feature “Turning Red” first begins we’re introduced to thirteen-year-old Meilin (voice of Rosalie Chiang) and I thought she was going to be insufferable. She’s exactly the…

Bertrand Tavernier, the director and co-writer of 1986’s “’Round Midnight,” imbues the movie with a visual style and pacing reflective of its main character, Dale Turner (Dexter Gordon), as well as its Oscar winning score by jazz pianist Herbie Hancock.

The reason great classics endure the tests of time and place is because they have a universal appeal to which all peoples, in all times and places, can relate. At the heart of these classics is…

One of the appeals of virtuous superheroes is how they can serve as models for our own lives. We may never achieve the supreme level of virtuosity as our favorite costumed vigilantes, but it’s their example that counts. A superhero can be…

My guess is that if I was writing about movies coming to home video in 1996, I would have recommended “Scream” the week it hit the shelves of your local VHS rental store. That would have been my highest rating, since…

As of this writing, the Best Picture Oscar for the year 2021 has not yet been awarded. In honor of this noteworthy award, my choice this week is “Ordinary People,” a Best Picture winner…

Guillermo del Toro is a great director. This is not only because he’s had an amazing career churning out mostly good movies filled with imagination and style. It’s also because he knows…

Oscar nominated writer-director Kenneth Branagh begins his semi-autobiographical movie “Belfast” in an interesting way. We see shots of the Northern Ireland city as it looks today…

History records that on December 30, 1916, Russian nobles tried to poison “Mad Monk” Grigori Rasputin with cyanide. When this failed, they chased him down, shot him, and for good measure…

There are nostalgia trips, then there’s “Ghostbusters: Afterlife,” which would undoubtedly win an award for most member berries per minute of screen time, if such a prize existed.

The book and film industries have a closer relationship than most people realize — Los Angeles Times reports that books have always been a huge source of raw material for Hollywood. But with the rise of streaming services…