Escape Fire, which opens October 5, 2012, is constructed on three-levels: the human element, the problems with healthcare and the examination of the solutions for providing world-class, cost-efficient healthcare. While a work of nonfiction, the message and narrative pace suffers to some degree without an impact singular villain-- no Roger for Michael Moore to badger, no McDonald’s dollar menu to clog Morgan Spurlock’s arteries or usurpers to the King of Kong throne. Only the mass poor decisions of nutritional diet, antiquated training of medical students and a system that is more profitable if the U.S. general population is in need of constant medicinal treatment. 

One can always count on director Tim Burton to deliver movies dripping with atmosphere, and his film adaptation of the 1960s and ’70s soap opera “Dark Shadows” is eerily beautiful to look at. Unfortunately, the storytelling elements don’t keep pace with Burton’s visual craftsmanship. The “Dark Shadows” TV show ran five years, and vampire Barnabus Collins wasn’t in early episodes, but his eventual appearance created a ratings spike, making him the face of the series. Likely for that reason, Burton and company put the focus squarely on Barnabus (Johnny Depp). 

 Writer-actress-producer Mindy Kaling, best known until now as Kelly on the Emmy-winning comedy “The Office” and the author of a New York Times best-selling memoir, will navigate the singles scene as the star of “The Mindy Project,” which premiered Sept. 25 on FOX. Kaling joins other Indian-American actors and writers making a mark on American TV this season — with stars such as Aziz Ansari and Kunal Nayyar continuing their successful runs on hit shows and rising child actor Karan Brar in Disney’s tween series “Jessie.”

Surely writer-director Joss Whedon found himself thinking about “Batman & Robin” and similar efforts when charged with bringing the Marvel Comics superhero group The Avengers to the screen. Success would mean merging characters from several previous Marvel movies – “Iron Man,” “Captain America,” “Thor” and “The Incredible Hulk” – and introducing them to even more players. The potential for failure was immense, making it rather astonishing that Whedon not only succeeded but produced one of the best films of 2012 so far. 

Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film, “The Master,” is his most consciously esoteric movie to date. As the scenes add up, you have a growing suspicion that you’re missing something. Or that something is missing. I’m still not completely sure which is the case. All I can say is that the movie invokes the same experience as a queasy-strange nightmare that gradually churns to a haunting, perplexing conclusion. 

How a silent film featuring an all-Native American cast came to be made, lost (seemingly forever), discovered nearly a century later (in shambles), then restored and shown to the cast’s descendants is one of the most fascinating stories in the annals of American filmmaking. The Daughter of Dawn may be the only all-Native cast silent film ever made.

The end — of the world, of course — will consist of the following elements: fighter jets, exploding cars, flamethrowers, automatic weaponry. Beheadings by lightsaber. Necks broken by starlets. And the solemn intoning of the Bruce Leeism, “You offend me, you offend my family.” T.S. Eliot was wrong. The world won’t end in a whimper, apparently, but with a series of very loud bangs. At least it will in the revelation as revealed in “The Bananapocalypse,” the trailer for the new Asian American YouTube channel YOMYOMF (pronounced yawm-yawm-eff), an acronym of the Bruce Lee bon mot that gives the channel its name. 

The end — of the world, of course — will consist of the following elements: fighter jets, exploding cars, flamethrowers, automatic weaponry. Beheadings by lightsaber. Necks broken by starlets. And the solemn intoning of the Bruce Leeism, “You offend me, you offend my family.” T.S. Eliot was wrong. The world won’t end in a whimper, apparently, but with a series of very loud bangs. At least it will in the revelation as revealed in “The Bananapocalypse,” the trailer for the new Asian American YouTube channel YOMYOMF (pronounced yawm-yawm-eff), an acronym of the Bruce Lee bon mot that gives the channel its name. Millions have already witnessed the Bananapocalypse, so to speak (2,162,711 and counting, as of this writing). 

Faulkner wasn’t the only literary icon who went to Hollywood to make a bundle writing for the movies. In 1933, Nathanael West moved to California on a contract for Columbia pictures, as did Dorothy Parker the following year. In an interview with The Paris Review in 1956, Parker said she wasn’t capable of talking about her Hollywood experience: “It’s a horror to look back on. When I got away from it, I couldn’t even refer to the place by name….”

Filmcraft: Directing is composed of 16 interview-profiles of internationally acclaimed filmmakers. Goodridge also devotes five Legacy chapters to “innovators and pioneers in the filmmaking field.” The directors he chooses “to represent the first 115 years of cinema” are the usual suspects: Kurosawa, Bergman, Ford, Hitchcock, and Godard — the filmmakers whose films you wind up watching eventually, dutifully.