Eric Althoff

Aaron Sorkin, ‘West Wing’ creator and director of ‘Molly’s Game,’ calls D.C. a great place to film

Aaron Sorkin has a bit of a history with the nation's capital. The creator of "The West Wing" and writer who adapted his play "A Few Good Men" into an award-winning 1992 film extols Washington, D.C., as a terrific -- though logistically difficult -- place to make a film. "Molly's Game" might at first seem a bit outside his typical gravitation to politics, but it certainly adheres to Mr. Sorkin's obsession with power and how it changes those who wield it.

November 28, 2017

Darley Newman, host/producer of ‘Travels with Darley,’ on bucking trends in male-dominated industry

Darley Newman realized she would have do it herself. As the host of "Travels With Darley" and "Equitrekking" on PBS, the D.C.-based host and filmmaker acts as her own writer, producer and editor -- delivering a finished product to PBS of her journeys the world over. Even with a support staff, it's still basically a one-woman show.

November 26, 2017

Gary Oldman, star of ‘Darkest Hour,’ says actors playing Churchill should start a club together

Gary Oldman, who portrays Winston Churchill in the new film "Darkest Hour," said that a statue of the late British leader in often encased "in a box" during protests in London's Parliament Square, not far from where the prime minister conferred in his underground bunkers with England's war cabinet during the Second World War. In "Darkest Hour," Mr. Oldman portrays the statesman right as he becomes the prime minister in 1940, just as the Nazi machine is preparing to bomb London.

November 22, 2017

Terry McAuliffe to give opening speech at Pocahontas Reframed Native American film festival

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe will deliver the opening night address at the Pocahontas Reframed Native American Storytellers Film Festival Friday evening. The festival, part of the legacy project of Virginia's American Evolution 2019 Commemoration, includes films by American Indian filmmakers as well as narratives and documentaries about their contributions to early and ongoing American culture.

November 16, 2017

‘Wonder’ film adapted from book explores bullying and good kids making tough decisions

One day author R.J. Palacio sat outside a New York ice cream parlor with her son when a young girl sat down beside her. However, unlike other girls her age, this one had pronounced facial scars and deformities. Her manuscript, "Wonder," was published in 2012, and followed a fictional boy named Auggie who, due to a difficult birth, bears many of the deformities Ms. Palacio observed on that mysterious New York youngster years earlier. Fearful of venturing out in the open world, Auggie maintains a healthy fantasy life, and ventures outside only under cover of an astronaut's helmet gifted by his father.

November 13, 2017

Dhani Harrison tours behind his first solo album

Dhani Harrison initially hid behind his family name in a band called Thenewno2 given that the son of Beatle George Harrison wanted to be taken seriously on his own musical merits. He also wanted, he said, to get his music heard "without people having some preconceived idea or comparing you."

October 31, 2017

Sen Dog: Cypress Hill responsible for marijuana’s culture acceptance

Cypress Hill has never precisely been subtle about their stance on marijuana. In fact, member Sen Dog says the hip-hop group is at least partly responsible for pot becoming more acceptable in the culture than ever before.

October 29, 2017

MOVIE REVIEW: ‘Jigsaw’ a worthy, not obligatory, addition to ‘Saw’ universe

The Jigsaw killer may be the most undead movie murderer in the history of horror given that even though the character was killed in "Saw III," Jigsaw returned via flashbacks in four subsequent "Saw" entries up until "Saw 3D: The Final Chapter" in 2010.

October 29, 2017

Military veterans and PTSD explored in new film ‘Thank You for Your Service’

Adam Schumman returned from Iraq a changed man. His story caught the interest of Washington Post reporter David Finkel, who wrote a nonfiction account of Mr. Schumann's and his platoon mates' return home in a book called "Thank You for Your Service." That book is now a major motion picture starring Miles Teller ("Whiplash," "Divergent") and written and directed by Jason Hall, whose previous script for "American Sniper" became the worldwide phenomenon directed by Clint Eastwood.

October 23, 2017

‘Going Clear’ director Alex Gibney to screen new doc ‘No Stone Unturned’ at Double Exposure

Double Exposure Investigative Film Festival and Symposium is hosting a series of 11 documentaries in the nation's capital through Sunday to highlight investigative journalism.

October 19, 2017

‘Spaceballs’ sequel possibility a ‘ticking clock,’ says star Bill Pullman

Rumors have swirled for years of a "Spaceballs" sequel -- which gained traction this summer when Mr. Brooks told an audience in Newark, New Jersey, that MGM was interested given the success of the new "Star Wars" films. "It's the ticking clock of all time, isn't it?" Bill Pullman, who starred in 1987 film, said.

October 17, 2017

‘Karate Kid’ revival ‘Cobra Kai’ discussed by former co-stars Elisabeth Shue, Tamlyn Tomita

There's little doubt that cries of "sweep the leg!" and "get him a body bag!" will be echoing across the Twittersphere next year when "The Karate Kid" reunion series "Cobra Kai" bows on YouTube Red. But who, if anyone, will be Daniel's love interest in the new series?

October 17, 2017

‘The Good Doctor’ actress Tamlyn Tomita discusses her lucky break in ‘The Karate Kid’

"I did not want to become an actor; I had no [such] dreams," Tamlyn Tomita told The Washington Times recently. "It really sounds very Pollyanna-ish, but I really did not know anything" about the business," she said, but "I found myself cast in 'The Karate Kid Part II.'"

October 17, 2017

Thurgood Marshall’s early life as lawyer portrayed by Chadwick Boseman in ‘Marshall’

Thurgood Marshall enjoys a prominent place in the National Museum of African American History and Culture. But long before he took his seat on the nation's highest court, the Baltimore native was a scrappy attorney who argued civil rights cases around the country. One of those earlier cases took Marshall to Connecticut in 1940, where a rich white woman accused her black chauffeur of rape. Something about the case didn't jibe, and Marshall was determined to uncover the truth, no matter how painful.

October 12, 2017

‘Goodbye, Christopher Robin’ director Curtis hopes film will push people to cherish their families

A. A. Milne returned to England from the First World War a broken man. But in Milne's son, Christopher Robin, the wounded man saw a way back to innocence.

October 10, 2017

Scam artist Joey Skaggs shows how he fooled media in ‘Art of the Prank’

Joey Skaggs may have fooled more people than Frank Abagnale Jr., the subject of "Catch Me if You Can." Mr. Skaggs now faces the camera in "Art of the Prank," relating how he and a trusted troupe of scam artist actors and cohorts successfully duped the public year after year after year. (One could even say he was the forerunner of Captain Janks, Howard Stern's favorite faux news source.)

October 10, 2017

Breast Cancer Awareness Month sees Outer Banks resort give free massages

The Sanderling Resort, located in North Carolina's scenic Outer Banks between Currituck Sound and the Atlantic Ocean, is participating in Breast Cancer Awareness Month with its "Passion for Pink" spa promotion. Every Tuesday through October, the Spa at Sanderling will offer free treatments to Outer Banks residents who are fighting breast cancer or have done so in the past.

October 8, 2017

Menopause documentary ‘Love Sweat & Tears’ seeks to debunk myths about the change of life

They say the only certainties in life are death and taxes. But for half the population, a third discomfort can be added.

October 8, 2017

FILM REVIEW: ‘Blade Runner 2049’ a vast improvement over 1982 original

"2049" picks up three decades after the 1982 original, which saw L.A. detective Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) hunting down "Replicants," humanoids made to look and seem like real people -- a subcaste slave labor. Mr. Ford's Deckard is nowhere to be seen as "2049" opens on a bleak, sun-drenched California pastoral of the future, with Officer K (Ryan Gosling) awakened in his flying car just as he is about to touch down at the farm of Sapper Morton (Dave Bautista, whose talents far outweigh his past as a WWE wrestler).

October 7, 2017

Disabled veterans honored at National Day of Honor in D.C.

Disabled veterans were honored Thursday at the Inaugural Commemoration of the National Day of Honor for American Veterans Disabled for Life, held at the American Veterans Disabled for Life Memorial. Speakers included Secretary of Veterans Affairs David J. Shulkin and Sen. Tammy Duckworth, the Illinois Democrat who lost her legs and the partial use of her right arm when a helicopter she was piloting in Iraq was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade.

October 5, 2017